“You have your Paints?” Charlie asks as she rummages through my wardrobe across the room.

“No I don’t think I’ll need them considering every inch of my house has at least one tube of paint stowed away in it.” I zip up my suitcase and sling my backpack over my shoulder. 

“True.” She shuts my wardrobe doors and grabs the suitcase from my hands. “Sometimes I forget that your life consists wholly of art and almost nothing else. It’s like a STEM nightmare.”

“I wish I could say I was born into it, but I feel like I was more so dragged into it.” Charlie holds my door open for me so I can exit without tripping over myself a million times.

The door swings shut behind us. “Can you tell me again why you’re taking the bus back home when you gave a perfectly good car?”

I shrug. “I’d say I have a good reason but really I just don’t feel like driving. I wasn’t ever really a fan of driving unless I absolutely need to. Like the other night when the campus felt a little suffocating after I had that nightmare. Between suffocating and driving, I’d much rather drive.”

“Why do you even have a car then?” She probes.

“My parents wanted me to have it. They said they would feel better if I took it.” I sigh. “That probably makes me sound a little spoiled doesn’t it.”

She shakes her head. “Naw. It doesn’t. Everybody is entitled to their preferences. Can’t help what our parents do either. Like my mom forced me to take my dad’s old Vespa. Can’t even ride the damn thing because it falls apart constantly.” She hands me my suitcase once we get to the building exit. “Well this is where we part for the next week and half. I would walk down to the bus stop with you but my mom is gonna blow her top if she walks into my dorm and doesn’t see me there packing my entire life away.” She waves goodbye and runs off. 

I wheel my suitcase down the uneven stone path circling around the campus. Moss is beginning to grow in between the cracks, making it difficult for me to maneuver over it. It’s been a while since I’ve been back home. Three months was it? Four? It’s been so busy I forgot to keep track. I never have to go back for work because I earn what I need through the campus galleries that are held twice a semester. One for the painters club and another one that is open to the entire campus. I’m ready to see my parents. I miss them more than I can describe during the semester. 

I’m halfway to the bus stop near the South Contemporary Arts building when I stop to rest on a black metal bench off to the left side of the path. The leaves are finally starting to turn orange and begin to fall from their branches like butterflies fluttering around in the sky. It’s always my favorite time of the year. A perfect time to go home because my house is surrounded by trees that will inevitably turn all the warmest colors you could ever imagine. I close my eyes and lean back on the bench. I breathe in a deeply and let the cold November air fill my lungs. While exhaling I feel somebody sit next to me, breaking me out of my peaceful trance. 

I glance next to me only to meet eyes with Mr. Campbell. “Uh, hey Mr. Campbell?”

“Sorry if I startled you. I just saw you sitting here and thought I’d extend a greeting.” He nods to my luggage. “Headed home are you?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah I’m done with everything I needed to get done so I’m going home today.” I straighten myself up. “What about you? You going home? I mean, I know you probably don’t live here but, you know.”

“Yeah there’s not much need for me on campus if there are no clubs to coordinate so I’ll be heading home soon too.” He jokes and fumbles around with his hands.

I’m not sure why the atmosphere feels so awkward right now. “Ok well I need to get going now. I just needed to sit for a minute.” I rise to leave.

“Wait up a second,” he calls. “I didn’t want to come off as odd or anything but something you said at the gallery kind of struck me.”

“What is it?”

He rises with me from the bench. “You said you were adopted?”

I nod with a bit of reluctance. “Yeah. What about it?”

“How old were you when you were adopted?” His eyes pierce through mine like a shard of glass.

“I was uh…four or five years old. Why?” I hold my bags closer to me. This is the first time anybody—especially a stranger—has brought up my adoption so abruptly. 

A glimmer of light flashes across his eyes. “Do you remember anything about before you were adopted?” 

I shake my head. “No. I don’t. All I remember is being lost in some forest. That’s it. Look, I need to go now. I’m not entirely sure why you need to know all this but asking anymore than this and you’re trekking into some pretty personal territory that I’m not entirely comfortable sharing with a stranger.”

He backs off. “Yes. Of course. I apologize. I’m sorry if my curiosity got the better of me.” 

“It’s fine.” I dismiss. “I’ll probably see you after break. Have a good one.” I leave for the bus stop. 

Just as I get to the stop the bus rolls up. I and three other students board and take our seats. The bus is fairly empty and the others took that as an opportunity to sit as for away from each other they could. Guess none of us have the energy to socialize anymore. How cliché coming from art students. 

Before the bus pulls away I glance out the window. Porter is still sitting on the bench staring in my direction. I’m not sure what it is about him that puts me off a little bit, but there is definitely something there. Is it just because he acts a little skittish? Or because we just met one time last week at the gallery and he shows up out of thin air asking me about my childhood? Probably a little bit of both. I try to push it from my mind and close my eyes once again. Soon I drift off to sleep. 

***

“Hey kid!” The bus driver yells from his seat.

I jerk awake. “Yeah? What?”

He looks at me though the big rear-view mirror above his head. “Didn’t mean to scare you, but I’m pretty sure you get off here. It’s the last stop, so you kind of have to.” 

I quickly inspect my surroundings. Thankfully it is my stop. “Yeah thanks. Sorry.” I gather up my bags and scurry from the bus.

Once I’m off I stand on the sidewalk next to an old plexiglass bus shelter for a moment to gain back my bearings. I drag my luggage to the shelter and sit on the rotting old bench. It seems like nobody has actually used this stop for over a decade. I rub the tiredness from my eyes and after the slight blur in them fades I see something black in my peripherals. I turn to see a man huddled up in the corner, black hood and foreign looking hat over his face, sleeping like a rock. Must have had the same idea as I had. 

“Sir?” I call out softly. “Sir I don’t think you should be sleeping here. The bench isn’t that sturdy.” 

He takes the foreign hat from his face, revealing himself as an Asian man that doesn’t look much older than me. “You can see me?”

I feel my eyebrows burrow in confusion. “You’re literally sitting right next to me. Am I not supposed to see you?” 

“Well that was the plan.” He retorts and places his hat back on his head. 

“Well maybe if you didn’t want to be seen you should have picked a less public place to sleep.” I suggest. 

He straightens himself up and pushes his hat back so it hangs around his neck by a ribbon. “Look lady I’ve been coming here to nap like three times a week for the past five years to get away from my overbearing family and nobody has bothered me like you are right now. In fact, nobody but me has even been here before. This stopped being an actual stop for years now. So what are you doing here?”

“I just got of the bus? I’m back from school for Thanksgiving break.” I motion to my luggage. 

“Yeah ‘cus I’m just supposed to know that.” He scoffs.

“Somebody clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” I mumble.

“Wrong side of the bench, actually.”

I sit there stunned. “You are one rude asshole you know that?”

He gazes out of the glass bus shelter for a moment. “Look I’m sorry. I’ve had a rough couple days. Rough couple years, actually.”

I rise from the bench and grab my bags. “Well lets hope the next couple years ahead are better for you because I feel bad for the next stranger that tries to start a conversation with you. I have to leave now. I gotta walk a mile back home. Sleep well.”

I exit the shelter and begin my trek back home before that guy thinks of any other short quips to vomit at me. Maybe it’s because I spend so much time by myself, or because I spend so much time around people who compliment me way too much, but I’m not used to being talked to like that. It was annoying, but it wasn’t too bad. Sometimes I prefer that over people constantly telling me how great I am when I’m not actually that great. They just like me because they think I’ll get my parents to hang their shit in their gallery. Like Professor Walters. Probably the fakest woman I’ve ever met. 

The walk home was more peaceful. Just as I thought and hoped, the leaves are certainly starting to turn. Every few minutes the wind shakes the branches and handfuls of leaves and seed pods spin like the propellers of a helicopter through the air until they land themselves gently on the ground. The breeze brushes the scent of aging wood and cool soil from the brush in the forest, tempting me to sit and take it all in. My parents should be out working all day, so it’s not like they’re waiting for me back at home. I walk at a leisurely pace, enjoying the nice autumn air that will soon turn colder and colder. After about an hour of walking my house peaks around a bend. It stands elevated on a slight hill like a cabin some rich kids would own to go to during this time of year. Except this is my actual home and not a second home. My parents strictly dislike the idea of owning two houses. They think it’s “a pretentious waste of money. One good house is plenty.”

I ascend the wooden steps dragging my suitcase up behind me. Once I’m at the top I dig around my backpack for the house keys and let myself in. I was right. They’re not home. They must be at the studio or suppliers office. The house is exactly how it was when I left. Not that I’ve been gone for that long, but things can change quite drastically in three and a half months. My house is not one of those things. The wooden walls still a light brown-orange color. The furniture in the living room to the right hasn’t moved a single inch, the kitchen still lit ever so slightly (my parents use it as a nightlight), the comforting smell of pine permeating through the house that used to stick like glue to my clothes. My room remains unchanged as well. My blanket—which needs to be changed to a heavier one— the same, the trinkets on my dresser and the clothing inside placed the same way as I had put them before I left in August. It’s good to be back. I set my bags up to the right of my bed next to my dresser to unpack later. 

This may be a decent time to sneak off into the forest for a little bit before my parents come back. It’s around noon, so I have a few hours until then. Might as well get it over with now so I don’t keep thinking about it. I ruffle through my closet for a coat, because the one I wore coming here wasn’t warm enough for me. Nothing. I must have them stored in the basement somewhere. 

I skip down the stairs to the first floor and then the second set in the kitchen next to the fridge to the basement. It’s your typical old “cellar” style basement. Exposed rock, wooden steps protruding from said exposed rock, and that weird musty smell and faint yellowish lighting from a thirty year old lightbulb most basements have. I scan the room for the boxes filled with my winter clothes and find them pushed up against a metal rack on a wall to my left. I dig around and move the boxes until I find one labeled “winter stuff”—which was at the very bottom of the very large stack of boxes. I grab the box and begin to head upstairs when I see a glint coming from a container at the back of the metal rack. I set the box on the stairs and hop over to the rack and pull the container down, curious as to what had caught my eye. I never really thought to explore that area of the basement, so my interest was piqued. The container is an old milk crate from some store that I have never heard of before. Must have gone out of business since my parents stored the crate down here.

To my surprise it contains a lot of old things. Old pictures of me and my parents, a small, old jewelry box, rag dolls I faintly remember making when I was super young, probably in kindergarten. Then I come across a black velvet sack that I have no recollection of. I open it up and pull out a thick twine-like rope with a pendant half the size of my palm on it. The pendant is marbled with green, black, and yellow and has a symbol I don’t recognized etched into it. It seems so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. This crate is filled with everything from the start of my life here, but where did this come from? I brush away the dirt caked into the etching and hold it closer to my eyes to inspect it better. I turn it around and see another etching on the back. This time it’s what seems like a name.

“Aela?” I read aloud. “Who in the world is Aela? No wonder I don’t recognize this. I don’t even think it’s mine. I must have found it in the forest or something.” 

I turn it around in my fingers one last time and stare deep into the beautiful marble pattern. I’ve never seen colors like this marbled before. I untie the knot in the twine and tie it again around my neck, trying it on to see if it triggers any memories. The pendant falls to my chest and all of a sudden what feels like an electric shock shoots through my body. It takes my breath away and forces me on my knees. I keel over in shock on the cold concrete floor. I grab the pendant with my hand to tear it off and immediately let go as it shocks me once again. My hand goes numb, but I grab the pendant once more anyway and rip it from my neck and chuck it back into the crate. A wave of nausea courses through me and I feel as though I might vomit everything I have in me but it doesn’t come. Which somehow makes me feel worse. A migraine pulses and throbs in my head. It becomes so severe I curl into a ball on the ground and pass out.