A Part of Me -Sequel to Empty

•thirty-four

"These people all have something to say."

"Well you only know that because they went ahead and said it."

•maya

Lucas took me upstairs to Quinn's old room. I thought that everything would still look the same from when they were kids, but everything was boxed up. There was nothing in the room expect for boxes.

"Mom and Dad's handwork," Lucas scoffed, "They don't do a lot of work, but I'm sure that they wanted to have the pleasure of boxing up their own child's life."

"What about your room?" I asked, scanning the boxes.

"Before I moved out I cleaned out everything. I took what I wanted and I just gave away everything else. I did that so that they wouldn't have an excuse to pull me back home, but typical them, they found some reason to do it anyway."

"I know I've said this a thousand times already, but I'm sorry."

"I don't know I'm complaining about anything. You had things way worse growing up. Sure I hated my parents, but at least I had different things to distract myself."

I sat down against one of the blue colored walls. Lucas joined me a few seconds later still staring at the boxes.

"Yeah. My mom wasn't home much, because she was working. One night I remember I had a school talent thingy and my mom said she was going to come after work was over and then we could go out to dinner. When she didn't make it there that night Mr. Matthews took me home with him and I had dinner at his house," I said.

Lucas asked, "Why didn't your mom make it to the school?"

I had never told him this story before, I had never told Riley this either. I kept this everyone, because I didn't want anyone to know how bad things were for my mom and I.

"My mom eventually got home and I cried and yelled at her for being the worst mom ever. Then I told her that I wished that she was more like Riley's mom before running off to my room. Once I was done being mad at her I went to apologize, but I stopped when I heard her crying on the phone."

"Who was she talking to?"

"My dad. She just kept crying and asking him to help out. I found out a couple years later that my dad stopped sending child support and my mom had to work twice as many hours just to keep the lights on. She couldn't come to my talent thing because she was working. And she knew that if she didn't show up I would go with Riley and her parents would be able to feed me."

Lucas looked at me with watery eyes and gave me his hand.

"Why do really bad things happen to amazing people?"

-

Box after box was full of clothes. I guess when Quinn left she didn't take a lot of her clothes with her. The other boxes I went through had books or trophies from when she played tennis.

"One time she hit me over the head with her tennis racket when I told her friends that she kissed one of my friends on the lips," Lucas laughed.

"Why did your sister kiss one of your friends? Wasn't she like a couple years older than them?"

"It was because she lost some bet that her and I made."

I was glad he could laugh through all of this.

Lucas started looking through another box. I continued going through the box that I had been on for about five minutes now. The mostly had pictures of Quinn and her friends or her and Lucas. Everything had some weird, but cute story behind it.

Towards the bottom of the box I saw some of Quinn's old mail. Some of the things were just addressed to her, but other things had a return address from her. I opened one up and pulled out the paper. It was a picture of Quinn with some guy with the words save the date on them.

"Um......Lucas you might want to come over here," I yelled.

"What?" He asked, walking over and then sitting down next to me.

I handed him the paper and read the tittle.

"Save the date so I guess she's married. I can't believe that she invited my parents, she hates them."

There was something at the bottom of the letter, a small note. I pulled out the paper and read it to him.

"Mom and Dad I'm sending this to you, because I don't know where Lucas is. I figured he moved away for college and I don't know where that is. I'm asking you to mail this one thing to him. I miss my brother and I would really like the chance to see him again."

"She wanted me at her wedding. She wanted to see me again. My parents of course had to be the jerks that they are and not send the letter to me."

"Lucas this is good. You never have to think that she didn't want you around. She wanted you there on one of the most important days of her life. She cares about you Lucas, she always has and always will."

Lucas stood up and stormed towards the door.

I yelled after him, "Where are you going?"

"To take care of my parents."

He stormed out the door and began running down the hallway and stairs.

"Lucas! Lucas stop! This isn't a good idea!"

-

Quinn's married

I ate a peanut butter cup

Who's living the better live? (Me!)