My Record Store Romance

Then Her Heart Stopped Beating Part One

A distant squeak broke me away from my thoughts, my head snapping sharply in the direction of the culprit. It was the window across the room, cracked so slightly that it was hardly noticeable. In fact, I wouldn't have noticed it; not if it hadn't got caught in the morning breeze and begin to sway back and forth.

I briefly wondered how it had been opened, as I was nearly positive that I had closed it after the previous talk on the roof the night before. I was so sure I had. But then, another memory surfaced: one of his mother last night following dinner, a small detail she mentioned as she told me about Drew, looking weary and frazzled all the same:

"He likes to sleep with the window open,"

I retreated from the bed now, the facade I withheld of the charmingly warm room fading as I padded across the chilled wood flooring. I came up to the swinging glass pane, reaching out to steady it with my nimble fingers. The air swirling through was tepid and mild, a pleasant feeling but definitely out of the ordinary since it was only about halfway through the summer; a time where there should be a blistering and swelling heat throughout the city.

I sighed inwardly; an accidental- and quite loud- gesture. He had opened the window sometime last night, something so simple but yet entirely unnoticed on my part. It seems no matter how hard I try or what I do, I always manage to miss paying attention to detail. I hated that.

It reminded me of the secret Drew held, the one he was so terrified to reveal to me. Like a rough jab in the side, like the sharp prick of a finger; it was a small kind of hurt, but long lasting. I just couldn't figure out, (or even begin to understand) why he couldn't tell me what was going on with him. So these little bits of pain, they were always among me now, always reminding me and threatening me with the information I didn't have.

But there was also those underlying questions, the ones that I feared most of all: Would I have already figured it out if I had been looking closer- was the answer screaming at me, right in front of my face all this time? Was I really that oblivious?

That was the thing- It had to be. I had to be. I couldn't even realize for the past four years that my mom had probably been in contact with my dad, even if it was only slightly. All behind my back, all while I was left in the dark; broken and clueless.

But I had to remember; my problems were small, diminishing, microscopic. No longer something to spend time on or to even think about. I had more important things dwell on, I had people who actually cared about me, and I especially had more to be happy about than to not be.

So I looked out the window, my thoughts going completely bleak and my body finally relaxing. The sky was picturesque in some sense, nearly seeming unreal. It looked fractured- as if someone had taken a hammer to it and gave it everything they had- dips of sunlight hiding between the cracks of gray clouds and the ripples of looming darkness. It was probably not even ten o'clock, but it looked like it could've been well into the afternoon. It was obvious that the sultry, rainy weather which had plagued the weekend would also be sticking around for the week.

The floor creaked beneath me as I shifted on my toes, essentially reminding me of the lack of Drew's presence as I stood in his room. It felt so strange to be in it all by myself, as all my previous appearances had been laced with him somewhere beside me or at least in the back ground. I wondered where he was within the house now, if he was shuffling around in the kitchen or lounging in the living room. Or maybe he wasn't even in the house at all.

Though, that seemed unlikely; I highly doubted he would leave me behind, even if it only was his house.

Eventually, my eyes fell back to the same path as before; surveying the bed to the closet to the walls- and as I did so I realized something particularly abnormal about Drew's bedroom. In no way, whatsoever, did Drew's room actually seem like his room.