In the arms of no one (Completed)

Chapter Two

Valen's POV

------

Bending at the waist to reach the flap of the suitcase I had just packed, I quickly take one surrepticious last look around the room to see if there's anything else I would like to take with me on my journey. The rest of my personal effects will most likely be packed up by the staff in preparation for being shipped over to Aunty Elizabeth's. Personally, I think that would be a stupid thing to do. It would mean wasting space on a shipping container, my belongings will only fill that b!tch up one quarter of the way. Unless someone on staff decides to be nice enough to also ship my baby and my handsome beast. God, please let someone send my car and motorbike to me. Sure, I don't have an international license - but how hard can it be to obtain one? I mentally make a note to speak with Lucas about the possibility of having my vehicle's added to the list of belongings that will meet me in America on the way to the airport.

My eyes run over my queen-sized bed, the dark purple and teal duvet set brings tears to my eyes when I think about the person that gave it to me. He's no longer a part of my life, hasn't been for a while - but the memories that we made in this very room only make me want to run and hide somewhere in this house so that I don't have to leave it.

But those are the sentiments of a child and I haven't been one of those for a very long time in many ways.

It took me an hour and a half to pack as many of the bare essentials that I thought I might need while I await for the rest of my belongings. During that time, my mum has come to my door multiple times to fling it open, cuss me out and thank the tech gods, for online check-ins. Each time that she left without closing the door, I would slowly walk towards the door and equally as slowly close it, feeling more and more upset over my situation and how I can't really do anything to change it.

I walk over to my wall of memories, that's what my two childhood friends and I called it when we decided that we would go wild on one of the walls in my room. At the time, it was really important to have some space to display all of our memorable moments. Over the years, I've added more pictures and memorabilia to it. Until now it's a haphazard display of images, quotes and colours, everything that's been or is still important to me is on that wall. On the edges of my wall display, it's painfully obvious that my two childhood friends have been replaced with a group of new people.

I look at each photo carefully, taking down a few that mean a lot to me and despite my dire situation, they make me smile with the memories that they hold.

A day at the beach. BBQ dinners or lunches with the staff. School productions. Sports days. Photos of my two friends and I, and more recently, photos of my new group of friends and I at parties, at the skate park, at the Horowhenua Drag Way. In most of the recent photos I am either drunk off my ass or high as a f*cking kite.

Good times.

Heaving my duffle bag onto my desk, I tug on the zipper, opening the sides wide to place the photos in between the pages of my favourite book, The Art of War - by Sun Tzu, to keep them safe. I stalk back over to the memory wall to double check that I have all the important memories and unpin a few more momentos and photographs.

Next, I walk towards a bookshelf, picking up a few memory tokens. The gumball machine ring from the dairy on Bartholomew Road that one of my friends won for me when we were 8 years old. The hot rod car I won by playing four square at school. The snow globe from Secret LIL Shak in Bulls. I pick up a few more and bend to open my suit case and shove them in between my clothes. I hope that the fabric will protect everything sufficiently during the trip.

Sighing in resignation, I finally stalk over to the full-length mirror on my wardrobe door to carefully look at myself. I like what I'm wearing, I think to myself as I take in the simple outfit; blue distressed, boyfriend jeans, simple white t-shirt and black combat boots. Lifting the sleeve of my tshirt up, I take time to admire the three-quarter sleeve colourful tattoo on my left arm, smiling at the memory of when I got it done. I was drunk and high that night and an uncle of one of the guys I hung out with every weekend was in town for some tattoo artist convention in Palmerston North. He had a stall open at the convention for four days, giving out discounted work. The crew convinced me to sit under his needle the night before he left to go back home to Australia, and I am so glad that I gave in, despite my misgivings.