The Boy in the Basement // h.s au

I

Alice Dawson

Moving isn't fun when all you've done your entire life is move. House to house, apartment for apartment. It makes you unable to enjoy your current situation because you know deep down in the back of your mind that it is not permanent and your view will be completely different. So when my parents told me we were moving once again, I had no words. A few years ago, I just decided to stop unpacking, I lived out of my packed boxes. It drains so much from you.

Maybe this time could be different but after being disappointed your entire life, you stop having hope. You're just null and numb. It's a nice thought but when this is your final year of high school and you hardly have any friends, it's hard to be full of life. I've found other ways to bring joy to my life and that is by painting and drawing. To take things you imagine in your head and stain them onto canvases to admire them hanging on your wall is a beautiful thing. Reading is another way. When you are able to step inside someone else's shoes and forget about the reality of your own life for a second, it is very therapeutic.

The drive to our new home was about two hours away. I spent most of it napping against the window in the back sweet while music quietly masked the quietness reeking in the air. I am used to them being quiet because my parents hardly make conversation with each other. It's almost as if they're having a competition who can ignore the other one the longest. They speak to me but if they're not asking me the same questions every day or arguing with each other behind the bedroom door, our house usually remained very empty of conversations and memories.

Mom and Dad hated each other, I could see it. I saw behind the fake and forced smiles, the absent touching, and smacking of quick kisses. Maye they were like me and just tired and disappointed. Or, maybe the love is gone between them. It doesn't set a good example for me if you think about it but I know that is not how life is supposed to be with the love of your life. I read at least a book a week, I know. Even if it is just fiction.

"Alice, we are here." I woke up to Dad shutting the car door after he got out. I saw Mom looking back at me and she gave me a hopeful smile. I mustered up one myself and rubbed my face.

It was a warm and breezy Saturday in the middle of May. We went from living in a neighborhood to moving to an area with hardly any neighbors and the fence lines were made up of tall, fluffy trees. They had a front lawn that accompanied a long, straight dirt driveway. Our house gave me strange feelings when I locked eyes on the front door, feelings I couldn't quite explain. As I moved my eyes away from the wide glass in the middle of the door, I could've sworn I saw a face looking at me.

But it was more than likely the sun bouncing off the glass or something logical.

It was a one story old home from the 1900s. It had a covered front porch with big bay windows poking out from the front of the house on the left side. The gray paint was chipping off in lots of places when you focused hard enough but nothing that couldn't be restored. That's if we even last here that long. I'll be off to college before I know it and maybe won't have to worry about this house anymore.

"It's three bedrooms, two baths. I know there is a basement and a small attic above one of the bedrooms." Mom smiled as she spoke, looking at the house. Almost as if she was excited which gave me a small sliver of hope that maybe things would just be different this one time. What if I just not worry about it and let everything be the way they're supposed to be? I might do that.

My parents never let me know about "adult business". Like for starters, why do we move so much? Is it money issues? It never seems like we have that issue though. What if they just don't know where to settle? They spent the last seventeen years of my life being indecisive, you'd think they would come to a conclusion. I'm thankful they keep that sort of stuff away from me. I don't want to get myself worked up over their business unless something major is happening.