Out in the Wind

Chapter 1

How do you fit your entire life into one box? 16 years of life, presents, memorabilia, nostalgia, laughter, smiles, heartache, tears, phases, love... It wasn't even possible. What do you take with you and what do you leave behind? What is more important? Necessities or something that has meant the world to you for many years? Do needs take preference above memories?

It has taken me four days of packing and unpacking the same box, laughing with hysterical laughter at certain times, and other times I could not help the tears that fell into the box between the relics of my past. Now I can finally write my name on top of the box. C-O-R-Y.

Now came the biggest task of all. I have packed away what was going with me, but the room was still stuffed to the rim, relics of a life lived for the past sixteen years.

Teddy on the shelf above my bed was the very first toy I ever owned. He was missing an eye now. I chewed it off around the age of two, but even after that he was still welcome in my arms and my bed. Just because he didn't have all his parts anymore didn't mean that he would be thrown away. He was the first part of my life, and I guess I saved him to remember that. He was the part of my life of which I had the least memories if any, but there was no place for him where I was going. He would not be safe. It would be better if he went with the rest of the stuff into a storage garage. Somewhere I can go back to him when everything was over and the happy times could return.

I still remember the day I got the television that was now neatly covered in bubble wrap. It was the birthday before last and it was the very last present my grandmother had given to me before she passed away. That had been a shock to me. I had never seen a dead person until the open casket at my grandmother's funeral. She didn't look like she was sleeping at all. Her lips were pressed to tight and she would never have worn that shade of pink lipstick they had smeared on her lips. She always told me that my grandfather would have loved to meet me, but her lips had never been that pink when she reminisced about him over tea.

I could barely glance over to the books standing in a pile in the corner of the room. They were just too sad to look at. My dad had given me one at every birthday, Christmas, or high mark I got in an exam. Each one carefully picked out to take me on the adventure of my life. I only packed the last one he gave me into the box I was taking with me. He gave me the very last package I would ever open only four months ago. It was the day after I came out of the closet. He had hugged me and told me that he would have loved me even if I was a murderer, then he sent me off to bed. The next morning at breakfast he gave me the package and reminded me to always be true to myself. To never hide what was in my heart.

"Cory!"

The voice cut through my memories like a warm knife through butter. I wonder if they understood just how much I really needed to be in my room right now, soaking in every piece of happiness I had created here for my long journey forward.

"Cory! Come here!" my mom's voice rang through the house for a second time. There was already an echo through the house that I was not used to. Like it was already empty, as if the house itself had kicked us out before we even had time to leave by ourselves.

"I'm coming!" I yelled back, but before I actually left the room I first grabbed Teddy and placed him on the box I was taking with me. He might have been safer in storage, but we had seen so much together. A weird part of me really wanted him with me all the way. Only then did I head downstairs to where the echo of my mother's voice originated.

I used to always jump the stairs, two at a time. I didn't do it this time. I walked slowly. Lately every time my mother called out my name there was some sort of bad news and honestly I wanted to prolong it for as long as I could. It was not like I was scared. It was just that I wasn't used to this sinking feeling in my stomach just yet. I had only known fuzzy feelings of love for all my life. Now everything was in a cold grip.