Until I Found You

That Thing In The Basement

Back in Arcadia Oaks, nothing has really changed. Allexis thinks to herself as the taxi is driving through the streets of her old hometown. I wonder how mom and Jim are doing since I left.

It had been a few years since she left home for university, only ever making contact with her family through phone calls, video calls and texts, but it still had her missing them terribly. She had already finished this semester and the upcoming one would be her last before she graduated with a simple AA degree, but she wanted to at least come back home after her mother's recent phone call that concerned her baby brother.

"He's been acting so strange lately, getting into fights, crashing a Vespa, breaking into a museum, I don't even know what's going on with him! He won't even tell me what's going on if I ask him what's wrong!" Her mother had said in their last conversation. "I feel like I'm at the end of my rope here with him, I don't know what to do!"

It sounded like Jim was going through some problems, but it was weird that he was even getting into trouble like this in the first place. But if he wouldn't even talk to their mom about what was going on, why would he talk with her?

"Here's your stop miss." The taxi driver says, jolting Allexis from her thoughts as he stopped the car on the sidewalk next to her home.

"Thank you so much." She says as she climbs out of the car to go grab her things from the trunk, just three suitcases, a backpack and her purse. Once the driver had left and she moved her stuff to the front porch, Allexis knocked, hoping that either of her family members were home. The second that she stopped knocking, the door swung open to reveal her mother.

"Sweetheart you're here! Oh I wasn't expecting you here until later!" Barbara gushes as she pulls her daughter into a hug. "You've gotten so tall too! What have they been feeding you in San Francisco?"

"Anything that's not Jim's cooking." Allexis laughs. "I do think I gained some pounds though."

"Well I'm sure your brother's cooking and some morning jogging sessions will fix that, come in, Jim's at school and I had the day off so I'll help you with your stuff."

The two women made a few trips from the porch to the second floor where the bedrooms were located with the suitcases, thankfully with no problem. It felt weird to Allexis to be back in her old room, the whole thing felt bare save for the empty bed, the desk and the faded sticky notes covering the wall in front of the desk.

"Yikes, even my dorm when it was empty was decorated better." She mutters as she drops her backpack on the bare mattress. "I think I'm gonna make a few trips to the comic store or a few online purchases to brighten this up."

"Yeah, you never really posted anything on the walls after you decided you were too old for the princess and mermaids decor." Barbara agrees with a sigh as she joins her. "You were so focused on studying you didn't want any distractions, I was so worried when you went off to university. Really thought you would burn yourself out studying over there, but you really surprised me when you gave me a tour of your room after a month of staying there."

"Well I got hobbies now outside of studying, and got into stuff that I never dreamed of finding interest in. So I'm a bit less boring now."

"Aw sweetheart, you were never boring, you were just so hyper focused on studying to get into a good school so you can help me out. But look at what I did, I finished my degree while you were away and now I'm a doctor and you're studying to be a world history teacher like the one you looked up to in high school."

"As I told you before, I was doing it for you and my brother." Allexis sighs as she leans against her mother so the two could hug. "At least now I know financially you're doing okay. But academically Jim needs some help if he wants to get into a good college."