Finally some actual peace away from everybody. I can now officially say summer has started for me at least. I was home alone eating some scrumptious lunch I cooked up in my kitchen. Big meaty sandwich with lots of mayo and lettuce. Honestly, being home alone is all I needed. After a week passed with Dylan he finally went home. I have no idea what's going on with him. We haven't spoken since. Anyways, I'm trying not to think about it. It was Friday afternoon and I have the house to myself.
My mother was at the diner, as usually, and my father had to go visit my uncle in the hospital. Mom and I were never close to my Uncle, but my father apparently saw him as a father figure. I don't know much about what's going on with that situation, but dad said he just needed to go see him. He won't be back until Monday. Since my mom is going to be working most of the time, I'm home alone. Here I am, just relaxing. I think I am. I stare at my phone. Waiting for it go off. Waiting for a text message from anybody.
I grab my phone and there's still nothing. Only the time, 1;45 p.m. I sighed and threw it across from me, onto the other couch. I couldn't believe that I'm a senior. That my friends and I are seniors. Four years sure do go by fast. As I get up to put my plate in the sink, my phone goes off. I try to ignore it, by doing what I need to do. Cleaning my mess. Ring Ring. Over and over, it doesn't stop.
I fall onto my couch and click my phone on. I just received ten messages from Leo all being the word "Hey". I haven't spoken to him either. I really have to stop doing this to my friends. I open up the chat and text him back.
Dont spam douc---dude
Fiiinnnne, are u dead? No texts from you since Monday
Yep I am the ded.
Shoot well can I have your playstation?
Nope my ghost won't allow it
lol well anyways can I come over?
Sure I'm home alone too, so more fun?
Shall I invite Dylan ;)
.....
s..sorry?
just shut the fuck up. get here quick though
thx k bye
I flopped onto the floor in disgust. I can't believe he made that joke about Dylan. It kind of pisses me off. Dylan, right now, is someone I don't want to talk about. I'm sure Leo will be have in an instant, he's always eager to come to my house. In order to prepare for my amigo's arrival. I take a glance at the bottom floor of the house and it's a....mess. Leo coming over or not, I have to clean the place anyways. Mom doesn't like a dirty home when she comes back. Dad and I tend to leave our stuff around. We don't really do it on purpose. Honestly...we're just lazy. Sorry mom.
I get cleaning as time passes. Thirty minutes and I'm almost done. I grab a book from the living room to put back into my parent's room. 'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley. Never enjoyed it to be honest. I run upstairs and into my parent's room, but before I could there was a loud bump from above. The sound coming from attic. Nope, fuck that shit. I'm out of here I immediately thought. So I threw the book onto my parent's bed and ran downstairs. Once I did there was another loud noise which made me jump out of my skin. However, it was coming from the front door. Leo was here.
I open the door and right before he says hi, I grab him by his shirt and pull him in quickly. "Dude get in here quick, there's something in my attic!"
"Hey!! Calm down Henry. You're gonna make me drop the cupcakes."
I turn around and noticed that he did have cupcakes. "Why do you have those?" I asked.
"Well. My mother wanted me to give these to you because of what happened at De--"
"Alright...alright. Just don't mention that stuff. Alright?" I interrupt.
"Let me finish. This one is for you Henry." He hands me a chocolate chip cupcake with a smiley face frosted onto it.
"Uh...what's this for?"
"Just have it." He walked off towards the kitchen to place the rest in the fridge. Letting me know that the rest were for my parents. That's when he finally asks about the attic. I grab him by the hand and we run up the stairs. I pointed up towards the hatch in the ceiling. There was a loud noise that came from up there I tell him.
"Maybe...there's someone in there?"
"Not. Funny. Leo."
I jump up and grab onto the latch. The latch pulled out and I was able to bring an old wooden ladder down with me. Dust came raining down which led to the both of us coughing away. "Jesus, when was the last time you guys have been in there?" Dylan asks.
"Since we moved in. We put all of our junk in here." I told him. No sounds could be heard from the attic, but whatever made the noise. I hoped it was long gone. We make our way up, slowly. Making sure the ladder doesn't give out on us. I climb up and it's completely dark. I take out my phone and turn on the flashlight. Right in from of me was a mask that made me scream. Causing me to jump back, hitting my head against a wooden post. As I try to get my sense in check, I can hear Leo laugh at me.
He grabs the mask and examines it. It was an old theater mask. I don't know where it comes from, but it was creepy as hell. The face was a face of distraught. I tell Leo to throw it away somewhere and so he does. Fuck that mask. We make our way across a few boxes and find the item that made the loud noise. To my relief it was just an old lamp that must've fell over, but Leo wasn't buying it.
"Oh yeah, something had to push that over, no freaking way did that fall on its own."
"Stop talking like that. It just fell over Leo. Nothing else."
"Awww. Is poor wittle Henwry scared?"
"Shut. Up."
I push him back and he tumbles next to a pile of boxes. I laugh for a bit as he tries to get off. He freaks out due to spiderwebs wrapped around him. I wipe my eye from a tear of joy and see some writing on one of the boxes. Photos. It had said. I wondered why they were up here, since mom always kept most photos in the room. I tell Leo to move over as I drag the box between us. I take a seat and use the plug from the lamp to cut through the tape that kept whatever secrets the box had.
Leo sat on the other side of the box in front of me. He didn't say much, but was hoping the photos were something else as he says. I didn't like where his mind was going, so I hope the photos weren't what he was thinking. I open the box and it's just a ton of binders. Six black binders, each one being labeled with certain dates. Dating back from 1980's to 2005. Leo was quick to look through the binders, but I held him back. There was something else inside with them. An old Polaroid camera wrapped in cloth.
"What is that thing?" Leo asks.
I raise an eyebrow at him thinking that he was joking, but his face said he wasn't.
"Leo, it's a Polaroid camera. They're vintage stuff and super cool to have. Look there's even some leftover film left." I pull out a small box of film and dusted it off. I finally let Leo look inside the binders and it was just family. Family I didn't recognize until I saw my dad in some of that.
"I wonder why my dad kept this stuff."
Leo shrugged, "You think they gave it to him as a gift. Maybe he was next in the family to do so."
"I'll have to ask him when he comes back Monday then. Look, there's even photos of my mom and dad before I was born. The last photo was in 2005, years after I was born, but I'm not in any of them."
"Oooo, Henry. This is really exciting. Maybe you'll learn some deep history with your family on your dad's side."
"Yeah...it's pretty cool. Anyways say cheese, Hopefully it still works."
Leo quickly poses as he pretends to look through the binder. He smiles and glances at me. I press the button taking the photo of my best friend. The photo reels out and I store it in my pocket. Wondering it'll develop or not. I grab Leo and throw my arm over his shoulders.
"Come on, Henry. This isn't a photo shoot." He seemed annoyed by it, but I took a photo of us two together. I slip this one into my other pocket. Before we head down there was scratching coming from other boxes. Leo and I push each other, but I ended up shoving Leo in front of me. Telling him to go check it out. He walks closer towards the box as I tip toe towards the ladder back down. I had a binder of photos and the camera wrapped in my hands.
Once Leo got closer to the boxes the scratching stopped. He slides a box over and a mouse jumps out in front of him. Knocking him onto the floor.
"SEE YA ON THE OTHER SIDE!" I race down the ladder as he scrambles for the exit also. We climb down the ladder, so that I can close the damn attic. Making the stupid mouse stays up there and starves.
An hour later, Leo and I are on the floor in the living room. The binder was on the floor in front of us. It was the 2005 binder, so I got to tell Leo who was who in each photo. However, there were some people I didn't recognize, but I'm sure they were family in some ways. That's when an idea clicked in my head. I ran upstairs, leaving Leo behind, to grab a binder from my backpack. I emptied it out and met back with Leo who was trying to figure out how the camera works.
Of course, I take it away from him before he breaks it. I set the new binder down and grabbed the two photos from my pockets. They were both fully developed and came out actually good. I opened up my binder and taped both of the photos inside. I used a marker to write 2018-. I told Leo that I'll write the last year when I die. I let him know that this binder will have every photo of us and our friends together. Including family of course.
"That's a great idea Henry!" He said.
"It'll be fun," I suggested, "Hopefully this film lasts me until I can find another way to obtain more. I'm sure it'll be expensive."
We look at the photos again and it was quiet. I actually enjoyed Leo being here. We haven't hung out for more than a week and it felt good to know my best friend was by my side. I'm probably being really dramatic about it, but today just has been really good so far and learning about these photos is really interesting. As we sat there for awhile, Leo brought up Senior year.
"Our last summer, Henry."
"Yeah, I didn't realize that until you said that Leo." I spoke with sarcasm.
"Senior year is going to be awesome right?"
"Only, if we make it awesome. I'm sure this last year will be the best."
"Yeah...maybe."
I close the binder and hide it behind the television. I didn't know where to put the camera, but Leo took it from me and hid it himself in my room. He just shoved it in my closet somewhere. I tell him thanks, but I don't know if I should worry it could be broken. I give him a pat on the back and set ourselves back onto the floor of my living room. For the most part we just watched Netflix. The really overrated one. You know what I'm talking about if you own Netflix.
3 episodes in and I got up to get food from the kitchen. Once I came back, Leo looked like he was thinking about something. He wasn't watching the show, but zoning off somewhere else.
"Hey Leo? Are you alright?"
"Yeah, well...yea. I am."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, but I do have one question and you don't have to answer this by the way."
Shit.
"So what happened at the twin's house?"
Comments (0)
See all