Found Along The Way

Chapter twelve

A week had passed since Anya planned to move in with Lucas, and things were well under way.

"Anya which one of these pencil boxes are you taking?" Lucas yelled from the bottom of the stairs, examining the two red boxes filled with charcoal and coloured pencils.

Anya appeared at the height of the staircase holding a large box labelled 'Unfinished pieces', and began to run down, yelling in return,

"Both of them, they're not just any old pencils."

Lucas's face was bewildered, who needed so many pencils? but he shrugged and took them out to the car. His black Jeep was overflowing with boxes and bags of Anya's belongings. It was odd for her to see all her stuff in a car, but not as odd as it would be for her to see her room for the last time, completely empty.

She wandered upstairs and sat in the middle of her now blank room, with a warm comforting coffee in the mug she bought when she first moved in to the house.

"Lina guess what I got us?" Anya announced, as Lina paused her rummaging through a large brown box, packed with Christmas ornaments for the house, and looked up at Anya in surprise.

"House mugs. See mine has a bauble on it because I like decorating, and yours has a bottle of sherry because that's all you drink around this time of year!" Lina broke out in a fit of laughter, putting her arm around her best friend. They stood admiring the empty house that they'd put their money together for the past year to get the deposit down on. It was theirs, for a certain amount of money per month of course. But it was something they'd built to achieve completely by themselves by nineteen.

"Hey, I don't have any sherry, but I do have champagne! How about it?"

She gazed at her orange wall that used to feature years' worth of art, and her oak-wood floor void of the pink fluffy rug she kept there for when the winter made her feet too cold in the morning. Lina stood in the door-frame quietly, and Anya knew that she was behind her.

"I know it's not Christmas, but I felt like it was appropriate to drink from this mug today." She said, not looking away from the orange in front of her. Lina came and sat next to Anya on the creaky floor, and placed her festive mug next to Anya's.

"It really is lady." She said, holding Anya's hand. The girls smiled contently for a moment.

"Hey Anya, you ready to go down to the car? It's all packed." She whipped her head around to see Lucas there and jumped to her feet.

"Race me down?" She chuckled.

"You're on." They bolted out the room like kids and ran down the stairs laughing, it was an exciting day. Joey and Lina watched from the top of the stairs as their friends rushed out the door with the final bags in a hurry.

"I'll race you Joe."

"Hilarious sweetheart." Joey hugged her shoulders as they chuckled at the conversation.

They all gathered around Lucas's car, now filled to the brim with everything they'd taken of Anya's from the house. You never think you have a lot of stuff until it's right in front of you, exposed from all the comfy hiding places everything was once in. It was surreal. Anya stepped into Lucas's car with her pink backpack loosely slung over her shoulder, Lina grabbed her hand.

"Ann, thank you." Lina said sincerely. Anya smiled at Lina, nodding, and then let go to close the door.

Lucas turned on the engine and the car began to pull out of their paved driveway, Anya rolled the window down and blew a kiss at her old house-mates as she drove away.

"This is it then Anya, I suppose."

"This is it." The words sent a chill down her spine, but she accompanied it with a smile. It wasn't such a bad thing, she thought.

"Ok Lucas, so what's on the schedule for today?" She asked, dismissing her focus from the autumn surroundings whirling past her window, to look at Lucas.

"I was thinking, drop the boxes off at mine, then go grab a bite to eat? We have writers club in about 4 hours so I think we can sort out your new room when we get back from there."

Man he's thought this through hasn't he.

"Sounds like a plan, Mr. Organised."

"Eh I just like to see things clearly before I do them."

The rest of the afternoon was spent in an excited haze, eating fries and talking about ideas for Anya's room. Living there was of course temporary, but with any change, Anya always made it aesthetically pleasing. Her art came out in almost any situation.

Even in writers group, where she sat sketching delicate ideas while pretending to listen. She was pretending up until she heard some muttering from behind her, casual gossiping that got her attention.

"What a waste of potential."

"I know, she's so young."

"Tragic."

Who were they talking about, had someone died? Whatever it was, it had made Anya's ears prick up, and her face turn red with rage when she heard someone say "Lina."

It was clear that Lucas had heard this too, as he stopped his flow of writing to turn around and say

"If you put all the time you spend gossiping into your work, maybe you'd be nearly as good as Lina."

Their faces flushed with embarrassment, stuttering insincere apologies, and dragging themselves to the table so they could sit in silence.

Anya gave Lucas her kindest look of gratitude, at this moment she couldn't have liked him more.

It was unfair what people had to say about Lina, it's not like she was a teenager who sleeps around and is going to resign to a lonely life of being a sad housewife with no passion or job aside from being 'mom'. Anya trusted that Joey and Lina were in a place of financial security, and were bringing their child into an environment of love and trust. And there was no way anyone was going to let Lina give up her passion because of becoming a mother.

It was clear that it would be hard for Lina to go back into the writers group, knowing how judgemental some people could be, but her passion for writing was also clear, so Anya knew her best friend would be able to face it, and if not, they'd face it together.