Dream's Intuition

Chapter 13 - Packing Up Kay

CHAPTER 13

            Even though everything seemed to have straightened itself out, my stomach still did not agree, it would probably be a matter of days before my insides caught up with my head.

            I spent days packing up my things; the boxes lined the ways down the hallways of my apartment.  The last place that was left to tear down was Kay’s room, outside of a few things that I saw as essential to daily existence. 

            I dreaded packing up her room, it felt like an invasion of her privacy, like going through her underwear drawer.  Mom Pearson was still having a hard time coming to terms with Kay leaving and had asked me to do so.  Kay was an only child to a single mother, Amanda was everything she had and now that she was gone, she had a void that needed to be filled.  When she originally hadn’t heard from Kay for a few days she was fine, but then when it sunk in that she had moved away, she seemed lost.  She would call the apartment and her words would trail off into trifle illogical sentences.  I entertained her telephone calls knowing that eventually she would not even have that anymore.  I reassured her that soon Kay would call with her new phone number and that she probably just had to wait for them to come and set it up, Toronto was a big city and it probably took her long to get the right accommodations and then it could take months to get the phone line installed.

“You know how Kay is, you won’t hear from her until everything is perfect…She gets stressed out with all that stuff…I know don’t worry…I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”  I never heard anything, other then a few emails but nothing substantial. 

            Kay was a princess and her room exemplified that aura.  I remember sitting on her bed, which was so soft you could sink down into it and fall asleep instantly.  There were nights where we would lay for hours taking about everything unimportant in our lives, that for some reason.  I was the most stereotypical female in her presence, everything I did made me want to gag but I loved every moment of it.  I missed those moments laying in her bed, and wrapping my arms around her when I needed too.  I missed how she would let me sleep with her like that night after my break up with Jon. 

            I threw myself down onto her bed and I sunk like I had the million times before.  It was all the little things that made her leaving so hard to deal with.  I lay there for what seemed like hours, just staring at the ceiling and thinking about nothing.  My mind drifted away and it was nice to just let everything go blank. 

            It ended up taking less time then I thought it would, to finish packing up all her things.  I left the boxes at the foot of the bed and called her mother to let her know that I was done.  She promised to be by after work tomorrow to collect all the stuff so that I could move out by the end of the week.  She seemed better today then she had the last time I talked to her. 

            With my last few days of freedom, I just wanted to enjoy my solitude.  I pulled out some photo albums that I had been postponing to pack away.

            Kay and I were in love with the camera, we documented photos of ourselves doing everything and anything.  Our bookshelves were lined full of albums, and there were many pictures on disk that I had still not developed. 

            All the pictures were ordered based on linage starting with the prep stage, the out stage and then the “I can’t believe I drank that much and am still standing” stage.  They were outrageously funny as you saw the progression.  At the beginning of the night the faces are all fresh and the make up has just been applied with perfection, by the time the third stage comes around, eyes appear as slits as we attempt to hold our heads up.  Cheeks are rosy, based on alcohol consumption.  Even the horrible pictures found their way into the albums, with no exception.

            Three hours later I had finished rummaging through the photo albums with a box of tissues.  My face was red and puffy from crying; it was a good kind of crying, based on fond memories that would live on forever in our photographs and my mind.  It was almost a final farewell to Kay.  She was off enjoying her new life in Toronto and if I remember correctly I often forgot about her when I had moved away for school. Kay is my best friend and when I was MIA at university for three years, I became a phantom in her life.  When I came back everything was like it was.   It was natural, she was making new friends and getting in touch with her new surroundings.  The only disappointing note on my part was that her new life did not contain me.  I took a few breathes in to calm my nerves down.  It was going to be ok.  Reality sunk in.  She was gone and probably never coming back, leaving me sitting on her bedroom floor missing her.