As I Am

Chapter Eleven

            “Traitor,” I mouth to him. He frowns.

           

            Cat climbs into my bed sometime throughout the night. I think he’s scared of the thunder, but he’s trying to act cool about it by licking his paws and not snuggling into me until a loud flash erupted across the sky. In the morning I wake up with my arm around his body, listening to his soft snoring as I flop onto my side.

            The thunder is gone, replaced by the occasional sheet lightening over the ocean. It’s still raining a lot and the sky is so dark it looks like night, but it’s still morning.

            When Cat wakes up together we creep downstairs, only to realize that we’re the first ones up. I glance at the clock above the stove, the hand pointing to the six. My parents probably won’t be up for hours since Dad doesn’t get to work on most days when the weather is bad.

            I fix myself a bowl of cereal and find a small envelope on the counter as I walk past it. I pause, look it over in my hands and continue to the table. Once I’ve sat down and shoveled half of the bowl into my mouth, I finally open it. It’s the photos from the film that Dad stole.

            Since the roll of film was brand new, only containing pictures I’ve taken since I arrived, I don’t hesitate when I rip open the folder. I’ve never been able to resist looking at pictures I took that I haven’t seen yet. It’s always felt like opening a present on Christmas morning, knowing what you wanted to get but excited to find out anyway.

            The pictures of the whales are my favorite. Some of them turned out much darker than I thought they would, making it look as if they’re swimming at night. The one’s of me make me smile, despite how embarrassing I look, petting them in the water. I skim the rest of them as I finish off my cereal and quickly put my bowl in the sink.

            On the way up the stairs a cool breeze comes in through the house, probably from a window my mother left open. She always wants fresh air in the house, even if it’s a blizzard outside, she’ll still crack a window.

            I touch Evan’s sweater as I reach my bedroom. It hangs on the wall, still a bit damp at the end of the sleeves but mostly dry. It’s warmer than most of my sweaters, since it’s too big for me. So I pull it on over my head, fan my hair out around me and decide to do what my mom does. I open the screen door slightly in my doorway. The room was getting stuffy.

            As much as I’ve been dreading it, I reach underneath my bed and pull out a decorative box I bought at the dollar store years ago. It’s white with black designs running across it, making it look fancier than my dollar could buy. I find it ironic that Evan and I have the same hiding spot for special things, but I don’t plan on discussing it with him.

            Part of me doesn’t want to open the lid and look through the photographs inside, and that same part doesn’t want me to tape them to my walls like I never planned on doing. Back home, my bedroom was covered in them. Then, the night after Cade passed, I tore all of them down. The ones in the box are the ones my mother scavenged for me, not telling me about them until the day we left for the summer.