Surrounded But Alone

Chapter 34-Memories

Mitchum's Point Of View;

I got up after he told her the address and we walked out of the school grounds but I had to admit this is strange. I can't get Presley to go to a place where a salesperson might ask him if he needs help but now he's leading us to go visit someone's home who he doesn't even know.

What was the name again? Priya Taksheel right, why does that last name sound familiar? Maybe he mentioned her before; could he have a crush that he never told me about? What am I thinking? This is Presley I'm talking about, he doesn't have crushes. We went through all of high school together and the only "girl" he ever was interested in was his pet rabbit called Cindy that he sneaked into school every day.

As we walked on the left side of the street Alejandra asked us if we could stop at a pet store she had to go in to make a down payment on some exotic fish she planned on buying once she installed her home aquarium. I didn't even know there was a pet store around here. It was not particularly noisy but without the occasional songs from birds and barks from puppies I would have walked passed it. Those animals were outside on display in their cases and we went in as Tamar's brother came out. I knew it was him cause I saw him go into the ambulance with her. What was he doing here? Should I say something or not? He didn't even seem to notice us and walked past so there wasn't a chance to say anything. Maybe it was for the best that nothing was said for now.

Though being in the pet store was in a way comforting as it's the closest thing that resemble home with the various breeds of puppies, birds and rodents. As I observed inside the store, it was really wide and spacy on the inside as large wooden counters separated us from the animals but had clear glass so they can be seen. There were two people that we could see behind the counters feeding some of the animals. By how the place was already made it was clear to me that whoever took care of these animals had a personal commitment to them as it was kept very clean. My dad included as I have the dishpan hands to prove it.

I would would have expected Presley to be more enthusiastic about being in here since he had a lot of fondness for animals as he used to volunteer at my dad's animal shelter on weekdays after school. I also never questioned Presely on why he was so attached to the rabbit because I met him with that on the first day of high school when she got away from him and jumped into my backpack that was on the ground. It was a surprise but I didn't tell the teacher cause obviously no pets were allowed.

I could only have given her back to him after class which is when we started talking, well I started talking and he responded. I wonder if before he moved to our town with his dad, being around animals was comforting to him also.

That was how we became friends even though he was a lot like Tama personality wise.How could that happen to someone so much younger than me? I didn't want to think about what happened this morning, but I can't just ignore it. Maybe I should see the guidance counselor about this but for now, I don't want to be left alone with my thoughts.

I shared the part about my dad with Alejandra and told her of how I used to get Presley to help me on my shift until it was over. She asked him what he thought of it and it took him a little time to answer but when he did he completely left the part out that he had a rabbit. He couldn't have forgotten since he would also get Cindy taken care of there.

It was still probably a sore topic aI did notice the change in him came because of Cindy. As she was a really old rabbit, she died last year. Could all of this really be affecting him this much because he misses not carrying that rabbit around? I guess the death of something innocent can really rattle you.

Since then he has been more uneasy and the death of his grandmother didn't help anything. His stress level must have reached an all-time peak, and I'm not sure if he gets enough sleep because he's always complaining of being tired. The night before his grandmother's funeral I tried to stay up with him but ended up falling asleep and when I got up he was already getting dressed for it.