Something Beautiful

↠t w o ↠

Song of the chapter: ♪
Welcome to Paradise by Green Day

↠

I got to Ashley's parents' house around one that afternoon and parked my car beside the curb. I was in a good mood because there wasn't as much traffic as I thought there'd be, and I sang along to Green Day the whole way there.

When I got out, I heard the familiar creak of a screen door and looked up to see a middle aged man walking out of th house and waving at me. It was Ashley's father, Jim.

I smiled. "Hello, Jim!" I called out. I walked around behind my car, and met up with him on the sidewalk. He grabbed my hand and shook it earnestly. He had quite the grip!

"Good afternoon, young lady. Hazel, was it?" He asked, which I nodded to in response. "Would it be alright if I carried in your bags for you?"

"Are you sure?" I asked, "I can carry them in myself."

He shook his head vigorously, and waved his hands at me. "No, no. That isn't necessary. I'm not as old as I look, you know." He winked at me.

Nevertheless I helped him pull my two big suitcases out of the back of my vehicle and pulled them onto the sidewalk.

"Is it okay for me to park my car right here?" I asked.

He shrugged it off, "it's fine for now. We'll worry about that later, just get yourself settled in first."

He reached over and grabbed the suitcase out of my hand, while holding the other in his other hand.

"Don't you need any help?" I asked, feeling bad for making him do all that work.

He shook his head. "No, no. It is quite alright. You just go inside and see your new home." I could still tell he was struggling with both of my heavy suitcases.

"Okay." I hesitated as I went over to my car and opened one of the back doors, and pulled Corona's carrier out.

"Is that your cat?" Jim asked, looking down at the carrier, curiously.

I nodded lifting it up, so he could look inside.

He peered inside at Corona and grinned. "He's quite the cute looking feller, ain't he?"

I laughed. "Yeah, he is."

"Now hopefully he gets along with the other two." he answered.

"The other two cats?" I asked.

"Yes." He rolled my suitcases over to the porch, which luckily had no steps and I followed close behind, with Corona's carrier in hand with Corona meowing, scared and unaware of his surroundings.

Once we got inside, I looked around. The house looked like it was taken straight out of a cowboy magazine. It screamed Western style. The chestnut brown dining room table and chairs had that old farmhouse touch and there were pictures of horses and people bull-riding in frames, all over the walls. Ashley told me once that her parents fantasized about being in the rodeo, but it was just too expensive to learn how to ride and buy their own horses.

"Well, your living quarters are behind that door and down the stairs." Jim pointed at a door through the kitchen and beside the refrigerator.

"Okay." I said. Last time I was here with my father, Ashley's mother had showed us around so I knew where everything was.

I went downstairs with Corona still in hand, and looked around. There were two rooms down there, and I was planning to use the one room as my sleeping area. The other room I was going to use as my 'art studio'. I hadn't set anything up in there yet though.

I set the cat carrier down in my new bedroom, next to my bed which already had a dark blue comforter on it.

There were a few boxes against the opposite wall that were going to go into my other room, and I decided to move them right away to make more room in my bedroom. I had already seen the place before when I came down with my dad.

First I let out Corona, who immediately bolted out of the cage, and under my bed, to which I laughed. "Corona, there's no reason to be scared. This is your new home."

I picked up one box and carried it to the other room. The door was closed so I turned the door open and kicked it open with my foot. Then I gasped.

Two days before, the room was completely empty, only a mattress propped up against the wall, which I had planned on moving out. But now, the mattress was on the floor, a red and black striped blanket thrown on top of it carelessly. Above the bed was a tattered Nirvana poster, hanging, one corner hanging down. Beside the bed, close to the door was a huge drumset. In the far left corner, there was a desk with a whole bunch of jars with pens, pencils, every writing and drawing tool you can think of, shoved inside of them.

And there, sitting, in a black ripped up, office chair at a big old oak desk was a dark brown, blonde streaked curly mop of hair with a red bandanna wrapped around it.

No, no, no. Please, no.

The chair swiveled around and a hazel-eyed teenage guy grinned at me and stood up.

"Hello." He said. "My name is Ashton Irwin."

↠