The Living Will

Chapter 2 - Blast from the P.A.S.T.

After a few more minutes of walking, we had arrived at my apartment complex, making our way up the poorly illuminated staircase that led to the second floor. It wasn't a crappy apartment building, but it wasn't luxurious either. It definitely had its flaws, like the paper-thin wall in the living room, the sink that clogged every other week, and the maintenance guy that stole random shit like a single fork or a bag of chips.

I opened the door to the apartment and allowed her to enter first, which she did.

"Wow, this place is like way nicer than I thought!" she said.

"I'm glad it's up to your standards." I replied.

She turned her head to look back at me and smirked.

"Make yourself at home. I'm about to make instant ramen, if you want some." I said, remembering the homeless guy again.

"Ohh, yes please!" she said, taking her shoes and backpack off then plopping herself onto the couch. It was there that I noticed how much she had grown in height since we were kids. We were about the same height as kids, and now she was just a little bit taller than I was.

As I heated up the water, she sat up on the couch and started talking stuff out of her backpack. I remembered my mom bought me one of those backpacks in junior high and it could barely fit a binder and a textbook, so it amazed me to see all of the shit Melanie pulled out:

-An extra change of clothes

-Toothbrush/toothpaste

-Deodorant

-About 50 photos

-A large blanket

-A college-ruled notebook

-An instant camera

"Damn, you packed well." I said.

"'Course I did." she called back.

"So, you haven't really explained too much about why you're back in town. Food's ready by the way." I said, setting her hot ramen with a plastic fork on the table.

"Oh, cool!" she said, leaping up to her feet. She walked over to the table with her bottle of water and sat down, so I sat across from her.

"Well, to be honest, I don't know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'm at a point where it seems I'm going nowhere, you know?" she said, which felt euphoric to me. Somehow, knowing that Melanie shared my struggle was reassuring. But I was still set on killing myself.

"Yeah, I know the feeling," I replied, stirring my ramen with the fork. "But, didn't you want to be a doctor?" I said, remembering how she would always talk about wanting to work in the medical field when we were in school.

"No, that's what my parents wanted me to be." she said, looking up at me. She looked a bit angered, so I backed off.

I twirled the ramen around the fork and blew on it to cool it down, then took a bite. Mediocre, but that was okay. I was waiting on tomorrow to cook something a bit more pleasing for my last meal.

"After we moved to San Jose and I entered middle school, I started to realize that if I became a doctor, I'd have to go to school for so many years, go through so much training, and I started leaning away from that. So, then I thought about being a businesswoman. But then I was like, 'that's kind of boring', you know? So I started leaning towards being a writer. I sat down and tried to come up with an idea for a short story for hours, and then I finally got one. I started writing it though, and after 2 paragraphs I decided it was a dumb story and that no one would want to read it. There's a bunch of other stuff I wanted to be, but I feel like I've said a lot already." she said, finally eating some of the ramen.