Uncoded

New Guy in Town

"Hey Mom!" I say while holding the door open.

      My mom walks toward the door with bags in both hands and Evan sneakily follows, doing a poor job of try to sneak up on me, but of course I still play along.

 "Oh, Hi sweetie. Thanks for holding the door. Look I have to leave in a few minutes for a story going on down town. Apparently there was a car accident and I must get on top of the story. Can you help me with the rest of the bags, there should be 3 more." Mother said.

"Sure, but first....where's Evan?". I ask.

 "Hehehe....Booo!" He says jumping out from behind mom.

 "Woa! What are you doing scaring people little monster? It's not Halloween yet." I happily say as I bring him in for a hug.

       He giggles as he hugs me back. "Do you think I could scare Hax?"

        Evan is the only other person in our family who knows who Hax is and that's sort of my fault. A few years ago, when Evan was 5, he was just starting Kindergarten and all he wanted to do was show everyone his brilliant art work of the day. It was usually nothing more then a few colors and scribbles. One day when he got home, I was busy in my room fixing Hax's memory system. While I was working on his memory I was still able to talk to Hax so I had some company fixing him. Little did I know that Evan was sitting outside my door the whole time just sitting and listening to the conversation. His first words to me when I opened the door is "We have a new friend to share my art with!". At that moment I knew that there was nothing I could do. If I did not tell Evan exactly who Hax was and how to keep him a secret he would end up asking mom and dad who my new "friend" was. From that day on, Evan became like Hax's little brother. Our mom and dad just simply thought that whenever Evan talk about Hax he was just talking about an imaginary friend. They thought he was just going threw a phase of wanting another sibling, like a big brother. I still worry what will happen when Evan gets older and our parents realize that it's not a phase, but I suppose we will cross that bridge when we get there.

"Evan sweetie, you can play with your "friend" in a bit, but come eat your lunch before mommy has to go." She said while pulling a kids meal out of a bag.

 "I'll go get the bags" with that I race out the to avoid any further conversation about Hax. 

      Outside it is a bright and warm summer day and kids are outside playing in the neighborhood, trying to take advantage of as much of the left over summer as possible before everyone has to go back to school within the next week. I grabbed the left over bags that seemed to be failed with a variety of cans, bread, and vegetables, and head back towards the house. I stopped when I noticed a moving van pull into our neighboring house. That house used to belong to our old neighbor Miss Gibbs before she got married and moved away. She was a quiet  young lady and never really talked to anyone else in the neighborhood, but she always smiled and me and Evan when we walked by and gave us flowers from her garden.

 "I wonder who bought that old house". I say to myself.

      It has bin vacant for the past 3 years. On the side of the van I see words that read "Chicago Moving Service". People just move from one big city to the next. I head back inside and place the bags on the counter as Evan finishes his sandwich.

 "Can I go play with Hax now?".

"Sure" Says mom and Evan that runs up the stairs caring his little book bag covered in his favorite Pokemon stickers.

 "That boy just loves his imaginary friends. I remember when you were his age and had a friend of your own. Expect they where never really figurative, just a stuffed animal that you named and played with all the time." She said.

"Yeah, I remember that old thing, dad ended up selling it at a yard sale by accident". I told her.

"Yup, he felt so bad that after the yard sale he went to the store and did not come back until he found the EXACT same looking bear to give back to you".

 " Yeah, he really did not need to do that. I stopped playing with the thing 2 months later. Oh by the way, when is dad coming home?" I asked.

"Last time I spoke to him he had just landed in Peru to take photos in Machu Picchu. That reminds me! Can you go get the mail before I go? He may have sent a letter." She said.

 "Ok." And I made my way to the door.

       In the mailbox, sure enough there was a letter from dad. Most likely containing goofy pictures of him on his journeys. Usually he will take lots of fun pictures that he will only send to his family and not the photography agency. While that might be against some policy rules, it sure makes us feel special and know he is always thinking of us while he is gone. I made my way back inside with he mail and noticed a gray Jeep pull into to neighbors driveway.I stopped for a second to see if that was the new neighbors. The car stopped and from what I could tell there were 2 people inside. The one in the passenger side got out and that's when it happened. He had short brown hair with he top dyed an Acidic green (See what I did there :P), fair skin, and piercing blue eyes. Once I saw him, my heart had a feeling its never experienced before. It was like my heart skipped a beat yet stopped in the split second (I know that sounds weird, but it's an actual feeling I've experienced and it's the only way I could think of describing it). I had no idea how to react. He looked over and we made eye contact. At that moment I burst out running to the house, dropped the mail on the counter and ran to my room.