Rooming With Ash

Rooming With Ash: Chapter 2

Three years ago, on the night of August 26th – the night of my birthday – my parents got into a car crash on their way back home from an art historians' museum conference.

The conference was meant to last the whole weekend, but my parents had decided to come home halfway through so that they could surprise me with a visit on my birthday. It was storming very heavily that day. It had been for the whole weekend, and by the time my birthday came along the roads had officially been declared unsafe. Every news outlet was warning people not to go out driving that night, but my parents weren't in town, and so they hadn't seen the warnings. On their way home, a branch was ripped from a tree trunk and came crashing through the front windshield of the car.

Both of them died that night.

My father from the branch impaling him, right through the chest, and my mother, from the shock that caused her to drive the car right into the side of the hill.

Mickey and I didn't know what had happened until two days later. We weren't expecting them back that day, so when we heard the news of the crash on TV we just sighed and kept on moving. When they were finally able to identify the bodies though, the news came to us through a knock at the door from a solemn looking policeman. After hearing about that, our life quickly turned into a whirlwind of moving and restructuring that finally ended with Mickey and I being placed into a Catholic orphanage that was the only place willing to take the both of us as a unit.

At one point, Riley had genuinely offered up the option of her family adopting Mickey, but I knew firsthand just how much strain they had on their own. It would be a hard task to absorb Mickey into that. It wouldn't have been good for any of the parties involved.

In the subsequent years, Mickey had lived in two different foster homes (I hadn't spent time in any because there weren't many families particularly excited about taking in moody 16-year-old girls), but in the end, Mickey ended up back at the orphanage. At the time our parents died he had only been four years old, and so in the years since, his memories of them had become very hazy. It made me happy to know that it wasn't as painful for him. And it made me happy to know that the two of us would get to stay together for the time being.

~

I walked into Mickey's room to find him sitting atop his bunk bed, playing with his two toy trucks. Those trucks were his favorite toys and the only two that he hadn't ended up losing, breaking, or just growing tired of. Mickey had gotten them from my dad, the month before his death, but I'm not sure he remembered that much.

The first thing I noticed was that Mickey was all alone in the room, which was strange considering the fact that he loved to be the center of attention. It was rare that one would catch Mickey indoors if the rest of the kids were outside, and vise-versa.

I closed the door behind me and Mickey looked up, smiling when he saw me.

"Keira!"

He jumped up excitedly, scrambling around to try and get himself down from the bunk bed. I walked over to him and chuckled, placing a hand on his leg.

"It's okay, Mickey. Stay up there," I said. "I think I'm gonna join you."

His previously pursed lips now expanded themselves into a full-blown grin as he looked down at me. "You wanna come up here?" he asked.

I nodded. "Mhm. I'm finally gonna do it, even though I'm eight-five percent sure it'll break the bed."

"Eighty-five? That's a big number, Keira," he exclaimed. "Don't break the bed! Sister Catherine will get angry if you do."

"Don't worry, Mickey." I groaned, pulling myself up onto the bunk. "You need new beds anyway, and trust me, Sister Catherine knows that."

I let out a breath and grinned at Mickey when I was finally up on the creaky bunk and he grinned right back at me. Even though I was only 5'6, I still had to bend my neck at the top due to how low the ceiling was. "Alright," I said, "So what are we playing?"

"I'll only tell you if you promise to bring me with you to Hawaii," Mickey said, pouting up at me. "Pleaseeee?"

I felt a pang in my heart but tried my best to keep a bubbly exterior up. I didn't want him to know how much it was hurting me to leave him.

"But I can't bring you, Mickey, you know that," I said. "Riley's already made so many plans for the two of you! That would be so unfair to her."

He looked down at the bed, crossing his arms over his chest as a frown settled on his face.

"Mickeyyy..."

I sang his name, leaning down so that my head was resting on the bed, right beside his knee. I winced from the loud creaking of the bunk bed and Mickey laughed.

"C'mon, Mickey." I reached up placed a hand on his left cheek, smiling up at him. "You love Riley, don't look so upset. You can even go stay at her house some nights if you want to. You and Mr. Park can keep building your Minecraft world or whatever it is the two of you like to do."

The smile that Mickey was trying so hard to turn into a scowl finally broke through in all its glory as he reached down and pinched my nose with his tiny hands.

"And me and you will Skype?" he asked.

"Hell yes we will! Once a week – minimum."

He laughed at the nasally sound of my voice and took his fingers off my nose with a grin. "Okay. I'll show you my game now."

"Okay." I got up and sat cross-legged across the bed from Mickey, and I couldn't help but think about how different our relationship was now. We weren't the brother and sister we had been prior to the accident. Nowadays I felt more like his proxy-mother, and never for a second could I ever let him doubt just how much I loved him.