I walked through the front door with my arms full of groceries. I was slightly worried about what I would find, but when I walked in and found no sign of the boy my heart sank.
I looked around the room, nothing had been touched at all.
"Michael?" I called, "Are you here?"
He'd put up the curtains, but not what I was expecting. The blankets he'd pulled out of the box were folded on my mattress, which he had made up for me for tonight, and there was proper black curtains hanging from the hooks above the window frame.
I wondered where he'd got the curtains from, because they were proper ones that fitted perfectly. He'd hooked them up in the right way and had left the place looking nicer than it had looked when I had left.
I wandered into the kitchen when my arms started to feel numb from the weight of the shopping and placed everything on the counter. I unpacked everything, and when I was finished I walked around again, double checking Michael wasn't here.
I gave up after lapping the house, and wandered back into the lounge and sat on my bed.
The house was creaking again, enough this time for it to properly catch my attention. I sighed, and rubbed my face in my hands. My long blonde hair fell into my face and I quickly tied it into a messy bun to avoid it falling into my eyes. I was about to get up to make a sandwich but a loud noise went off upstairs. I felt slightly anxious, but decided to check it out anyway.
I hauled myself from my bed and stood up, slowly making my way up the stairs. My heart beat was strong in my chest, and I started to wonder if this was such a good idea.
I'd always had a phobia of things like this, whatever this was.
I wasn't strong, or particularly brave, so what was I even going to do if there was someone there? I considered getting someone to check for me, then remembered I had no friends near by and didn't want to bother the neighbours with something potentially ridiculous.
I found myself at the top of the stairs, and walked into all of the rooms but found nothing. I breathed out a sigh of relief, and was about to wander back downstairs when I found the attic. I don't know how I hadn't noticed it before, there was a thick string hanging from the ceiling in the corridor, it wasn't exactly subtle.
I pulled the string towards me, and it opened. A small ladder extended towards me, and I secured it down and began to climb up it. The wooden steps were weak under my weight, but were strong enough to hold me. just.
The attic was absolutely cluttered full of useful things. Beds, drawers and cabinets where scattered messily everywhere. I walked around, looking at everything. There was an xbox sitting on the ground, it looked perfectly fine, along with a set of games and an old TV set. It had the right cords built in to attach the xbox, I had no idea why it had been left here before I moved in, most of this stuff was perfectly usable and really nice. I then found a few chairs and an old couch, it looked decent enough for me to use downstairs, I hoped the old owners wouldn't mind, whoever they were.
I climbed back down and walked downstairs to clear some space for the new things I had found.
I shifted space for the chairs and carried a box full of my family and baby photos up to the attic. I placed the box on a dusty old desk, and carried one chair down by myself, I couldn't handle any more weight than that per trip.
I carried it into the lounge and placed it in the corner of the room when there was a knock on the door.
I quickly patted my shirt down to unwrinkle it and made my way to the door. I pulled the large frame towards me and found Michael standing there. He'd changed his shirt from when I last saw him an hour ago to a greenday shirt.
