Whitley.

Home, Sweet Home.

I once walked down a street that had meaning behind it, once went back to a home after school with joy to see my family. I once had friends who would ride and die with me, I once had a meaning to wake up on a Saturday morning. They aren't what they used to be, and some things will never be the same. And as I walked down the street that had meaning and joy, saw the houses where dedicated friends once lived, and relived the flashbacks of a young me running down these streets, life wasn't so bad for just those few seconds. Timber Walk was the name of it, a secluded yet popular place where kids roam the streets at night. Parents didn't have a care in the world and elders actually walked around once in a while, it was somewhere where you could've found something to do with nothing.

I only wish to live that moment another day. I sighed, and kept walking down the old streets and back into my car for as I parked it at the entrance of my neighborhood street, Judge Winikoff. I got in and started to drive away slowly, to take in the atmosphere and nostalgia for when I was just a girl. I plan on leaving this town moving on to a new time in history to make new memories and live a life I've never gotten to do until now... But only if I can move on with my past I will be able to do so...

I then eventually gotten to the entrance of the neighborhood, stuck behind the entrance sign as if I'm getting pushed back with a force that's keeping me from moving on, all those moments when I would run outside by the pond, the moments where I would injure myself alongside with my friends climbing trees, and moments where I wouldn't know what I wanted to be when I grow up, was all behind me now. A distant memory... Now 23, I only wish to go in reverse to when I was a toddler and go on to play in the fields and swing on the monkey bars.

 I was snapped out of my daze by a car behind me honking for me to move already, as simple as the gesture is it almost felt like a sign telling me to just stop holding onto the past and onto something that's been already gone and just keep going. And so I left, already teary-eyed never bothering to look back. The drive was silent, no music, just the sound of my car grinding down the streets and the cars alongside me. It's 7 in the morning, the fog was out and the warm Florida air made the atmosphere moist as if it was raining outside. The sky was a dark blue giving everything a moody feel to it, adding to my grief. I drove down the long straight streets numb with feeling and ready to just lay down and never get back up, my hair was all over the place from kneading my hair through it constantly so now it's lost its curliness, my eyes bloodshot red, my skin looks lighter than it's usual rich brown as if my skin hasn't touched sunlight in a minute, I'm just a bundle of mess. I turn my head to look out the window to see all the building zooming past me, trying to ignore me as much as possible not wanting to deal with my problems, I look back to the road feeling more and more depressed than ever. I feel a presence bore into my skull and I look back out the window to see a young girl who looks about 5, staring at me with an unreadable expression. With effort, I try to smile at the girl and wave, also trying to not crash, and she just only looks at me as the car speeds up more in front of me disappearing in the fog.  

I've always wondered how I looked through someone's eyes. I'm assuming that at this moment, I look like I've lost someone important or just never had a good day in my life, which was true. I never had a good day with myself. Growing up is something every single person was set up to never expect, all the responsibilities all there waiting for you around the corner to hit you right up the head, no one can predict what life brings to you, not even the people who took care of you could've saved you from it. As I slow to a red light, I rub my temple for as all this thinking begins to become too much and I try to think of anything else than my own life but I only come to think about how I always try to dodge anything dealing with myself. I groan and decide to finally turn on the radio, changing it to a station not caring what it was just anything to stop me from just...thinking. Opera music was playing and I paid no mind to it as I get near to my house, I made a right onto Jefferson Drive and drove all the way down to the end of the street where my home is, at the back of the neighborhood. It was the only house available at the time yet it has its disadvantages being in the far back it is a cozy small house. It was a two bedroom two bathroom house with a well decorated front porch which almost looks like the ones you see in those cheesy country movies. But what I love is the color of the house, at first I didn't really like much about it, most definitely the color since it was this light yellow with forest green shudders and I just thought it was a horrific combination, but the more I kept looking at it the more I started to really like it. I get out of my car in which felt like someone had put me in slow motion and went into my home, trying to ignore anyone who is daring to talk to me, I can't be bothered to talk to the Miss Smithens from next door or to Old Man John who is always taking a walk around the neighborhood I love them to death but I just know they're gonna ask questions and never stop.

It's interesting how people think, it's as if there's need to be some sort of explanation behind the very little things we do in life, but little did they know that the unexplained has the most evidence of them all. Throughout my time in high school, I never understood the reason behind students always having to explain themselves to everyone on why they need to do this and do that. Most of the time they know and are just simply asking to get something out of the person-- like they need to hear the person say it and that's how people are, interrogators. Needing to know every little thing of something that's not even their problem, and is why I must leave where I am and go somewhere far away, go somewhere that I know no one and start new. I want to live a life where I don't need to explain myself or have to tell this person everything I do at home because they want to or need to hear it for whatever reason, I want to live my life by myself, with no one at all. Which is why I live by myself and why I work at home and why I have very little "friends" that I associate with. 

I get into my home and strip down from my overly large jacket and take off my shoes, dropping my keys on the side table which consist of a pile of mailings from people I don't care to talk to anymore and I walk to my room and plop down onto my bed and sighed. I look up to my roof, following the invisible trail that leads me nowhere, not knowing what to do with myself and thought about nothing in particular for a while until I thought about...him. I shuddered at the thought of those atrocious years of my life, regretting the very little things I've done then.

For when I was 16 I met him, young and of course innocent for my own good like a newborn puppy that discovered what a beehive is only to get attacked and stabbed. He was your lanky, pale leather jacket fella that anyone would say is what you call a self-destructive millennial that has his head in the mist and his hands wrapped around the people he preys on, he had that reputation almost his whole life. And little did anyone knew, he hated it with all his guts. 

He tried to switch up his reputation but it only deepens the hatred for his bad-boy reputation and made it look like he was causing more of a ruckus around town, sure he has tried to help clean up the city 'his way' but it was a start. Not only did none was appreciated but he only gets more officers on his personal business. The only reason I've fallen for him was that I was the only one to recognize the burning cry for help in his eyes when he looked at someone, I was the only one that noticed the way he twitched his arms whenever he heard another person talking about him from afar. The little muscles squeezing and clenching fury through his bloodstream where it all travels all the way to his head to the soles of his feet.

He was a walking ticking bomb, and I was the one to notice it. Someone needed to disable this... system in him before it was too late. So I tried.

But in the end, I ended up being the one fooled and it ended drastically. We saw the world way too different from one another and he ended up using me and all that I have to his advantage and just...left. He left town and never was seen again. 

I sighed at the memory and got up from the bed and decided to do something with myself, I then decided I should open my mail before I moved from this address since I never open anything really. I searched through and thrown away all the adverts and went to sit in my now empty living room to open them. The first one was from an old friend that betrayed me along with my boyfriend at the time. She wanted to apologize to what she did to me and wanted to invite me to her wedding they were having, which I find incredibly dumb first of all.  But she wasn't the brightest tool in the box so it's kind of expected. Instantly moving from that one the rest were either just mail from the bank or any other official company informing me of my current balance and all that, and then I came across a small letter in which can easily be hiding anywhere, a macaroni yellow envelope with a messy handwriting that seemed a bit too familiar to me. I frowned trying to recall anyone who would have had that handwriting or would've remembered that I always had a thing for bright colored letters...

Shoving that thought out of my head, for now, I began to open the letter, carefully pulling out the piece of paper as if it was a delicate china glass.

But only wished that I had not opened that letter.

Because that letter was from him himself.