Memory Lane

PART 05 » acaronar

Dedicated to Simone (simonesaidwhat): D.C. has always been a second home to me in a sense that I've been there so many times, so your writing always takes me back to that familiar feeling. Thank you for your wildly imaginative stories that made my stomach turn with every twist and make me aspire to just understanding the levels of luxury you describe. You're one of the greatest!

Author's Note | can I just say that 3,000 reads is so incredible. I never expected half as much. But what I expected even less was #41 in short story. I just wanna say I love my friends to death and I'm so glad that you're here reading my book and being so nice to me. I can't believe it took me so long to write this chapter but I hope you all love it just as much as I love you guys! -cal

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p a r t f i v e

a c a r o n a r

(v) • to tenderly pull or draw someone closer — to hold as for affection, comfort, or warmth; to fondle, to caress; to embrace, to protect

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WE WERE HOME.

Sean's home, to be exact. His roommate, a guy named Sam, was out tonight and it was just us. He told me to wait at his desk while he washed off all the blood and dirt in the communal shower, to which I happily obliged.

Sean and Sam's dorm room was a peculiar mix of tidy and chaotic and I was well aware of which roommate contributed to what part of it. After all, it had been a week since that fateful night when Sean was ran over, and things between us had progressed into uncharted territory. I could tell now that the piles of clothes on the corner desk — some folded, some sprawled out; all haphazardly stacked against each other — belonged to the boy in question. Sam, on the other hand, hung his clothes up in the closet the way God had intended for him to.

It was funny, though, I could tell other things about Sean now. Like how that night a week ago must've meant more to him than life was willing to show me, but it made one fact of the matter glaringly obvious. He and Carla were no longer together. It was a terrible shame, really, considering how they were exceedingly attracted to each other and seemed to be very compatible. They were two people perfect for each other with no room to grow in their relationship except apart from each other.

While they were just two people, a microcosm in the grand scheme of things, even I felt the ground shake when she stormed away from him in anger and disgust for breaking up with her. I had become so worked up about them for the past few weeks, that I was left with nothing to show for when it didn't work out. All I was left with was a friend group in tatters that was trying desperately to piece itself back together from different hemispheres of the issue.

"You sat here the whole time?" I heard Sean ask, coming into the room with a smile on his face. Not to mention, no clothing on besides a towel draped around his hips and a pair of shower shoes.

Over the course of such little time, I had been getting to know Sean a lot better than I had in the four years I knew him prior. But this was a step or two out of bounds. I had seen him without a shirt on before — overnight high school field trips were the perfect place for the fine lines of personal and impersonal to blur and he and his band of rowdy friends held all the erasers — but naked was out of the question.