25 Moons Ago

Catching up

It's been a while now since anything has happened. Everything seems to be calm. I closed my eyes and listened to the soft whistling breeze. Life wasn't like this for me before. Life was never this calm. I guess times change, and yet again I must adapt to it.

I sit back and bask in this rare silence, forgetting the world and going with the flow of my mind.
Some time passes and I hear my mother call out to me.
"RILEY!" She shouts at the top of her lungs
"Yes?" I reply.
"Come down here please." She replies back.
I climb down the wooden ladder out of my tree house. The sun is now fully up and the sky is as clear as water. I make my way towards the house, entering through the back door.
"Mom?" I say, as I look around and spot no one.

"I'm in the kitchen sweetie" My mom said.
The house seemed awfully quiet. Better get used to the silence, I thought to myself.
"Where's Aiden" I asked.
"He just went to take his nap" my mother replied.
I nodded at her.
"So what's up" I ask my mom.
"Jason came by and asked for you, he is waiting outside" she replied.
"Ok I'll see you later then." I said as I made my way through the door.

Jason is my best friend. I've known him since I moved to EastBorn. I know everything about him and he knows everything...... well almost everything about me. I don't know when, but one day I'll have to reveal my true form, I can't hide it from him forever.

"Hey," Jason said startling me back to reality.
"Hi" I said back to him.

He gave me a hug. It's been a while since I've seen him with him being gone at college all the time.
" I missed you" he said.
"Stop" I said punching him playfully.
"Got anything fun planned for today?" I asked.
"Do I?, get in the car" he said. 
And on the happy note, we drove off.

After 30 minutes of what seemed like forever I asked him if we were wherever he was taking me.
"Hold on, almost there."  He said with a smirk.

10 minutes later we got there.
"No way" I said smiling at him.
"Come on let's go inside" he told me.

As soon as we walked in, a familiar scent of rubber and polish hit me with memories. I took a big breath.

This was Jason and my favorite hang out place as kids. We used to come here and bowl all the time. All of my high school memories were made here. We haven't been here in ages.

" Well run me over and call me sally, is that you Riley Moore." I knew that voice anywhere.
"Uncle Tom!" I said. I gave him a hug. He wasn't really my uncle but because of all the time we spent here as kids, he was like a real uncle to me.

"Where have you been? This place hasn't been the same without you two" he asked as he chuckled.
"Well you know, we've been busy trying to get our lives together" I said sarcastically.
" Yeah and we're barely doing it right" continued Jason, making us all laugh as usual.
He handed us our favorite bowling balls and let us be.

We bowled for a while and caught up on things. Jason told me he met great new people and I was happy to hear that. He told me all about his college experiences. We laughed and laughed for hours, especially when he told me about his professor who has a waffle maker as an alarm. In that moment, things felt normal, the way they should be. With Jason I forget the real world, the dangerous one.

"So anything new with you? Anything I need to know?" He asked as he took a swung the bowling ball.
"Aww man, I only hit two of them" he said laughing.
"Come on Jason, you know I'll always beat you anyway" I said, laughing at his misfortune.
"It's okay" he said " I always win at basketball," confidence shining in his eyes.
" But come on Riley, there ought to be something new with you, what's up?" He continued.

Not so new as it is old, I thought to myself. I wanted to tell him. Maybe now was the time to finally spill, I mean I've been keeping it a secret all this time, why not just tell him and get this secret out of the way. But I knew I couldn't. No one could know. Maybe one day I would tell him, but right now was not the time.

"Uhhh nothing really, aiden learned to walk but that's as exciting as it gets with the moores," I said nervously as if he could see right through my words.

We laughed about that. It felt good to laugh, I haven't felt so happy in a while and I just needed to loosen up a bit. Memories of the past, and my life before EastBorn sometimes would creep into my head and I still haven't gotten over any of that.