Corny Jameson (#Wattys2016)

Chapter Two

Corny

One thing I hated about life was its unpredictable moments.

My parents had decided we were going to move again. I hated moving. To me, you leave a small piece of your soul in the place that you left. Your house, school, coffee shop, stuff like that. This was the fourth time we were moving. I figured my parents would finally stop after the third time, but nope.

We were leaving once again.

And this time, we're moving back to where we lived the first time. Where I grew up. I didn't want to believe it. I had finally settled into this town. I had great friends, a great school, and a great hangout spot where I could tell my jokes.

That I know everyone loved.

I would have to start all over again and I didn't want to.

***

"Go away," I said, my voice muffled by my pillow. I was in the middle of a nice nap, but my little brother woke me up to ask for food.

"But I'm hungry," he whined.

"You don't have to ask me for food. Whenever you want it, raid the kitchen," I said, pointing at my door.

"I usually do that with you. Want to come with me?" he said.

"No, Jace, I don't," I said. "Wait. Of course I do!" I darted up and threw on a pair of shorts before we ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. I started grabbing snacks, while Jace got sodas out of the fridge. This wasn't something unusual we did. We basically did it everyday. The only weird thing is that Jace thinks he has to ask for the food, when I could care less. All he has to do is get me and we pig out.

After getting everything, we ran into the living room and flopped down on the couch. I opened up a big bag if chips and shoved some in my mouth. About a minute later, someone came in to ruin the moment.

"Boys! You know that's unhealthy!" Mom said, trying to take our snacks.

"No it's not! It's perfectly normal for two growing boys!" Jace said, hugging the chips close to his chest.

"Yeah!" I said with a mouth full of food. Our Dad walked in the moment after I said that.

"Dad, Mom is saying eating food is unhealthy!" Jace whined.

I swallowed my food before saying, "It's normal! Everyone needs to eat!"

Dad sighed. "You can't be eating that many snacks for breakfast," he said while rubbing his forehead.

"It's okay to pig out every once in a while!"

Mom took the opportunity to snatch the snacks. "I'm confiscating these." She walked away quickly.

I stood up before heading back to my room without another word. Why would she take my snacks? We all knew she was going to eat them herself, anyway. Why not just eat with us?

Since we were moving sometime later today, I finished packing before bringing my boxes out to the moving truck. When I finished with that, I sat down on one side of the truck. I took out my cell phone and pondered whether or not I should call my girlfriend. My fingers seemed to have their own brains, as they scrolled through my short list of contacts and called Patricia.

"Hello?" she said when she picked up.

"Hey, Pat, it's me."

"Hey, Corny. What's up?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "We have to break up," I said. I'd rather get straight to the point then beat around the bush.

"W-what?" she said.