The Lure of Adventure

Samuel Morgan

"When you're alone, it's all you think about."

It's Saturday night.

I got Missy's letter a week and four days ago, the first and last update from her since the incident.

I sit on the edge of the roof; her roof. I trace my fingertip over the creases in the paper from where I'd folded so it could maintain a permanent residence in my back pocket. I pull it out often to reread her words and to reflect on them, allowing the memories from that morning and the days that came prior to play in my head.

In the dim moonlight, I study her handwriting, the slightly slanted style her letters have. Seeing the words she wrote keeps her with me until she can be. It sounds so stupid... I've never cared for anyone like I do her. 

In the weeks that have passed since that day, I have kept working, kept busy, and Nathan stayed in school, making the most effort between the two of us to be a good student. My grades have fallen, and I have been called into Duffy's office multiple times to be reprimanded for it. I just don't care anymore.

After everything happened, I just... I don't know. Went on auto-pilot? I couldn't think straight, couldn't allow myself to think about joyful or good things... My mind seemed to gravitate toward the bad like a magnet. I know my poor mood has also been having an effect on Nathan. But truthfully, I don't know where to start with helping him get better.

What we are going through now is really no different than when I was working for scraps to keep the lights on while my Mother was dying in the upstairs bedroom and my Dad was having an affair. It has always been just us, this is nothing new... I guess it's just disheartening to go back to living that way after a few months where things have been genuinely good for us. 

Nathan has been different since that day with Missy. He saw shit no kid should ever have to see, and the things he has witnessed has left my once innocent, jovial younger brother somewhat a mute.

He doesn't speak too often these days unsolicited. I have to initiate any form of conversation with him for him to engage with me, and even then it is extremely limited. For that reason, as well as many others, I wish that Missy were here. She has a unique way of getting through to Nathan. They have a bond unlike ours, I feel like he's more willing to share things with her than me sometimes. I guess I can't blame him.

Over the last three weeks, he has also become a frequent visitor to the roof. He'd come up with me most nights, sitting swaddled in my denim jacket in silence, pondering his thoughts in private.

I have asked a few times if he wants to talk, and he'd meet my eyes... But I think that he sees something there that makes him decide otherwise. I don't know what to do to get him to open up to me.

I know he is having a very hard time adjusting. Before, it was just the loss of our parents, having to live here, then it was trying to fit in, and then Dolfrey's death and the end of his halfway house manor... And now, it's the memory of Missy laying dead on the bloody tile that haunts him.

Something just won't let us catch a break. We fight, work hard, try our best to break the cycle of bad luck to make something better for the both of us but with every new trial, it has got me wondering if we are just destined to live lives of misfortune. 

The clock strikes midnight, twelve loud chimes bellow from above, rattling the stone I sit on. With a sigh, I rise, snuffing out my cigarette on the wall and tossing the butt. Time to go to work. 

Tonight I have come to the roof alone. I work tonight, and I know Nathan well enough to know that he won't go back to the dormitory after I leave. He will wander off, and probably get himself in trouble if I don't sit on him now and make him stay behind.