My Life: Congrats, You Lost Me

Chapter 30 - Gone

****Sept 10th****

I sat in the middle of Becca's room with a single, small box, with Allan by my side. "I don't know if I can do this, Allan," I whisper. "I feel like I can't move any of her stuff. I have to leave it how she left it."

"Jess," he says. "You know we have to move them. Otherwise the next people to live here are just going to throw it all away." I clutch the blue bunny in my hands a little bit tighter as I stare at the box in front of me. "We have to get this over with, Jessie."

I nod and Allan stands up and looks around. "Let's start with the pictures," he says. "I'll go get some newspaper to wrap them so they don't get broken." He leaves the room and I look up from the box at all the pictures on the walls.

I stand slowly, shakily, and take slow steps over to where they hung above her bed. The walls had been painted a light pink as soon as she got her own room so many years ago. I reach up for the blue-framed photos and pull them off of the nails. I stack them one after another on top of each other.

I feel hot tears threatening my eyes again, but I stare at the bright lamp in the corner of the room until they fade. I'm done crying. I can't cry in front of anybody anymore.

I sit back down just as Allan comes through the doorway with the papers. We sit there and we wrap up each individual frame like a fragile Christmas present. Once one is finished we put it in the box and start on another.

"When did she get so many damn pictures," I mumble. "And why did they have to look like this." As I speak I hold up a picture of her and I on our first day of school.

"I'm sorry, Jess," Allan mumbles, placing a hand on my arm. He quickly takes it away and returns to the picture he was working with.

I finish wrapping the final picture after about 30 minutes of tape and paper. We had used 3 small boxes to keep the pictures in. "Well, you take that box out and bring in another one. It's time to pack up her tub." When I said that I pointed over to her tub of stuffed animals that rested at the foot of her bed.

Allan nods and leaves the room to deal with the boxes. While he's gone I sift through the tub of toys and pull out about 5 of them. They were all ones that I had given her, but these five were the ones that she had always loved the most. I carried them back to my room, along with the blue bunny, and sat all 6 of the plushies on my bed.

I stared at them for a brief moment before turning on my heel and hurrying back down the empty hall, and back into her room. No more than 30 second later Allan drops a box in front of me, snapping me out of a bit of a daze. He helps me dump her tub of animals into the box before we tape it up and mark it like we did the other boxes.

He pushes that box into the hallway and looks around the room. "What's next," he asks. "Should we get to work on her desk?"

"Yeah, sure," I mumble, rising to my feet. I push the empty box next to the desk and also set the bin next to it. "This desk is a mess." I pick up several wrappers and drop them into the bin and continue sifting through things on the desk.

Allan picks up a folded up piece of paper and is about to drop it in the bin before he pauses. "What is it Allan," I ask. "Its just a piece of paper, toss it." He unfolds it and I snatch it from his hand, looking at the words on the page.

Hi Becca, this is from Theresa. I like you, do you like me?
Check here for yes.
Check here for no.

There was a little check mark next to the yes and a note written at the bottom.

I like you too.

I smile to myself and reread the note in my hand silently, over and over.

"How did I not know about this," I mumble to myself.

"What is it Jessie," Allan asks, looking suddenly concerned. He takes the note and reads it over himself. "I didn't know Becca had a girlfriend."

"I didn't know either. Why wouldn't she have told me," I ask, looking over at him. "She used to tell me everything." I pause for a moment and look up at Allan's sad looking eyes. "I didn't even know she liked anybody..."

"I don't know, Jess, but its in the past. Its too late now," he places a gentle hand on my shoulder and folds up the note with the other. He tucks it into my pocket and looks back down at the desk. "Here," he mumbles, handing me a couple notebooks. "Put them in the box, we have to keep working."

****September 15th****

As I taped the final box I looked around the near empty, pink-walled room, and I feel a tightness in my stomach. I uncap the sharpie and hold the cap in my mouth while I write on the lid of the box, Becca's Books. I look at the now empty bookshelf that sits next to her old dresser and I feel my stomach rise into my throat.

Allan's arm fits itself around my waist and I continue to look around at all the details of the room. I looked at her bed, free of sheets or blankets, just a mattress on a frame; I look at her desk, free of clutter and other objects, with the exception of a few stickers; I let my eyes rest on the walls, missing the pictures I had only see for a short time. Missing the pictures that held onto my memories of her.

I shut my eyes and try to imagine how this room used to look, the first time I came in here. I think of the overflowing bookshelf; The posters and blue-framed pictures on the walls; The little rabbit sitting at the foot of an unmade bed.

I must've been crying because soon enough Allan starts to whisper, "Don't worry, Jess. It's alright, just let it out." And that's exactly what I did. I stood there and cried into his shirt for what felt like hours. I could feel his tears dripping onto my shoulder as he rested his head just above it.

She's gone. She's really gone.

****September 16th****

I sit at my desk and stare down at the pile of work I had left to finish. I had missed so much school, everybody thought that I really had died. I had 2 weeks of work to finish, or at least it seemed that way. I'm not sure how long it's been since I was in that hellhole.

I flip through the notebook and write down several notes. I pick up a book that my English class had finished and taken a test over right after I left. To Kill a Mockingbird. I open the book to the page I had left off at and start to read through it.

Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty. When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his abilities and manliness. He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries, and there was nothing Jem or I could say about him when our classmates said, 'My father - '
Jem was football crazy. Atticus was never too tired to play keep-away, but when Jem wanted to tackle him Atticus would say, 'I'm too old for that, son.'

"What's up Jessie," I hear Allan's voice break me from my concentration.

"I'm trying to do school work," I grumble. "I may as well drop out now."

"Don't say that," Allan says, a slight laugh in his voice.

"There's too much crap to do here."

We both let out a slightly stifled laugh and I slide my bookmark back into place, shutting my book and letting it rest on my desk. I stand up and he wraps his arms around my waist. "Well," he says, hushing his voice to a whisper, "You may as well take a break from it."

He leans down for a soft kiss and I feel my lips part for his. I smile against them and he sits me down on the bed, gripping my by the waist.

Maybe a nice change will be good for us...