Stuck On You

July 25, 2015

I almost didn’t pack the China. I was afraid it was going to remind me of Christmas with him. Right now, I didn’t know how many memories I wanted to remember. Was I going to drop him out of sight and out of mind? Never to hear from him again?

 

Sighing, I close the cardboard flaps. There only seemed to be another few boxes left to be packed. One of them would be my notebooks and music, another with the movies, and the last with my speaker and laptop. Everything was already in piles, ready to be placed inside the empty voids.

 

Everything was ready to go. I had become so comfortable- I was so comfortable here- that leaving seemed ridiculous. Somehow, this place filled with all of it’s mixed pain and joy, had become a home. This was one of the very few times where leaving felt like a loss rather than a gain.

 

As I packed away the movies, I noticed one of the titles wasn’t marked with the red band of sharpie I put on all movable items. I knew I had my own copy, but this one wasn’t it. This one was his. I handle the case with care, peeling it open to make sure the disk was still in there. It was. I swallow, trying to ignore the way my breath caught over Captain America.

 

“I’ve got to go classic, Captain America.”

 

The memory is blurred, but still rings out in his same tone. When he had given it to me, it had just been a loan. He was over here so often it seemed unnecessary to take it home. He could have easily come down the hall and retrieved it, but he didn’t. He probably forgot.

 

I take a sticky note from my side and scribble a note across it. The sticky note is placed on the case and then set off to the side; the beginning of a pile of things to return.

 

The remaining movies I took in chunks, not caring to place every movie by title anymore. If I took one of his; he might not even notice, or care, anyway. He wasn’t as organized as I was. Unless he was looking for it in particular, he wouldn’t notice. I wonder if that is how it will be when I leave?

 

Placing the flaps down, my imagination runs wild. He’ll come up to the door in a day or two, twisting the handle but realizing it’s locked. He’ll pound in the door with his knuckles, calling out my name. None of my neighbors will have ever known my name, unable to inform him that I’ve left. Taking the lonely elevator down, he’ll ask at the desk if he had seen me. The man will shake his head rather than the familiar tilt up of his chin. Maybe he’ll even speak. He might tell Michael that I left. That it’s too late. Maybe he’d cry. Probably not.

 

My CD’s have all been packed away at this point. My speaker sits off the the side with my laptop, two things that won’t take more than three seconds to put away. The same company that helped me move in promised to help me move out. They should be here any minute now.

 

I place my speaker and laptop in the box, shoving some old papers along the sides to keep it from shifting too much. The flight was going to take most of my savings, seeing as how I usually started to put aside money when I got that feeling that I wanted to move soon. Luckily, I always had an extra account specific to my spontaneity.

 

I had enough to keep me going for a good month before needing to bust into my extra ‘spontaneity’ account. That left me a month to find a job. I knew I could talk to Callie and Em and have them figure out a way to get me back into my old position, even a better one if wanted. But I didn’t want to have to rely on them to support me. I needed to know how to do it myself.