I am Chris (bwwm)

A hopeful movement (5)

Dedicated to neahrose because she expected an update in two weeks and got a month. I'm sorry. 

Chapter five: A hopeful movement:

"Is that mold behind the fridge?" My mother cried out, looking appalled. The landlord stepped in front of her to shield her from the view as if that would make it disappear. "Yes, that is definitely mold. C'mon guys." Me and my father exchanged looks, but trailed after her nonetheless. The landlord glared at us as we left.

The was probably the fifth apartment we had looked at today. Wait, correction. This was the fifth apartment we had looked at and mom my had found something wrong with it. It was either to floor boards were too creaky, or the tiles were too chipped, the A/C was crap, or the walls were too thin. It was always something. "Mom," I said, as I slid in the back seat and pulled out the next set of apartment papers. "I'm starting to think you don't want me to leave."

She rolled her eyes at me in the rear view mirror. "Do you really think I would do that? I'm trying to find the best possible place for my baby to live, it that a crime?" She sniffed. My father and I exchanged knowing looks. The way this was looking, I probably was going to be stuck in my parent's house for the next month or so.

"Look, mom," I glanced at the time on the dashboard. It was nearing three o'clock and we had left at eleven o'clock. This was taking much longer than it needed to. "The next place we look at is where I'm staying. No matter how crappy it is, I'm going to live there. I just want to get this over with." She opened her mouth to protest, but my father put his hand over her's and she closed her mouth but gave him the 'lemonade mouth' as he called it.

 I stared out the window as we went drove to our next destination. It was a sunny day that gave off the illusion of warmth. The reality was that it was cold enough for me to wear two tank-tops and a sweater. If it wasn't so cold, it would have been a nice day. There wasn't a cloud in the clear blue sky.

I placed my hand on the cold window and watched to trees blur by until we stopped in front of a modest looking building. We exited the car and went inside to look around. There was a woman with graying bush of black hair sitting behind a desk reading a magazine. She looked up at our arrival and smiled. "Hi, we're looking for this apartment showing..." She pointed to the gray picture of the complex on the paper we had printed out this morning.

"Go up four sets of stairs then turn to the left." The landlady said pleasantly. My mom smiled warmly at her before she turned and started up the stairs. My dad and I drifted after her. We followed her up four sets of stairs of creaky stairs before we got to what was going to be my new home for the next few months if everything went well.

We stepped inside the doorway and I wasn't immediately in love. It was far from perfect. In fact it was pretty mediocre. The kitchen was tiny, the bathroom maybe was four tiles larger than the kitchen, and the bedroom was off to the side of the living room. My parents lingered near the doorway talking to the other landlady who co-owned it with the woman downstairs; while I went to go check out the bedroom.

I closed the creaky bedroom door behind me and the chatter in the other room died out behind me. It was an okay bedroom. It was dark at the moment because the curtains were drawn. walked over to one of the windows and knotted the curtain. Some light steamed into through the dirty window. I did the same to the other window and more light filtered in through the grime.

Now that I could see, I made a closer inspection. There was an empty alcove directly across from the door. I could fit a bed or working desk in it. There was dust lining the ceiling fan and covering the baseboards. There were white patches on the wall where the previous owner had put posters or picture frames. Apparently he or she didn't think they needed to move them when they painted.