Despicable Desires

Episode 37

Adeline

It's official, the big departure for my new life is in two days. Two short days separate me from my student life, and my heart is pounding. Standing in front of my bed, I am busy folding my clothes into separate piles: summer, winter, jeans, pajamas, and underwear. I had brought a large suitcase and three bags, hoping to fit everything in. Unfortunately, I have to take more than that, I cannot forget my toiletries, shoes, some textbooks, my university supplies... In short, I will never have enough space to fit everything. The worst part will be fitting everything into the car... Cameron is going to kill me, that's for sure.

Speaking of the devil, my stepbrother walks into the room and casually flops onto the bed. Well, on the unoccupied part of the bed.

"Jeez, sis, you're not really taking all this?" he says, eyes wide.

"I told you, Cam, we're not coming back often, so I need all my stuff," I reply, imitating an irritated tone.

"Yeah, I know, but I managed to fit everything into one suitcase."

"Well, you only have three pairs of underwear and two shirts; hardly an achievement," I retort.

Offended, he grabs one of my shirts from the pile and throws it at me. I burst out laughing before scolding him, pretending that I have spent a lot of time carefully organizing everything.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" he finally asks seriously.

"I would appreciate it if you could put my shoes in the bag right behind you," I reply, nodding my head in the direction of the luggage at the foot of my desk. He gets up from the bed and begins to carefully move the shoe boxes from my closet to the bottom of the bag.

"This is never going to fit," he says after stuffing five boxes in.

"Yes, it will," I reassure him, dropping what I was doing and striding toward him with determination.

"Look, try to fit these shoes together," I say, taking a pair of sandals, "they can go with my sneakers, here."

I do the same with two other pairs before leaving him to do the rest.

"And if there's no more room, take them out of their boxes. Or there's another bag in my closet."

After about ten minutes of fussing, he finally returns to the bed across from me and watches me finish packing, his nose buried in his phone, which vibrates every thirty seconds.

"Who are you talking to?" I ask, curious.

"Jayden."

I immediately tense up under Cameron's gaze. He watches me in silence as I try to appear as distant as possible. It's hard when the only person you're trying to forget has been mentioned in every conversation for almost fifteen days.

Thirteen.

That's the exact number of days since he left. One morning, before I woke up, he took all his things and left for Seattle. In the middle of August, taking advantage of the end of his work in my father's garage, he left the house like a gust of wind. I remember going into his room the day before, in a moment of weakness, wanting to lie down on his bed. The cold sheets made me shiver, but the smell I found there disturbed me. I stayed there, looking at the ceiling and thinking about everything that had led me there. From the day he came back into my life to the day he pushed me away like a disgusting piece of gum from the sole of his shoe. Our closeness, his kisses, his smile. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to motivate myself to leave the room, to keep hating him for everything he made me endure. I woke up in my bed, not remembering how I got there. It wasn't until I saw that he was gone that I understood. He had chosen to leave my life as abruptly as he had entered it. And he had witnessed my moment of weakness...