The House

Chapter 4: Addie

Unpacking was not as stressful as I imagined it would be.

I recruited Raleigh to move my mismatched, monotone colored bags into my room. He's gotten stronger. He dropped the bags onto the wood floor that interior designers would call 'charming' and the blunt would call 'beat up'. He then proceeded to throw himself onto the creaky bed and stay there while I unpacked.

Since the other three bedrooms were taken upstairs I got put in the bedroom sandwiched between gabe and the bathroom. The big window on the back wall looks out over the side of the house and the pine trees that are there.

This room used to be Raleigh's Grandma's art studio before she passed away, then his Grandpa moved in to be closer to her, or whatever feeling of her lingered in the space.

I empty one of my bags out into one of drawers of the armoire resting in the corner, almost touching the ceiling, acting as king of the room. I'm not really one for unpacking in an organized manner; I figure that as I wash things and fold things and live in a place for a while it will just organize itself in a way. That's how I do most things, if they will fix themselves then why bother? I walk over to the desk pushed up against the wall opposite from the bed. The floor creaked in the familiar spot. I run my fingers across the surface.

It's beat up, like the wood on the floor, the lacquer worn off in places and scratched in others. There's a thin sheet of dust on the surface. Not enough dust to be called forgotten but enough to be called neglected. My memory flashes to an image of this same desk, in this same room, being covered in papers.

Raleigh's voice comes from behind me, muffled by the blankets, but still startling me. "Remember how we would always come in here from the beach and he would be sitting at that desk, looking out at the trees He would always be in here hacking away at that ancient typewriter." I don't turn around, I just smile at the tips of my fingers resting on the desk. I stay quiet for a little while.

"Did you know he's why I want to be a writer? As soon as I found out about him being, you know, gone I decided I wanted to be writer. I don't really know why it took that for me to realize it." I turn around and face Raleigh's form spread out on the bed, face down. He's looking at me and I can't really tell what he's thinking, just that he's not okay. I go over and sit next to him. The mattress sinks under me as I fall backwards, laying next to the brown haired boy.

"I think I'm going to finish unpacking later," I say to the ceiling. Looking over I see that Raleigh has turned his head to face me. "So, do you want to go see what there is for food?"

"Sounds like a good plan. I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry," I laugh, pulling him up off the bed which is extremely difficult because he's just limp. "You could help me a little bit at least. Really just some physical movement would be fantastic." I finally get him off the bed, but he just falls on the floor with a thump.

"Yeah, but I'm tired, so I would really much rather not."

"C'mon." I nudge him with my foot. "Get up."

"Nope."

"Seriously."

"Negative."

"Did you really just say negative?" At this point I'm just repeatedly stabbing his stomach with my foot.

"Positive," he grumbles into the carpet.

"Okay, can you just get up. Please." I go to poke him with my toes again when he grabs my foot and curls into a fetal position around it. "Oh god, don't even think about it." I realize what he's planning to do when he flashes me a smirk that could make the devil nervous. I frantically attempt to pull my foot out of his grasp, but as I said, he's gotten stronger.