It was evening before I finally worked up the energy to bring my luggage in from the car. My suitcase, computer bag, and backpack lay in a heap on the entryway floor for several hours after that, waiting to be taken up to my bedroom. I don’t know why I was putting it off. But after trying and failing to use the kitchen my mother had so adored to make myself some much-needed dinner, I figured enough was enough.
There was no stopping the inevitable.
It felt wrong to stay in the master bedroom, and alienating to stay in the guest bedroom, so after dragging my incredibly overstuffed suitcase up the old hardwood stairs, I veered right. I couldn’t even bring myself to look to the left, where my parent’s bedroom sat waiting to be opened.
My room was the very last room, sitting at the end of a long hallway. I passed the upstairs bathroom, the guest room, and the storage closet on my way there. The white door was closed, decorated by one of those horribly cliche “Keep Out” signs that all the angsty teenagers used on their bedroom doors.
I sucked in a breath, steadied myself, and pushed open the door.
It was like opening a time capsule.
Everything was perfectly pristine, kept exactly where I had left it. A completely preserved moment in time. I half expected to find it empty, or covered in dust, or ransacked. But it looked exactly the same as it had the day that I left. My gut wrenched as a thought tickled the back of my mind--the horrible, guilt-ridden realization that my parents must have kept it this way on purpose.
Waiting for my return.
I shook my head as if I could shake the thought away.
I pulled my suitcase into the room, leaving the door open behind me. The walls were a faded eggshell color, all except the far wall to the left, where my bed sat, which was a vibrant pink. My bed was all made up with those stupid zebra print sheets I remembered so clearly, and the old, purple radio-slash-alarm clock that was the bane of my teenage existence sat neatly on the white end table next to my zebra lamp (to match the hot pink zebra print bedding, of course).
The wall to the left of my bed was lined with bookshelves, which were full of a mixture of books, photographs from my childhood, old stuffed animals and abandoned toys, and, worst of all, anime figurines. In the corner directly ahead was my corner desk, situated next to the window, which housed the old desktop computer that clearly hadn’t been replaced in a decade.
Of course, the walls were almost completely covered in posters. I hated the color of my room, and desperately wanted to paint it something more me, but my parents never let me. So, instead, I covered the walls with my interests in memories. Various outdated anime posters, a collection of emo/punk bands that were popular circa 2010, photographs of me, of Duncan, of all the other friends I left behind.
I knew that stepping back into my childhood bedroom was going to stir up all sorts of emotions, but I didn’t realize just how queasy it was going to make me. Leaving may have been the most logical choice I could have made for my own safety, but that didn’t automatically erase the guilt I had over how I left things.
It was an emotion I tried to ignore, but sometimes it took hold of me despite my best efforts.
I threw my backpack on the bed, making a mental note to get new sheets ASAP, and set my laptop back on the grey circle rug in front of the bed frame. It had been a long day, and the depression had started to settle in (probably thanks to my failure to cook or order dinner). Which meant the best way to perk up was to get some work done, so I could feel like I had accomplished something.
I had notified all my clients back home of my absence, so I wasn’t expecting to be contacted about any jobs, but I did need to check my email to see if there was any news from the lawyer. After my parents died, no one could locate a will for either of them, which meant I had to go through the rather excruciating (and ultimately annoying) process of hiring a lawyer to get the courts to name me as the administrator of the estate.
But that process was going to take a while--and until then, I was stuck in Chestnut.
I pulled my laptop from my bag and pressed the power button, staring at the black screen for several moments while I waited for it to power up. It was old, practically vintage, and had several problems, but it wasn’t like I could afford a new one, so I made do. After several moments, nothing happened, and I let out a loud groan.
Dead battery.
Of course.
That was going to take some time to charge up, so I pulled out the charger, squeezed the plug into the open socket next to my bed, and sat down on the plush mattress. I tapped my fingers on the fabric, then bounced my right leg, then my left, then both at once. After several slow, agonizing moments, I shot up and paced around the room a few times. Then tried the laptop again.
Finally, it booted. It was hanging on by a thread, but it booted. Thank God. I typed in my password and pulled up google chrome, only to be met with a pixelated t-rex and a message that I wasn’t connected to the internet. Thankfully, the wifi was still named “Dawson_Family” because my father was nothing if not unoriginal, so hopefully, that was a sign that the password hadn’t changed either.
I typed in the long string of letters and numbers and clicked enter.
Processing…
Processing…
Processing…
ERROR! Incorrect password.
Shit.
I ran my fingers roughly through my hair and cursed under my breath. Of course, they would change the password, why wouldn’t they change the password? And it would probably take me forever to locate whatever random sticky note my father wrote the new password on.
In a moment of desperation, my eyes fell on my old desktop. The thing probably hadn’t been booted up in eight years, but tech from the 2010s was built differently. It probably still ran Windows 7, but if it worked it worked, and I needed something to calm my racing thoughts.
I set my laptop down next to me on the bed and made my way over to the black desk chair. Sitting at the desk catapulted me back to 2012, all those long nights sitting at the desk as a 16-year-old, mindlessly watching pirated TV shows on WatchMojo. I reached down to the CPU and felt around for the power button, gave it a solid press, and sucked in a breath.
A few moments passed in heated silence.
And the dinosaur roared to life.
Thank fuck.
It took forever to boot, and there were several moments when I truly thought the whole thing was going to fall to pieces from the effort, but eventually, the familiar blue login screen decorated the monitor. A groan bubbled in my throat as I was met with my old profile pic--a rather embarrassing picture of me as a middle schooler with braces and huge bows in my pigtails--and my deadname in bold letters across the screen. I would have to change that if I was going to be able to stomach using the desktop again, but that was an easy fix.
Silently, I thanked baby-me for using the same password on every single account, because where it failed in cyber safety, it more than made up for in the ability to actually remember a decade-old password. I typed in the familiar phrase, and was greeted by the oddly comforting sight of my old desktop wallpaper. There were about a million update messages, and I knew that the operating system was outdated, and I would likely need to completely replace a few parts to get the computer working at full capacity again, but at least it worked.
I hovered the mouse over my extremely outdated version of Google Chrome, when my speakers nearly blasted themselves out going crazy with notifications. It didn’t take long to discover the culprit.
The skype app, probably still hooked up to my old account, had burst to life.
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