Everything That Could Have Been

Audrey

            Audrey

Saturday. The day before Halloween. What was I planning to do again? Right, revenge. On Cheyenne and Dedrick. My last prank on her was a big blow to her reputation, classmates who walk pass her now snicker and imitate her screams when the water went on. The feeling of accomplishment was fleeting. Do I really want to do this? But that’s what I’m here for right? They did this to me, didn’t they. Self-doubt was weighing my words down and with each thought, my head pounded. I’m alone, and lonely. Sometimes when you’re alone, you don’t feel lonely, sometimes when you have company you feel lonely. I’m pretty much invisible and ignored now.

 I walked around the neighborhood; I have had already familiarized myself with the stretch of houses, the order of them. First house, a pale pink house with an inflatable pool in the backyard, I saw Charlie walking in, the Redwoods’ house. Second house, a slightly worn down brown house, its TV antennae is slightly crooked and there’s a ‘Welcome’ sign at the gate, just that a few of the letters have fallen off and it spells ‘We  me’ now. Not to sound creepy or anything but I also found out where some of my former classmates live. I have a lot of time to kill and sometimes I happen to see them pass by.

I see someone walk out of their house. A little bounce in their step. My walk speeds up to a jog. He has messy hair and he looks back to his house, as if expecting someone to follow after him. He starts walking down Ryanzes Avenue. I recognize his worn out haversack. Kaelan. There’s not much down that way. I wonder where he’s going. Walking behind him makes me feel as if I’m following him. I quicken my pace and walk beside him. He sighs and shoves his hands into his pocket. He then realizes there’s something inside and feels around, he grasp holds of something and slowly takes it out. A photograph. He glances at it and his expression drops. I lean over, making sure I don’t brush against him and peer at the picture in his hand.

Just as the image registered in my head, he sighs and shoves it back into his pocket. His eyes narrow, as if he felt something. I took a few steps back. He whips around and scans the road behind and when he sees nothing but dried leaves he faces forward again and whispers something to the wind. It was as if he felt a presence, my presence, but we weren’t very close so why?  

I fell down onto the pavement, back facing the ground, my elbows breaking my fall, as if my lungs collapsed, I was breathing heavily. Weird, because I’m dead and I don’t need oxygen, but I’m forcing air into my lungs.

What was that? That photograph, it can’t be can it?

I get up and start running, bringing one foot in front of the other as quick as I can. I run home. The weather was cold and I hear the wind howl as I gained speed. I ran up the stairs of the quiet house, focusing only on getting to the attic. The box still laid there, opened. I rummaged through it, throwing out all the notebooks and shuffling through all the photographs

Found it. There it is. The photo of me and the brown-haired boy, the one of me in a pink halter dress. The same halter dress in one of the boxes in this very attic.  The exact same photo Kaelan had in his pocket.