Summer of '07

The Past

Chapter 14

February 2019

~TRAVIS~

We finally arrive at my place around 2:30 AM and it appears that Michelle wasn't joking about being a slow driver because she was still about thirty minutes away, despite leaving almost ten minutes after we did. While Elijah waits for her, I decide to show him around my place and I even show him the photo album Jenny was looking through the other day.

"Damn, I don't even remember some of these pictures," Elijah says as he scans through some of the photos from sophomore year of high school. "What year was this from?"

"2005, I believe. We would have been in the tenth grade at the time," I reveal to him.

"Oh wow. Tenth grade, I hardly remember that year."

"I remember it pretty well. I remember how we used to hangout almost every day. We'd hang in the library after school until our parents picked us up and then on some days we'd go to each other's houses and play video games," I remind him, assuming that he'd remember the good times we had before it all went to shit in the end.

"Oh yeah! We used to play on PS2... back when that was a thing. Call of Duty 2 and Resident Evil 4 were my favorites."

"Those were mine too."

"Oh yeah... it's all coming back to me now. I remember teaching you how to play chess while we waited after school in the library. I remember how we used to play computer games during first period and you sucked at nearly every game we played."

"Yeah. I forgot about that, actually. I still don't know how to play chess."

He continues to flip through pages of my photo album, but as 2005 ends and 2006 begins there seem to be less and less pictures of us together. "Not as many pictures from '06," Elijah comments, as if he has no memory of that year and why we didn't hang out as much then.

"That was the year you started dating that girl... Hannah, I think her name was," I reply.

"Oh yeah. That girl was a crazy bitch. I remember she was literally obsessed with me and even threatened to kill herself if I broke up with her," he explains to me, as if I didn't already know.

"I remember that too. You dated her for a while though."

"I know, man. She was my junior year drama. I wish we had broken up sooner but I was so worried that she would do something that we'd both regret. Her graduating made breaking up with her so much easier because she was moving out of the state, remember?"

"Yeah, good riddance. We hardly hung out at all junior year, because of her."

"True. I feel bad about that, especially considering that was our last school year as friends."

Oh shit, here come the painful memories from senior year. "Unfortunately."

He finally flips to the last page of us, and notices that I don't have any pictures from senior year at all, including prom and graduation, though he should know damn well why I don't. "You didn't go to prom?"

"Fuck no!" I almost snap at him as I say that, as if angered by the subject. "I didn't care about stupid shit like that."

"If you don't mind by asking, who did you hang out with that year?" I actually do mind.

"No one. I didn't have any friends that year." Especially after you and Heather ostracized me.

"Really?"