When Our Stars Aligned

Chapter Fifty-Six

After I brought the box of mics and headphones upstairs and put the box by the door I went upstairs to find Matt. I walked in each guest room until I finally found him in the last one at the end of the hall.

"Is there anything else in these rooms besides the sheets?" he asked as he stripped the sheets off the last bed.
I shook my head as I took the pillow cases off the pillows. "Nope, just these" I said.

He nodded as he gathered the bundle of fabric and shoved it all in a box with the other sheets. "One last room and we're done" he said as he leaned against the wall.

I knew immediately which room he was talking about. Our room. I turned and looked at the open door of mine and Kendall's old room, a frown forming on my lips.

"Hey," Matt said as he walked over and hugged me, "It's fine. You need to do this. It'll be okay and I'm right here. If you need to stop and cry, do it." I squeezed him once and then let go, making my way to our old bedroom.

Most of my clothes were already at my parents' house so I took the remaining ones and folded them and placed them neatly in a box labeled "CLOTHES." As I did that, Matt stripped the bed and got all my leftover toiletries out of the bathroom and put them all in a box.

Almost an hour later, the room was practically bare. I was double-checking the closet when I looked up and saw a big tupperware box. "Matt come help me!" I called.

He came in the walk-in closet and looked at me. "Grab that please," I said pointing at the box, "It shouldn't be too heavy. It's just Kendall's nerf stuff I think." Matt shook his head and laughed as he climbed up on a stool to get the box.

As he pulled the box down something else fell but I ignored it. He placed the box on the carpeted floor and we looked in it. Sure enough there were four nerf guns and tons of foam darts.

"How come I never knew this box existed?" Matt asked excitedly. I laughed at how excited he was at the sight of the toys.

"I'm surprised you never got caught in one of our little wars actually. We had one at least once a week!" I told him, reminiscing about all the times I kicked Kendall's butt with nothing but a foam dart.

"I totally want one for my birthday" Matt said admiring Kendall's nerf collection.

"Yeah okay, I'll get right on that" I said rolling my eyes. "While you take that out I'm going to double-check everything."

Matt nodded and snapped the lid back on the container before carrying it down the stairs and out to the car. I did a quick walk through of the guest rooms just to make sure none of the guys had left anything behind since the last time they were here.

As I suspected they were all empty. Going into the master bathroom in our bedroom I found the same emptiness. I checked the dresser drawers. Empty. Under the bed. Nothing.

I quickly glanced in the closet before reaching my hand in to turn off the light but something caught my eye. I did a double take and noticed the thing that had fallen earlier when Matt pulled down the box.

I walked over and crouched down next to it, realizing it was a sweatshirt. I remembered Kendall having several gray hoodies but I thought he had taken them all with him.

Curiously, I turned the sweatshirt different ways until I could read the writing on it. That was when I realized that it wasn't one of Kendall's. It was mine.

I read the cursive script on the back and felt a tug on my heartstrings. It was my hoodie that Kendall had given me at Christmas; the one that had Schmidt's Girl written on the back.