My Memory

1

Hey guys so school has seriously been stressing me out but I still wanted to give you people something to read while I work on the next chapter.

This is quite exciting because this is just my original writing and it's my ideas and everything so please send in your feedback, and I hope you like it as much as I do.

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The room was small, and dark, and red. Everything in his house was red. The Christmas lights hanging from his ceiling were red, the carpet on the wooden staircase was red, even the kitchen countertop was red. I remember thinking this was ironic: if he claimed to hate red so much, why was everything in my favorite color?

Just moments before, we were speeding down the main road in his black BMW, trying to escape the storm brewing above us. The clouds were a menacing grey, threatening to spill endless amounts of rain and thunder onto us. It felt as though the clouds were mocking me, as if they knew I feared thunderstorms and didn't care. They would release their contents at any moment, drowning the little BMW and us in the process.

We had made it back to the house just in time: the second we stepped through the back door, the clouds unleashed their terror. As we ran up the stairs to the attic, I heard the thunder roaring above us. The house shook in response, and I panicked.

Now we were sitting in the small red room, on a small red couch that was certainly not designed to fit two people, staring at a small TV screen. There was a set of block people punching trees and building "homes" that were really nothing more than 5x5 wooden cubes.

The backs of my eyes burned. The screen was too bright for me, but I didn't say anything. Every now and then I looked around at the little window in the corner of the room, trying to evade the pain.

As a sort of "I'm sorry" for having to cancel the dinner reservation, he ordered Chinese takeout. We decided to make it as fancy as possible: dining mats, plastic cups, styrofoam plates, elegant plastic forks, and bamboo chopsticks were assembled at the desk.

We ate, side by side. Sometimes he reached for my noodles, but I didn't really care. A large was too much for me to finish on my own, so I appreciated the help.

Outside, the thunderstorm only worsened. Inside, my fears were taking over my brain. I looked around the room, my gaze reverting back to the small window every minute. My fears had manifested into monsters as I imagined the worst: the lights would go out, or a tree would crash through the open window, or the house would fall and we would die.

Noticing something was wrong, he started packing up the food we didn't finish. As much as I wanted to help, I couldn't move from the chair. I was frozen in place, and I hated myself for it.

The soft fabric of the small red couch was a sharp contrast of the cold, hard wood from the chair at the desk. With my helper by my side again, we slowly moved from the chair to the couch, and when we sat down, the padding engulfed us.

His half of the TV screen was chaotic: he was in a dark cave fighting monsters and mining for diamonds next to the ominous lava. My half depicted a scene much more serene: a small farm in front of a cottage near a lake.

It became clear how contradictory we were. He liked adventures, math and science, and the color blue, while I liked old books, paintings and pressed flowers, and the color red.

Yet despite our differences, we worked.

Shifting back to reality, I felt a wave of body heat surround me. It certainly wasn't mine. I was always cold and the rain outside had only made it worse. Confused, I looked down and saw a pair of arms wrapped around me. I glanced up and met his eyes, admiring me as if I was the only thing in the world that mattered.

At that moment, I felt safe. Despite the torrential rainstorm outside, despite my immense fear of thunderstorms, despite the many ways we contradicted each other, despite everything, I felt as though I was exactly where I needed to be. The smell of the rain wafted into the room and, for just a moment, when it seemed as though the world was perfectly still, I felt at ease.

Later, I realized what I wasn't able to determine at that moment. And when I came home that night it hit me hard, as if I had been struck by a bolt of lightning.

For the first time in years, I was happy.