darkcavewriting

[darkcavewriting]

Chelan Summer

Portland, Oregon, my hometown by birth but at present not my current home. Stuck I am in Spokane, Washington, not the worst place to be stuck by any stretch of imagination, but a far cry from Portland.  It wasn’t so much that I was stuck here, it was just for the summer break from Eastern Washington University.  Nothing like spending the summer sleeping on a friends couch while trying to find something at least partially resembling a part time job.  If anything it sure as hell beat hanging around Cheney for the summer, anything was better than that.

After two weeks sleeping on my friend Mike’s couch and doing little more than chain drinking Rainier beer I knew I needed a change, this is not at all what I had in mind for my summer vacation.  It was the middle of my third week  off from classes that the phone call came in from my friend Marie who was spending her summer as she always did, working at her families diner in Chelan.  I hadn’t been to Chelan since I was a wee lad, and the only thing I remembered was staying in a tiny cabin with my parents.  It was one of the few vacations I could think back at with fond memories and now with the passing of my parents that made me feel far more sad than I would have liked to admit.

Marie was calling wondering if I would at all be interested in coming out to Chelan for a portion of the summer to both do a little work at the diner, what with her brother being off doing basic training for the National Guard, but also if anything to not be spending the whole summer stuck in Spokane.  I didn’t mind Spokane anywhere near as much as she did, but still, spending a good deal of the summer hanging out at Lake Chelan sure sounded better than than being bored.  I packed my clothing , laptop and a decent selection of books into the trunk of my 1963 Ford Falcon and headed West, escape from the horrific heat that was already setting in on Spokane was a welcome change, it was already pushing 100 and it was only the second week of June.  I was not used to this sort of heat, mild Portland summers had spoiled me as a kid and this was going to take some serious getting used to.  I knew Chelan wasn’t going to be cold by any stretch of the imagination but it was not going to be anywhere near as warm as Spokane and that was all I was asking for.  The Falcon had a decent speed and traffic was light.  Well it was a Tuesday I figured I would stop for lunch in Moses Lake and make it into Chelan by late afternoon, by then it would give Marie time to figure out exactly what I would be doing at the diner, but also to figure out if the little guest cabin she said I could stay in was in any condition for me to actually stay in tonight.  To say I was getting tired of sleeping on couches would be an understatement to say the least.  I was longing for sleeping on a dorm bed and those things were god awful.  The Falcon was my second car in less than a year.  It was a replacement for the Plymouth Arrow that met an untimely demise after it was t-boned by a Ford Explorer in the first ice storm of the season.  The minimum amount of insurance money didn’t afford me enough to get anything terribly fancy but the Falcon made due.  I always did like vintage cars from a young age.  Something about cars actually having some personality unlike the bulk of cars produced since the late 1970’s.

Lunch in Moses Lake was decent, nothing special, just a burger and fries from a little cafe out by the airport.  It had been ages since I had last been though Moses Lake, probably at least 10 years, and seeing as how I was only 19, for me that was quite a while.  I really didn’t remember much about my last visit other than it was rather warm as my parents and I were coming back from Banff, Alberta, Canada, via Spokane.  I hadn’t been back to Alberta since then either, which made me sad.  The Canadian Rockies had to be one of the most beautiful places I had ever been.  I was hoping on making it up this summer but with the lack of cash flow in my life, I had ruled it out.  Now with some money coming in the door, a late summer trip could easily be in the works I felt.  

I didn’t know how much money I would actually have before classes started back up, but if there was somehow enough to make a short trip to the Rockies I felt it would be worth it.  Dealing with only my own thoughts for a few days would be worth it I felt.  I really hadn’t had a chance to spend any time on my own since my parents passed right before classes started.  It was nice however to have the people around in the dorm that wanted to make sure I was alright and that I had someone around if and or when I ever needed to talk about anything which was very much appreciated,  sometimes though I really just wanted some time on my own and I really hoped that here in Chelan I just might finally be able to find some time on my own.

I pulled into Chelan a bit after 4:00 p.m. which was right around when I thought I would.  The skies were blue and there was enough of a breeze that even with the temperature hanging in the 80’s it was not bad out at all.  I made it to the diner, Lakeside Pies, it was quite busy, the parking lot as well as the street out front was packed with cars and a small like of folks out the front door.  At least the place was busy and popular I thought to myself.  Nothing worse I felt than working someplace that was never busy.

I made my way through the group of people at the front door and started looking for Marie.  I knew she had to be around somewhere.  I saw her a couple minutes later coming out of the kitchen with a tray piled high with plates.  In Cheney she had worked at Watermans, the bar and grill across from campus, which is where I first met her.  Later on I ended up having a class with her and ended up getting to know her far better than I did from just having out far too much at Watermans.  I wasn’t expecting her to offer me to come out to Chelan, but now that I was here I could see why, the place was packed and they needed the staff.  Not that I had any experience at all in food service but now was as good of a time as any to learn and she knew I was a reliable person from the multiple group projects we had needed to complete in our class together.  

Once she finished running the mountain of food to the table she came over and gave me a massive bear hug, which was not at all what I was expecting.  She had never been much for hugging and such, well at least not that I had noticed.  I wasn’t about to complain though.  Marie was older than me, not by much though, a couple of years or so perhaps, not that it mattered all that much, just something that popped into my head.  I had never thought about her in any sort of romantic way, never had any reason to  in my mind.  I had always presumed that she was romantically tied up with James who was the late night bartender at Watermans.  I knew now wasn’t the best time to sort things out my employment because it was so busy, but I felt I should do something  to help during the rush.  Marie insisted though for me not to worry and gave me the key for the cabin that would be my home for the enxt couple months.  I headed down the road back from the lake to find the cabin.  It was nothing special to say the least, a one room box with a tiny loft in the back with an old mattress.  Nothing special by any stretch, but I was clearly liking the solitude that was soon to be in my future.  I headed out to my car to unload my very limited amount of belongings, tossed the clothes in the tiny closet and the books on the built in shelf next to the fridge.  The fridge wasn’t on.  I had to search for the breaker box and finally found it, of all places, in the bathroom, and finally got power up and going to the whole cabin.  It wasn’t the best lit place in the world but  I was sure I could manage to make due with it at least for the summer.  I was however worried that it would get warmer than I wanted in July.  I knew I was going to have to invest in at least one fan in order to make sure I didn’t roast to death.  By the time I was unpacked and had the fridge at a decent temperature and ran to the store to get a few things, namely coffee, it was close to 11:00 p.m. and there was a knock at the cabin door.  I walked over and opened it up and there was Marie with a to-go box and a case of Rainier beer.  She came over and had a seat on the couch and handed me a beer, of course after she already opened one for herself.

She apologized for the state of the place, the idea for me to come out and stay there was just hatched this morning, not really allotting much time to prep the cabin for any sort of long term lodging.  She went outside, beer in hand to make sure that the water had been turned on at a decent enough pressure that I would be able to take a shower with enough pressure to actually get clean.  She headed over to the built in dining table and bench and took the seat off and pulled out a typewriter and some dishes and the like.  I had always enjoyed working on a typewriter.  There was just something soothing about the gattling gun sound made by the keys striking the paper.  No chance for going back and editing, just one idea after another hitting the page.  I loved to write, I was going to school to be involved in journalism, after this last school year though I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  The shock of my parents dying after hitting a moose with their car a day after dropping me off at Eastern Washington put me in a daze, a state of shock.  It was a blessing that I was essentially able to take my first semester off in order to try my best to cope with the whole situation, but not having any real time by myself made that rather difficult to say the least.  I did feel lucky to be able to make some very good friends  that went out of their way to make sure that I was alright though the whole situation perhaps now I would have a chance, even though it was almost nine months ago since it all happened.  It is important to grieve and better late than never I guess.

Marie asked me how I was feeling about the whole sudden relocation to Chelan.  Clearly it was a surprise and not at all something I was planning going into the summer but I was indeed quite pleased to be here and actually be working.  As well it was time away from Cheney and Eastern.

Marie agreed that I needed some real time away from both Eastern but also from the large amount of people that I had come to know there.  Not that they were bad people or anything along those lines, more that they were people I was just thrown into a social circle of sorts with, almost like a support group of sorts after the incident with my parents.  Ideal it was not, at all.  I felt that I knew the people, well at least I kind of knew them.  I really didn’t know if I could actually trust or count on any of them besides a couple who I had actually had a couple of classes with.  Generally the people in the dorms left a lot to be desired.  Thank god I had a single room for the whole year, made things a whole lot easier for me.  Was able to have time on my own if I felt I needed it.

There was something magic about Chelan, or at least I felt that there was.  I loved the lake, the peace and quiet.  I was finally able to be alone with my thoughts, and that was something I desperately needed and had wanted for months.  The cabin was a step up from my dorm room, but that wasn’t really saying too much.  The dorm left a great deal to be desired.  It was a bit drafty in the cabin even for it being summer.  I had a feeling it was not going to exactly be the warmest of nights.  I searched the couple of small closets in the cabin in hopes that I would find a extra blanket or something.  I remembered I had my emergency sleeping bag that I always kept in the trunk of my car which I could always use if I really needed to.  I felt there had to be some sort of extra bedding somewhere in the cabin though, or that Marie would have some in the main house.  I made a note to ask her about that when she came back.  She stepped out a few minutes earlier saying she was going to figure out what happened to all of the plates and other dishes that were supposed to be in the cabin’s kitchen.  

I was still trying to get a grasp on what all was going on.  I still felt like a complete and total wreck, I truthfully had no idea how all how to react to the death of my parents, even eight months later  I still felt like I had no idea how to judge or process the while series of events.  Their death hit me, obviously, even though I was not exactly the closest with them, or had the best relationship with them.  That made my reaction their death hard to read from an outsiders point of view.  As parents it was not as though they were bad, more that they were rather absorbed in their own lives and I was so often on my own or in the company of other family members.  I never really felt all that close to them.  I however did not know exactly how much of it I could honestly blame on them, after my father lost his job with the merger mania of banks in the early 1990’s he went back to do what he always wanted to do, teach, and got a position teaching accounting at the school of business at Lewis and Clark College in Portland and within a couple of years had been named chair of the department.  My mother worked as a nurse at Oregon Health Sciences University.  Often with off the wall schedules and being perpetually on call, it was not unheard of for me to only see my parents for any real length of time on the weekends, and even then my mother would have to dart off to the hospital more often than she ever would have liked.

My going off to Eastern however had prompted the both of them to look into retirement.  They weren’t terribly old, both in their late 50’s but financially they were well enough off that they could at least consider the prospects of an early retirement.  For my father it was much easier to scale back the work flow.  He scheduled himself to only teach two senior level classes at Lewis and Clark, and he was no longer the department chair, having served two consecutive three year terms.  This course load allowed him to only be on campus two days a week, save the occasional department meeting or an office hours appointment with a student.  He was embracing his newfound free time and began to start running again which was something he had not seriously done since his college days at the University of Washington.  For my mother however it was not as easy.  She loved her job, always had, she loved caring for people, it was her nature, it was her mother’s nature as well, she wouldn’t admit it but that is why she wen into nursing in the first place.

She managed to use a good stock of her accumulated vacation time to coincide with helping me move to Cheney and it still bring summer break for my father, to see see if she was really ready for retirement.  Financially they were a-ok.  Owned two houses, one in Portland and another on the Oregon Coast in Yachats.  The beach house was used in the summer primarily, at one point my father headed out there for two months to work on a research article with relative peace and quiet, it ended up getting published in some prestigious journal and helped his career dramatically.  I hadn’t been to the beach house in at least a couple years.  I knew my parents had let my aunt and uncle borrow it for a good length of time the prior summer.  They had both already retired, well, more my uncle retired as he had worked for Burlington Northern for a considerable time, nearly 35 years, he was on the receiving end of a healthy retirement package even after their merger with Santa Fe.  

Everything my parents owned had been left to me, in a trust that I wouldn’t have access to until I hit the age of 35.  I didn’t have an issue with that in the least.  Finances were to be made available to pay for my education and housing and I would be allowed to either live in or rent out my parents former home in Portland, but I would not have the ability to sell the home until I was 35.  It seemed like that was a condition put in to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid with the money at a young age.  I was only 19 after all.  Not that I Was noted for doing anything too stupid mind you, but it prevented me from making any spur of the moment decisions to sell, and also would reduce pressure from others in the family or elsewhere to try and sell the homes as well.  I had no idea what to do about the house at the coast.

I was also given a small monthly stipend for expenses, it was not a large sum by any stretch of the imagination but it was enough to keep me from really worrying about having to find some low level crappy job to make ends meet while I went to school.  I was grateful for that.  I was able to focus full time on school, although for my first semester it was mainly me focusing on not losing my damned mind, which proved to be far more difficult than I had ever imagined.  Even though I was not exactly all that close with my parents, it still ht me, and hit me hard, far harder than I had honestly expected when I first got the news.  I felt incredibly lucky that I had family in the area, just outside of Spokane, which I became closer with almost overnight.  The situation there was a bit odd, and a little stressful, but we all made it work.  

Getting out for the summer however I hoped would prove to be a good decision, if anything I felt it really couldn’t make things any worse.  Marie came back into the cabin with a large box in her arms.  Inside was a ton of stuff that I hoped would prove to be some used to me.  A French press, dishes and coffee mugs, as well as a blanket and a new pillow.  I was happy to see all of the things, as well as the can of coffee that was hiding under the blanket.  The thought of having to function in the mornings without coffee was not a happy prospect.  I had learned to love the stuff over the last year, even though I couldn’t stand it in the least earlier in my life.  Getting used to using a French press instead of a normal drip coffee maker was going to take some time though I thought.

Marie looked exhausted, it was close to 11:30 p.m. and her day began at 6:20 a.m. when she arrived at work to begin baking bread and biscuits for the day.  She asked if there was anything else I could think of that I might need.  I told her that I couldn’t think of anything else that I needed, well at least not tonight.  I asked her what time she wanted me to show up to work in the morning.  She said she really wasn’t all that sure.  The cafe opened at 7:30 a.m. so she figured I should at least show up by 7:15 a.m. I told her I would set the alarm clock on the kitchen counter.  With it being far enough from the bed, located in the loft it would force me to get out of bed to shut the damned thing off.  Marie said she was going to head to the house to get some sleep, and that if I determined that I needed anything that I should let her know in the morning.  I told her I would as she headed out the door.  I knew I needed to get some sleep too, it had been a long day, and tomorrow was going to be just as long, if not longer, but I really didn’t feel all that tired.  I grabbed an old paperback off the shelf by the door, “Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy” and headed up to the bed with it in hand.  The wind was whipping through the trees that surrounded the cabin, not something I was used to, and of course I didn’t have a fan or anything around to help drown out the sounds.  The only radio had dead batteries.  I had a sinking feeling I was going to have a rough time getting to sleep.  Thankfully that ended up not being the case.I awoke with a jolt, the alarm was going off.  The bedside light was still on, the book next to me, I had no idea where I was.  This wasn’t the first time I had woken up somewhere in a panic with no clue as to where I was or how I got there, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last either. Still it was not the ideal way to start ones morning.

I finally managed to remember where I was and that I was going to need to hurry and take a shower and get ready to go into my first day of work at the cafe, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  I was hoping for it to be peaceful at Chelan, I should have known better.  Calm summers in Chelan were ancient history, it was a vacation spot through and through and had been for years.  Winters were the only calm time, and from what I had heard from Marie, they were almost too calm.  A summer someplace that was lively and active was going to be a far cry from what I would have been in store for if I stayed in Cheney.  For being a college town, it nearly rolled up the sidewalks in the summer.  The summer class offerings were minimal at best and mostly all of the student population headed home, or to Spokane for the summer where there were actually jobs to be had.  Not that Cheney was a ghost town mind you, but unless you worked at the University or at one of the few small businesses , in the summer there was next to nothing to do, save get drunk all the time, which most did year round anyways.

I took a quick shower partially out of necessity, but also because there only seemed to be about five minutes of hot water.  That was not ideal, I needed to ask Mary about that.  Not knowing what to wear for work, better yet not even knowing what I would be doing when I got there, I figured jeans and a Eastern Washington t-shirt would be ok, as the dress seemed to be rather casual when I showed up last night.  I made sure I had the keys to the cabin and headed out the door on foot to Lakeside Pies.  Marie was already there when I arrived, we appeared to be the only ones however.  I really hoped I wasn’t going to be in the kitchen, my cooking skills left a lot to be desired, especially if it comes to cooking things quickly.  I was hoping that there was already some coffee made.  I hadn’t though to make any before my shower and I desperately needed a cup.  If anything not just to wake up but also to warm my hands, it wasn’t particularly warm outside, hovering in the 40’s, a wee bit cooler than I was used to in Spokane to say the least.  Marie told me there was indeed coffee, but I had to make it.  I set up the brewers to make four large air pots of coffee in preparation for opening.  I had a feeling that between the two of us we would be able to put at least one out of its misery on our own.  Moments after I started the coffee, in walked Keith, one of the cooks.  He was also one of the few who was born and raised there in Chelan.  He was an older gentleman, I was guessing at first look that he might be in his early 60’s I was shocked to find out later that he was 77 and came back to Chelan to work here after nearly 20 years working in various diners in Seattle.  You could tell by looking at him that he enjoyed working in a kitchen.  Several minutes later the kitchen started filling with people coming in through the back door.  Marie and I went from being the only people in the place to only a small fraction of the staff.  There were nearly a dozen people in the kitchen, one whole section was set up specifically for baking the house specialty, pies.  The last 45 minutes before opening was hectic, especially for me since I had no idea what I was actually supposed to be doing.  Marie finally told me what I was going to be doing, and I was relived I wouldn’t be working in the kitchen,

I was relegated to serving, bussing tables and seating people.  The trifecta of things I hoped I wouldn’t fuck up too bad.  My biggest worry had to be dropping food on the way to the tables.  Graceful I was not.  I downed another cup of coffee before making my way over to the cash register, which looked to be at least 50 years old, to see if I could figure out how to use it.  All in all I was thankful that it was an older register it made it far easier to use as far as I was concerned, no worries about some software having issues.  As long as I could read everyones handwriting I would be golden.  I knew my handwriting was far from the best but I would have to make it look a bit more readable.  I felt lucky that the menu was rather limited in its offerings.  Far less for me to need to try and memorize.  

We could see people starting to arrive in the parking lot in advance of the doors opening.  Not what I was expecting for the middle of the week, but then it was Chelan, nothing had to make sense in a vacation town like this.  People were either coming in before they had to go to work, or people out here on vacation.  Working here was a far cry from what I was hoping I would be doing over the summer.  My plan during the spring was going to include a summer trip on Amtrak to Chicago and Milwaukee.  That obviously didn’t end up happening.  

[darkcavewriting]

Day 14

Waking up I was groggy which was no surprise to me. I seemed to be waking up groggy most mornings anymore. I didn’t sleep the best which wasn’t a surprise or anything. I was more than a bit nervous about the therapy appointment I was going to have this morning. I had never gone to see a therapist before, I never really had any reason to I felt, so I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into with this. I did hope that it would help me try and process everything that was going on in my mind right now though, because there was so much, and I didn’t know what to make of most or really any of it to speak of.

I checked my phone, and there wasn’t any alerts of note thankfully. I was happy to not have anything I needed to deal with this morning besides breakfast before the appointment. I hadn’t told anyone I was going to see a therapist. I didn’t feel it was anyones business to be honest. Not that I was ashamed or whatever about going, I knew it was something that I likely needed, I didn’t feel that others needed to know about it though, at least not till I had actually gone to a session or two I felt.

I put coffee in the new pot that I purchased and set it to brew as I wandered down the hall to go take a shower. Once I was back in my room there was a pot of coffee waiting for me. I got dressed, put some water in the microwave to make myself a bowl of oatmeal and I sat down at my desk. I blankly looked at my computer screen, browsing ESPN and just mindlessly being distracted. Having time to kill like this was one of the most annoying things to me. I wish I could have slept later but that wasn’t in the cards. Now I just had to make the most of my morning before the appointment and then try and sort out what the hell I was going to do with the rest of the day. Made me wish I was in class even though I likely wouldn’t have been able to concentrate, if anything just to give me something to do.

Breakfast was unfulfilling, but I had zero desire to go to the dining hall. I didn’t want to be around other people, or at least not that many other people. If Grace or Elizabeth happened to show up at my room that would be fine, but a huge crowd like there always was in the dining hall in the morning, no way I was in the mood to deal with that at all right now. I was able to relax in my room, have on some music and just not have to worry about anything but myself.

Eventually it was time for me to make it across campus to go to my appointment. I was still nervous and anxious about it. I didn’t know what to expect, I was hopeful that I would be able to actually formulate the words that were able to get across how I was feeling and how I had been feeling about everything since all of this happened. The last two weeks had been a whirlwind.

I made it over to the building my appointment was in, took a deep breath and went in, up the stairs, and to the office. I could tell my hands were sweaty, the travel mug of coffee I had brought with me was sliding out of my grip. I rubbed my hands on my pants, took hold again of the mug and went in the door to the counseling office and checked myself in.

I thankfully didn’t have long to wait till I was called back to the office to meet with who I would be seeing, Gina Smith. She directed me to a chair across from her, and motioned to the table where I could set my coffee. She pointed as well to the water cooler in the corner if I was inclined to get some. I made myself comfortable in the chair not knowing what would happen from here.

“So, tell me about why you are here today,” she said.

“Well I am here today due to the loss of both of my parents less than two weeks ago due to a car accident,” I said. “They went off the side of the road on the way back across the state on the scenic route back to Portland after dropping me off here for school.”

“Well, that is a very good reason for coming here, and I am glad you did,” she said. “Were you able to take advantage of the option to not take classes this term because of that I hope?”

“Yes, for sure, my RA actually told me about that program, and what with being back in Portland for the funeral and such after, as well as likely countless more trips back there, I don’t see any way I could have been successful taking classes this term,” I said. “Everything is a good bit of a mess as you can imagine.”

“I can imagine, how was going back for the funeral, did you have family there to help with things?” she asked.

“Yes, the house was filled with family coming down from all over Washington, as well as my dad’s parents and siblings coming over from Wales,” I said. “I was thankful that they were able to help get everything organized so I didn’t have to worry about things quite as much, still, it wasn’t exactly an ideal situation to be in.”

“Tell me more about that,” she said.

“Well, I guess a lot of it was just because as long as I had been alive I had never seen that many people in the house at once, it was excessive in my eyes, but people needed a place to stay so we made it work, even if it was a bit exhausting just being around so many people,” I said. “Especially when some of the people are relatives I see so infrequently, it isn’t like I have any idea what to say to any of them.”

“That would be a bit much, how many people were in the house?” she asked.

“At the high point I think it was 10 or 11 of us, quite a few, thankfully not everyone stayed at the house at least,” I said. “It was good to get back here, but being mostly alone here isn’t all that great either, total opposite end of the social interaction spectrum here.”

“Do you know anyone else here at Eastern?” she asked.

“There are a couple of girls I met the night before I moved in who happen to live in my dorm, I have seen one of them a couple times since everything happened, and we have texted some,” I said. “It is a new friendship though so I don’t know how invested I should get in it.”

“Is there anyone else you have been able to reach out to during all of this?” she asked.

“Yes, my ex-girlfriend Eva, who is going to school at the University of Minnesota, she came back to Portland for the funeral,” I said.

“Why did you two break up?” she asked.

“Well, it is mostly because she was going to school so far away, she got a scholarship to play hockey out there,” I said. “We decided doing something long distance likely wasn’t the smartest decision, but, we are still close, I am actually debating going out to Minneapolis to visit her before I start classes in January, maybe see her play a game or two.”

“Well, that is good that you two are still close,” she said. “I get the feeling you didn’t want the relationship to end though no?”

“No, I didn’t want it to end but we agreed for practicality it didn’t make sense to continue it with us living so far apart from each other,” I said. “We had never really planned on going to school that close to each other, if we did that likely would have changed things for the state of the relationship and we would probably still be together.”

“Would you consider going to school out there and transferring?” she asked. “Since you haven’t started classes here I am sure you could apply for admission for the spring term there if you wanted to.”

“The idea has crossed my mind but at this point I think it is more important for me to be closer to home in Portland than it is to be closer to her unfortunately,” I said. “Not that I wouldn’t love to go to school with her, I just don’t think transferring out there is the smartest decision for me to make at this point.”

“I can understand that,” she said. “At least you have it as an option though, is there anyone else you have that you are close to in order to help with all of this?”

“Well there is my maternal grandparents, they are handling a lot of stuff, they live up in Port Townsend, there is also my aunt, my mothers sister who lives in Spokane but she is moving to Portland into the house in order to get out of her marriage,” I said. “So yeah there is family I am close to but besides that there isn’t really anything else, I don’t have a ton of friends and the ones I do have either stayed and went to school in Oregon or ended up scattered all around the country going to school or into the military.”

“That would be challenging,” she said. “Have you reached out to any of them since the accident?” 

“No, Eva is the only one, mostly because our parents were friends as well,” I said. “She was the one who was around them the most so letting her know was just second nature, I didn’t really have anyone else around the house that often at all.”

“Have you tried meeting anyone else here?” she asked.

“Well, not really, I have only physically been here about four days or so, after I arrived and moved in I was back in Portland so soon after I think the only people I have really interacted with are Grace, Elizabeth and my RA, and I can’t even remember his name,” I said. “I haven’t really gone out to try and meet anyone and not being in classes obviously isn’t helping that either.”

“Yes that would be a rather obvious challenge for you,” she said. “Perhaps it would be good to try and be friendly with people on the floor you live on?”

“Potentially yes, I could hang out in the lounge in the building, but it isn’t like I want to jump right in and tell people, oh hey my parents died two weeks ago,” I said. “That seems like it would be a bad choice on my part if I somehow managed to slip that into the conversation a bit too soon.”

“That is true, and I imagine with it being the biggest thing on your mind right now that it might be a bit hard not to want to bring that up correct?” she asked.

“You are right, it really is about the only thing on my mind most of the time, it would be a challenge to not mention it somehow,” I said. “Maybe I would be better just trying to spend more time with Elizabeth or Grace or both of them, since they already kind of know me and at least know the situation.”

“That isn’t a bad option, and on top of that there is the possibility I would imagine of maybe meeting other people through them that would then allow you to make more friends,” she said. “That could be a decent option until you end up starting classes.”

We went on like that for a while, trying to find some decent options for me to be able to be more social while I was here in Cheney before I was in classes and had a way to more properly meet people. It wasn’t going to be the easiest, but it was something I could work on. There would be football games to attend soon, and basketball games in a few months, so that would at least be something that would get me out of my room and out there. The first home game wasn’t for a couple weeks when Eastern would take on Central Washington University, and in October the Eagles would travel to Portland to take on Portland State. I just might have the be sure to make it back to Portland for that. Portland State games were always a little boring though. Their games were played at PGE Park, which was dramatically larger of a stadium than what the Vikings needed, I had never seen it more than half full for a game which made it an unenthusiastic environment to see a game. I was hopeful that games here at Eastern would be more eventful to attend.

I made my way back to my room, it was a time between classes so the path back to the dorms was rather empty. I knew I was going to need to try and make contact with Grace or Elizabeth later today, as well as maybe give Eva a call. I couldn’t remember if I had told her I was planning on going to therapy but it seemed to be something that would be worth mentioning to her. I wished there was a way I could see her sooner but flying out to Minneapolis right now wasn’t a wise choice. I knew my priorities were here in Cheney as well as back home in Portland. Hopefully within a month or two when I had things more organized and situated or whatever I would be able to make a trip out to Minneapolis and be in a state of mind that allowed me to enjoy it, instead of however it was I was feeling now. I had to take care of myself before I tried to see what if anything was there between me and her still.

Back in the dorm, I didn’t see anyone around on my way up to my room. I was debating going to the lounge area later and hanging out. I didn’t have any homework to do, obviously, so I couldn’t do that there, and I didn’t know if I would look silly just being there reading. There were couches there though and that was more comfortable than reading in the crap desk chair in my room, or on my bed leaning back against the wall. Another place I thought of that I could go would be the library, just to get out of my room, that or at the little coffee shop on campus. I wondered if it was finally time to upgrade my laptop, the one I had now was a few years old and the battery life was abysmal. If I was going to be going out a lot, I felt it made sense to maybe upgrade, especially since I had the money to do so. The only thing I really wondered though was how much I would actually use it. I much preferred my desktop for most things. It was something at least to think about.

I poured myself another cup of coffee and put it in the microwave to warm it up. Not my favorite way to do things but there was about a cup left in the pot and no point letting it go to waste I felt. I looked at my phone, no alerts of any variety, no new emails either when I checked on my computer. I found a post it note and made a list of things that I wanted to accomplish. Four people I wanted to contact either today or tomorrow. Aunt Sara to see what the plan was for her heading to Portland and if she was going to need my assistance, my grandparents in Port Townsend to ask about the finances and to make sure I was able to have enough money on hand if I was wanting to make any sort of major purchase like a laptop. Then there was Eva, to talk about therapy and see how she was, and trying to see Grace or Elizabeth, which I could either call them, or just go down to their room and see if they were there. Besides that, there wasn’t anything else on my agenda, which was nice, but a bit depressing in a way as I really didn’t have anything I needed to accomplish.

All I had to do now was work on myself, which was something I had never really felt I needed to do or had the time to do, now, I had four months of no commitments in order to try and make things better. I felt fortunate to have this opportunity even though it came from a less than ideal situation. I was very fortunate that Eastern Washington had this policy because without it, I could see myself struggling to may a good go of it in my classes this term that I was supposed to be in. It was just finding a way to best make use of this time and not squander it. I knew I needed to work through the grief and the loss of my parents and that wasn’t going to be at all easy for me. The dealing with everything back home in Portland was at least something that I wasn’t going to have to deal with quite so much, as it appeared that thankfully there wasn’t as much to deal with as there could have been. I was thankful that my parents had there stuff mostly in order, and that everything was in a trust for me, it made things a lot less difficult to deal with and a lot less for me to worry about as well which made me happy. I didn’t want to have to worry about the financial side of things, or anything, I just wanted to be able to go on living my life. It also was nice that I wasn’t particularly going to have to worry about money either. True, getting a job would be a good thing for me, would get me out of the dorm at least, but not knowing how much I was going to need to go back to Portland right now, it may not be the best time to find one either. I could address the job situation in a month or so, maybe find myself something on campus. In the meantime I just needed to focus on myself and getting my head in the right space. 

I head my phone vibrate on my desk, I went over and saw that it was a phone call from my grandparents, that was one thing I was going to be able to check off my list.

“Hey there how are you?” I asked when I answered the call.

“Oh we are doing alright I suppose,” said my grandmother. “How are you holding up over there?”

“I am doing okay, went to a therapy session this morning here on campus via the counseling center, so that is something,” I said. “Otherwise I am just here in my dorm drinking coffee and not sure what else to do.”

“Going to see a therapist is a good idea, I hope that they are able to help you,” said my grandmother. “I know none of this has been easy on you, at all, just know if you need anything, please let us know, and you are always welcome over at our place as well if you want to make the drive over here sometime.”

“Thank you for that,” I said. “I just might take you up on that, would be good to be over there to visit sometime, I was actually planning on calling you sometime today or tomorrow.”

“Oh?” she asked. “Is there an issue of some sort?”

“Not really no, I was just curious about something,” I said. “What would the protocol be if I was wanting to make some sort of semi major purchase, like if I needed to replace my computer or laptop, or needed to make serious repairs on my car, or worse yet, replace it.”

“Ah, yes, that is a good question, and given your car, that could be a issue at any point in time,” she said. “I believe that is something that we would need to be made aware of and then we could release an adequate amount of money to cover that from the various trust accounts to you, allowing you to make the needed purchases.”

“That seems reasonable, and pretty easy,” I said. “I may be needing to do that before long as my laptop is getting a bit old and likely wont be lasting all that much longer, at least from a portability standpoint.”

“Of course, just let us know and we can make the funds available to you, as for the vehicle, before you do anything to replace it or anything let your grandfather know, as he would likely be willing to either help repair or rebuild the Arrow, or help you find a replacement for it, he did love that little car oh so much, I know he misses it.”

“Yes, I will be sure to do that,” I said. “I haven’t had any issues with it at all, I just know due to its age, that I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up having issues of some sort before long.”

“Totally understandable,” said my grandmother. “Have you talked with Sara lately by the way?”

“No, I haven’t, I was planning on calling her today or tomorrow to see what her plan was for going to Portland,” I said. “Have you heard from her at all?”

“Yes, she called last night,” said my grandmother. “She was in the middle of packing things up and trying to sort out what she was going to do about getting all of her stuff to Portland, as it wouldn’t all fit in her car, she didn’t know if she should ask you for help, or rent a truck, or both.”

“Well I will give her a call tonight and I can try and help her figure something out,” I said. “I feel like renting a truck from Uhaul or wherever is probably the best bet, maybe with a trailer for her car, and then I follow in mine, so I can get back to Cheney easier that way.”

“That is probably the best bet, however I have no idea how much stuff she was planning on taking with her, she said she wasn’t taking any furniture, so I don’t really know how much stuff she actually has over there to take,” said my grandmother. “It can’t be that much I wouldn’t think, but I don’t know, I am just glad she is taking the chance to get the hell out of there as bad as she says things are.”

“I am too, I am glad the opportunity presented itself to her because yeah, there is no reason for her to stay in a situation like that,” I said. “I will be sure to let you know what the plan is for her and I moving stuff there once I know what it is though.”

“Thank you, we both really appreciate it, I just wish she would have told us about the issues earlier and we could have done more to help her leave ages ago,” said my grandmother. 

“True, but, at least she is getting out now, thats all we can really ask for at this point,” I said. “She had to be ready to leave and if this was what gave her the push to do it, so be it.”

“That is very true, I hope she knows she can always come to us and we wont judge her,” said my grandmother.

“I am sure she knows that, and if not I will be sure to remind her of such whenever I see or talk to her next,” I said. “I should probably let you go though, I need to see about having some lunch and figuring out what to do with my day.”

“I hope you have a good rest of your day, and call anytime if you need anything at all,” said my grandmother. “We are always here for you too, no matter what.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I love you, I’ll give you a call in a couple days.”

“We love you too, we will be here,” she said.

Now that was out of the way I crossed it off the list of things I wanted to accomplish. I would try and call my aunt tonight when she was home from work. I did need to sort out what to do about lunch, and I could email or call Eva whenever I wanted really. I wasn’t sure if email or a phone call was best with her, I also didn’t have any real idea of what I wanted to say to her either. I just knew that I wanted to talk to her and that I missed her a lot. I was so glad I got to see her when I was home and that she was able to come back for it, but I missed how things were before for us and I had my doubts we would ever go back to how things were and that made me a lot sadder than I wanted to admit. I wished we didn’t have to end things like we did even though logically it made the most sense for both of us. The distance was too great, and it wasn’t at all practical for us to stay together, even as much as I knew we both wanted to.

I headed to the dining hall to get lunch, I didn’t have anything in my room besides stuff for a sandwich or some microwavable soup and neither of those options sounded all that good. The dining hall at least offered more options, pizza, other hot foods, a salad bar, and the like. There was only so much I could do in my dorm room without a proper kitchen. I wondered if I would somehow run into Grace there, it would be nice if I did but I had no expectations that I would. I knew also that I should try and have a chat with my RA at some point just to both let him know what my situation was now, and that I was looking to hopefully be able to meet people too since that was something I knew deep down I needed to do, especially after the appointment this morning.  

I managed to get to the dining hall towards the end of when they were open for lunch so it was far from busy.  I got myself a tray and a handful of items.  I was quite hungry as breakfast wasn’t the most filling, and I had eaten it hours ago.  I found a table by the window to myself and began to eat.  Midway through my meal I head someone come up behind me and say my name.

“Kenrick is that you?” she said.

I turned around and there was Elizabeth.

“Hey, yeah it is me, how are you?” I asked.  

“I’m good, I haven’t seen you in a while, how are you doing with everything?” she asked.  “Grace said you weren’t doing that great but I mean, losing your parents like that it isn’t exactly surprising I feel.”

“No, I don’t feel it is all that surprising at all, it was all so sudden and unexpected you know,” I said.  “I am sure in time I will be better, or so I hope at least.”

“It does get easier, but it never totally goes away,” she said.  “We lost our dad suddenly when we were in high school, he had a heart attack and was gone while we were at school and had no idea till we got home, Grace found him at home sitting in the chair he always sat in, she doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“She never mentioned it, I am so sorry for your loss,” I said.  

“I think she has blocked out a lot of those memories to be honest,” said Elizabeth.  “I wouldn’t be surprised if all of this with your parents is bringing up memories of it for her, so it might be challenging for her but that isn’t your fault at all, I may be a better resource for you with all of this, and I am always here to talk.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate that,” I said.  “It seems like I haven’t seen all that much of you, just  Grace lately.”

“Yeah, she is a bit more social than I am, plus I deal with a bit of anxiety in social situations so I really mostly just go to class and come back to the room, or go to the library,” said Elizabeth.  “It is something I am trying to get better at but it can be a challenge to get myself out there.”

“Well, I need to do that much too honestly,” I said.  “I only know you and your sister here, thats it, well and my RA but I don’t even remember his name, I have only talked with him in passing.”

“Well maybe that is something we can work on together, if you want of course,” said Elizabeth.  “My sister is going to be pretty tied up with school stuff before long, her art classes and projects are a hell of a lot more time consuming than anything I have to do for my classes, and I can write papers anywhere, she can’t really take her art with her to a coffee shop to work on.”

“That is true,” I said.  “I don’t even know what all sorts of art she even does.”

“Oh she is all over the place,” said Elizabeth.  “Mostly painting but she has wanted to give sculpture a try too so not exactly the most portable types of art to be working on.”

“No, not so much,” I said.  “Well, I would enjoy spending time with you a lot, even if it is just hitting a coffee shop while you work on something, I feel like maybe I should start writing something myself perhaps.”

“What do you think you might want to write about?” asked Elizabeth.

“I’m not sure, I mean I was coming to school here to major in Journalism and English, so maybe fiction, or maybe write some sort of a memoir about my life up to this point,” I said.  “I could also probably come up with some sort of a family history too for either side of the family, if anything it would give me something to do which is a hell of a lot more than I have going on for myself now.”

“True, giving yourself something to do right now is probably pretty important, I can’t imagine how boring it is for you now without classes or anything to do,” she said.

“Yeah, you got that write, but I don’t know if I could concentrate on classes if I had to go to them either you know,” I said.  

“I have no how many trips I am going to be having to make back to Portland with all of this,” I said.  “My aunt is moving down there into the house, from Spokane to get out of her abusive marriage, not sure if Grace mentioned that to you at all or not.”

“She didn’t mention that,” said Elizabeth.  “She did mention that you would likely be making a few more trips back there though and said she was going to see if she could go with you sometime though.”

“Yeah I made that offer to her and to be fair I may as well extend the offer to you as well, no reason to leave you out of it,” I said.  “The next trip will likely be a solo one, helping my aunt transport stuff there, but after that, I should be more available to have either of you or both of you go with.”

“Just let us know, it would be a lot of fun I feel, neither of us have been to Portland before either so it  could be a good time just for that alone,” said Elizabeth.  “What do you have going the rest of the day today?”

“I don’t think anything to be honest,” I said.  “All I really had  going on was a counseling session this morning which went well, otherwise I hadn’t really planned anything at all, what about you?”

“Well, I have a couple classes to get through, but besides that, not really anything,” she said.  “Do you want to get dinner here with the both of us tonight?”

“Sure, I would like that a lot,” I said.  “Come by my room whenever you are ready, I will be there.”

“Will do, I am so glad I ran into you here,” she said.

“I am too, it seems like I haven’t seen you in ages,” I said.  “Well I will see you tonight then I presume.”

She waved goodbye as we were both done with our meals.  I headed back to my room in Dressler Hall, she headed off to her class, wherever it was.  I was quite happy I had chanced to run into her, or more like that she had seen and recognized me.  

Back in my dorm, there wasn’t anything else going on or anything to do.  No messages, no emails, no nothing.  At this point all I had to do was wait around till Grace and Elizabeth came around to go get dinner.  It wasn’t my ideal way to spend the rest of the afternoon, however there wasn’t anything else to do.  I at least was smart enough to bring back more of my books from home when I came this time.  Unfortunately there wasn’t anywhere all that  decent to put them, so they stayed in boxes for now.  I should have tried to get another bookcase or something, but I didn’t think I could fit one in my car.  Was going to have to see if there was any other options for that, otherwise they would remain in boxes.

I decided to rest for a bit, I was more than a bit tired thanks to not sleeping well last night.  I was quite nervous and anxious about the appointment today, that sleep didn’t come so easy.  I laid down for a bit and before long I head pounding on my door.  I woke up in a daze, got up and wandered to the door to open it.  Grace and Elizabeth were outside.

“It’s dinner time already?” I asked.  “I must have fallen asleep for longer than I thought I did.”

“You must have, it is after 6:00 p.m. now, when did you take a nap?” said Elizabeth.  

“I laid down a while after I got back to the dorm after lunch,” I said.  “That was, maybe 1:30 p.m. or so.”

“Well you managed to get about four hours of sleep, so that is nothing to complain about,” said Grace.  “Do you still want to come to dinner with us?”

“Of course, I would love to, let me just grab some shoes.” I said.  “How have your days been?”

“Not bad, I was in my studio class most of the day painting,” said Grace.  “I enjoy it but sometimes it can just get frustrating when I can’t get things to go how I want them to.”

We headed out of the dorm and across to the dining hall.  I was trying to shake the tiredness from my head.  I was groggy, I hoped that having dinner would help me feel at least a little bit more awake and with it than I was right now.  When we got to the dining hall it was moderately full but there were still quite a few empty tables.  We got food and made our way to where there was a slightly secluded area for us to sit away from a good deal of the other students.  It seemed like none of us had a lot to talk about, so there was a lot of silence, some of it a bit awkward to me.  It was still good to be out of the dorm with the two of them.  Anything was better than just sitting around my room doing nothing.

After we finished eating, Elizabeth suggested going out for a walk across campus and getting ice cream at a little shop near campus.  I wasn’t opposed to this idea at all.  I wanted to go.  

“I can’t go,” said Grace.  “I have to finish up an assignment that is due tomorrow, I want to go  though but I know it wouldn’t be responsible.”

It ended up just being Elizabeth and myself going to get ice cream, as Grace headed back to their dorm room to finish whatever here assignment was.  It was nice to get to spend a bit more time with Elizabeth as we hadn’t really spent much time together on our own before today.  Still doing my best to get to know her.  It was a challenge though to keep my mind focused as all it wanted to do was wander all over the place, thinking about home and everything.  That was where my mind was most of the time, thinking of home, my family, what was going to become of everything there.  There was so much that was still very much up in the air with things, or so it seemed and I didn’t know for sure what the future would hold.  I was glad that my aunt was moving into the house so it wouldn’t just be sitting there uninhabited.  I did wonder what I should be doing about all the stuff that was there.  I knew that wasn’t something I had to worry about immediately at least.  Although I would have to clear some space for my  Aunt’s things, but I had no idea how much space she would even need.

“Hey are you okay?” asked Elizabeth.  “It looked like I lost you there.”

“Yes, sorry, my bad, was just thinking about everything,” I said.

“Everything?” she asked.  “What do you mean?”

“Just everything with this whole situation, parents being gone, me being here, everything going on at home in Portland with the house and my aunt moving there and what all I may or may not need to do with the place,” I said.  “It is all just more than a bit overwhelming and here I am all the way out here in Cheney trying to make a go of it on my own and just feeling so terribly alone out here.”

“I am sorry you are feeling so alone, I  promise you that you aren’t,” said Elizabeth.  “Grace and I are here for you, always, and we can try and help you meet some more people as well, just know if you are ever feeling down, just let us know and one of us will come hangout with you, I know none of this can be easy on you but you are doing your best.”

“Thank you, it really doesn’t feel like I am unfortunately, but I know it is going to be a long process for me to end up being anywhere near okay I feel,” I said.  “I just think its difficult for me to be this overwhelmed with everything all at once as it is.”

“Well you have family that is helping with things correct?” asked Elizabeth.  “I know when we lost our dad a lot of the family helped out with everything, of course we had our mom there too, but she was in such a state she wasn’t able to do much of anything without having a breakdown.”

“Yes family is helping out with some of the stuff, but the worst part is, nobody lives there in Portland locally,” I said.  “At least not till my aunt moves into the house, the closest relatives are up in the Seattle and Port Townsend area of Washington so it isn’t like they can just drop into the house and check on things.”

“When is your aunt moving, have you heard yet?” Elizabeth asked.

“No, she hasn’t said,” I said.  “She told me she wanted to do it soon but she hasn’t given me any indication on when, so I am pretty up in the air about that.”

“Well hopefully once she goes there that will make things a bit easier on you,” said Elizabeth.  “Is there a lot to do there before she would be able to move in there?”

“I am presuming she would be moving into the guest room we have there at home, and it is in a position to be lived in immediately, so no, I don’t think there is a lot to do before she gets there,” I said.  “The biggest question is how much stuff is she planning on bringing with her, because there isn’t really a ton of storage space free depending on how much she is planning on bringing.”

“She hasn’t given any indication as to what all she was planning on bringing?” asked Elizabeth.

“No, she hasn’t,” I said.  “I don’t feel like she would be bringing a bunch of furniture or anything like that with her, but she hasn’t really said anything about it, I likely need to give her a call sometime tonight and see what she is really wanting to bring, and when she was planning on going as well.”

“Agreed, that would all be rather helpful information for you,” said Elizabeth.  “Do you have anything else planned tonight besides that?”

“I don’t think so really, not like I have any assignments to work on or anything you know,” I said.  “I do need to find something to occupy my time here though, to get me out more often.”

“If you want sometime I usually go running in the mornings if you ever have any desire to come with me,” said Elizabeth.  “You mentioned that you did a sport or two in high school if I remember right.”

“Yeah, I played hockey and soccer in high school, ran track as well” I said.  “I really haven’t done anything since I graduated though, I have gotten lazy.”

“Well, this is a perfect opportunity to be active again, of course only if you want to,” she said.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.  “Mornings have been difficult for me since I got here.”

“I understand that totally,” she said.  “Just let me know, I would be more than happy to have some company with me while I run.”

“I will, thank you, I appreciate the offer,” I said.  “Thank you for wanting to spend so much time with me, I appreciate it, I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t meet you two on the way up here.”

“I don’t know either,” she said.  “I am glad you did, I can’t even imagine how difficult it would have been for you otherwise.”

We headed back towards the dorm.  It was a nice night, still a good bit warmer than I would have liked but that was to be expected this time of year out here in Eastern Washington.  We took the elevator up to our rooms.  She hugged me goodbye when she got out on her floor, I went up to mine and made my way to my room.  Unlocked the door, stepped inside and I laid down on the bed.  I was mentally exhausted.  There was just too damn much on my mind with all of this.  I knew that things should calm down a little once Sara was living in Portland.  Or so I hoped at least.  I just wanted things to get a little easier.  I had no idea what easier was going to look like at this point though.  There was just so much going on, but at the same time, there was nothing.  My days here were empty and full of nothing.  All I could do was try and find things to fill the time.  There was so little that I actually had to do on a daily basis, that was likely one of my biggest challenges, finding something to do that felt like it was worth doing.

[darkcavewriting]

Day 13

I slept well, which was a bit of a surprise.  Being back in the dorm I wasn’t expecting much in the way of sleep, especially as noisy as it had been.  However, I was obviously tired enough to not notice the noise and I managed to get a rather solid nights sleep.  I was so tired last night I had forgotten to put my phone to charge before bed, and when I checked it before getting up, it was nearly dead.  There was a notification though of an email from Eva.  I had hoped that she would respond.

She had a lot to say.  She was happy that I had been approved to take the term off, and she seemed excited when I mentioned that Eastern Washington had a club hockey team.  She said she was disappointed that I never received any realistic scholarship offers to play college hockey, but I knew that as average of a player as I was, it wasn’t a surprise to me.  She was hopeful that I would be able to come visit her out in Minneapolis at some point, and that if I let her know she would see if she could find me somewhere that I could stay.

Waking up to an email like that was a good way to start the day.  I plugged my phone in, turned on my coffee pot, and trudged down the hall for a shower.  The communal shower room wasn’t as full as I was expecting.  It was still early enough before the 8:00 a.m. classes that there likely weren’t that many people up.  Lord knows I didn’t need to be up and awake this early, but, I was, and I didn’t see any real reason to stay in bed any longer.  The shower had me feeling a bit more awake, back in my room, dressed, and with coffee at hand, the morning didn’t seem so bad.  It was sunny outside, a little chill in the air that I could feel until I closed my window.  As warm as it got during the days, it always cooled down a considerable amount at night and I was going to have to do a better job of trying to regulate the temperature in the room.  I hated to think what it was going to be like come winter when the snow arrived and the temperature was below freezing a good deal of the time.

It was weird waking up like this.  I had absolutely zero plans for the day at all.  I knew I needed to attempt to set up an appointment with the counseling department, but other than that, there was nothing I felt I needed to accomplish. The check for the tuition refund was supposed to be ready within the next couple days, and I was told that I would be called when it was ready to be picked up.  In the meantime I wasn’t exactly hurting for money, and there wasn’t even really anything I wanted to spend anything on in the first place.  All I wanted or needed I pretty much had here in my dorm room, no reason to particularly want anything at all.  The only thing that had crossed my mind was the new NHL video game for PC, but that wasn’t released yet, and it was hardly a priority.  

I wanted to bring more of my stuff up to my dorm from home because I had the space, however, not knowing if I was going to continue to have the space for any prolonged period of time due to this technically being a double room was a bit troubling.  I didn’t want to get the room totally full of my own stuff only to suddenly end up with a roommate and then have to either take a ton of stuff back to Portland, or get rid of a bunch of things.  Neither of those options seemed too practical to me.  The only thing I likely needed to bring up from Portland right now was my hockey gear, however I should probably try and talk with whoever ran the club team to see if there was even a chance of me playing for them.  I had never given playing college hockey any sort of serious thought.  True, club hockey was a far cry from what Eva was doing, playing for arguably one of the best womens teams in the country, but it was without a doubt better than playing no hockey at all which is what I was expecting to do.  

There was a lot for me to do here, a lot for me to consider, and a lot to just generally sort out.  The good thing was that I had ample time to do it.  The bad thing was that I had so much time it was going to be hard for me to find the motivation to do what I needed to do.  I needed to make some lists, so I could check stuff off, and hold myself accountable.  I knew it was going to be far too easy to just slack off, be lazy, and not accomplish a damned thing, and next thing I knew it was going to be after new year and I was going to be starting classes and still in just as bad of shape as I was now.  That was what I was dreading.

Making a plan and sticking with it was going to be tough for me, I had no doubt about that at all.  Nothing was going to be easy these next few months, that was more or less a given.  All I was going to be able to do is take each day as it arrived, and see if I could make it be decent, and see if I was able to grow, or get better, every day.  What I knew that I needed to get done today, at least after I had a shower and went to get some breakfast, was to set up an appointment at the counseling center.  I didn’t know how long it would take before I was able to get an appointment, or if they offered walk in services or what.  I would find out more once I went.  I knew that going was going to be the first step in what was likely to be a long process of dealing with the loss of my parents.  I had a bit of a break down this morning when I woke up around 2:00 a.m., thirsty, and it just hit me, hard, that they were gone and I didn’t know what to think or how to react.  I wasn’t even sure if it was a dream or not that they were gone.  Once I assured myself that it wasn’t a dream, it was damn hard to fall back asleep.  I was hardly awake.  I was hopeful that the coffee would help, but I had my doubts.

After a shower, and a couple cups of coffee I finally felt warm enough, and mostly awake.  Looking at the time, it appeared that once I was done with breakfast in the dining hall I should be able to head over to the counseling center and they would be open by then.  I didn’t particularly want to have to wait for them to open, so I saw no reason to leave my room till I could get all the things I wanted to get done outside done, without having to come back.  I still wasn’t feeling all that social.  I mean it didn’t help that the only people I had even really talked to since I had been here was Elizabeth and Grace.  I hadn’t even had a real conversation with my RA yet.  I needed to try and find him today and thank him for submitting all that paperwork to admissions and housing on my behalf.  It saved me a lot of time and energy, and also for even just alerting me that not taking classes this term was even an option.   Without him I would have had no idea.

I was still feeling rather unmotivated. Not that I knew what I even should be motivated to do.  I knew that I was going to need to take advantage of all this extra time I was going to have these next three months.  Three months was a considerable amount of time.  I thought to myself that it was probably the longest uninterrupted time I had ever had to myself that I didn’t have any real obligations for.  I knew I would like to make it out to Minneapolis if I could.  I also knew I was likely going to be going back and forth to Portland a fair bit, especially if Aunt Sara ended up moving there.  The only other thing that I felt I really needed to work on was myself.  Between counseling, as well as likely putting some time in at the gym and inquiring about hockey, there wasn’t much else that I felt I was going to need to do.  

I felt that in some ways having all this time at my disposal was going to be a blessing and a curse.  It was great that I had all this time, but I kept thinking that I would probably end up squandering it and not taking advantage of it at the same time.  It was a rough spot for me to be in.  I knew I was going to have to hold myself accountable and use this time to the best of my advantage.

As much as I wanted to make sure that someone else could help me hold myself accountable for things, I knew that I didn’t need to put that burden on someone else.  The only person I would even remotely consider asking was Eva, and as far away as she was, I didn’t feel that would be all that practical.  I was hopeful that I could talk with her today though.  Getting to see her back home at the funeral was really nice, and it just made me feel a lot of things that I had been trying to forget.  I seriously wondered if I should consider trying to transfer out there to the University of Minnesota.  I knew deep down I shouldn’t but, the thought was there in the back of my mind and it was hard to ignore.

I knew though that moving out there if I was to transfer and I got accepted wouldn’t be easy.  I’d be moving even further away from home on the West Coast, and not having any family close at all would be difficult.  So as much as I liked the idea of moving to be closer to her, I knew it was likely an incredibly dumb idea on my part.

Finally I felt it was late enough to head out to get breakfast and then head to the counseling center to try and set up an appointment.  I was hoping I wouldn’t run into either Elizabeth or Grace on the way down there because I wasn’t really in the mood to interact much with anyone.  

Thankfully I was able to get breakfast without any incident.  Was able to fill up on all my favorites, eggs, bacon, pancakes, coffee, all the things that made me happy.  Only thing that was missing was some biscuits and gravy, but what they had didn’t look all that good.  The gravy was super watery, and that just wasn’t all that appealing to me at all.

By the time I was done with breakfast, it was close enough to when the counseling center opened, especially since it was a good ways across campus.  It was a cool morning, would likely be hot towards the end of the day, but it was cool enough now that I felt a bit cold even in jeans and a hoodie.  I made it to the building that housed the counseling center, as well as some other departments.  I headed up the stairs, and down the hall to the office.  The building was seemingly empty.  Lights were on in offices, but I didn’t see anyone else around.  At the top of the stairs I could see down to where the counseling office was and I could see that there was someone sitting behind the desk there, so that was at least a positive sign.  I didn’t make the walk all the way over here for nothing at least.

I walked in the door, and introduced myself to the woman at the front desk there.

“Oh, we have been expecting you,” she said as she gathered a folder with a post it note with my name on it from her desk.  “Admissions said you would likely be by sometime this week, how can I help you?”

“Oh, I didn’t expect that,” I said.  “I was hoping to be able to set up an appointment to speak with someone for some counseling due to the recent loss of my parents.”

“Yes, that is something that we can easily arrange,” she said.  “What does your class schedule look like?”

“Well, at present I don’t have any classes, so, wide open,” I said.

“No classes?” she asked.  “You aren’t enrolled and attending here then?”

“No, I am, but, I literally just lost my parents right after I moved in here, so admissions allowed me to not take classes this term because of that,” I said.  “I still live on campus, and will be enrolled come next term, but they allowed me to take this term off due to everything.”

“Oh, my apologies, that isn’t a policy that gets taken advantage of all that often,” she said.  “Likely a wise idea for you to take advantage of it though.”

“I thought so as well, I really couldn’t imagine being able to focus on classes,” I said.  “Also with all the likely trips I will need to make back home, it would make it hard to get a lot of school stuff done on time.”

“That is a good point,” she said.  “Would tomorrow morning be too soon to have your first appointment or would you prefer sometime later in the week?”

“Tomorrow morning works for me, the sooner the better I feel,” I said.

“Well we can book you in tomorrow at 10:00  a.m. for a hour,” she said.

“Thank you, I will see you then,” I said and headed back out.  I had nothing else planned for the rest of the day.  There wasn’t really anything else to be done at this point.  I had no classes to go to, had nothing on my schedule at all, and there wasn’t really anything I could do back home from here either.  It was a difficult situation to be in.  Being in a class would at least give me something to do, but there was no sign I was going to be able to focus on anything at all, and there was the challenge.  I should find something to do I thought as I made my way back to my room.

Back in my room, alone with my thoughts and the small collection of stuff I brought from home with me, a tiny television, my computer, and some books, the room was still rather barren.  I could play video games but that didn’t seem too appealing to me at the moment.  Nothing did.  What I really wanted was to see Eva, but she was back in Minnesota now so that was out of the question.  I was glad we were still in contact though, I missed her terribly.  I missed a lot of things from back home, the routine of everything, the comfortableness of the home there, the home that was now suddenly mine.  I never thought I would be in a situation like this, not at this age.  It wasn’t like I thought my parents were going to live forever or anything, but I sure as hell didn’t expect this.

I wondered if I should try and spend some time with Elizabeth or Grace later today.  I had no idea what their schedules were like, it had never been discussed.  I kicked myself for not insisting on bringing a coffee pot to Cheney with me.  It would be multi functional, to make coffee, or heat water for tea.  It was something I was going to have to go out and buy, sooner than not.  I didn’t want to have to rely on getting coffee from the little cafe on campus every time I wanted a cup.  The challenge at this point was figuring out if any of the stores in town carried coffee pots, or if I was going to have to drive all the way to Spokane for one.  The only two options I could see was Safeway or Ace Hardware.  There was also a BiMart, but it was a membership store, and my family wasn’t a member, however after looking it up, a lifetime membership was only five bucks, so possibly that was the best bet.  Having to drive all the way to Spokane for a coffee pot seemed a bit excessive.  It wasn’t like I could do a pour over or a French Press either since there wasn’t anywhere in the dorm to get water that was adequately hot for coffee, or tea.

I also stupidly hadn’t brought any mugs with me from home, besides a travel mug, which considering how many mugs we had in the kitchen cabinets was a massive mistake on my part.  Whenever I headed back to Portland I was going to need to be sure to grab a few to bring back with me.  No reason for me to be buying a bunch of mugs here if I didn’t need that many.  

I grabbed my car keys and headed out of the dorm.  Students were everywhere heading to and from classes, and just wandering aimlessly.  I however was on a mission, or at least it seemed like a mission to me.  Safeway was the first stop to see if a coffee pot was something that they sold.  I had no clue if they would but considering how few stores there were in Cheney I thought I might get lucky.  I unfortunately did not get lucky, no coffee pots to be found there whatsoever.  Ace Hardware was the next stop, and they did indeed have several in stock, but they were far higher end than I really wanted or needed.  I didn’t think I could justify dropping over $50 on a coffee pot.  That left me with going to BiMart, or thinking about driving to Spokane and hitting Fred Meyer, Target, Walmart or  somewhere like that which would likely have a bigger selection.  This wasn’t something that I thought was going to be quite this challenging.  I should have just brought the second coffee pot from home with me when I came back, but of course I didn’t think of that when we were there unfortunately.

I got back in my car, turned the key and the engine roared to life.  I pulled out of the parking lot, and next I knew I was on my way north to Spokane.  This was likely going to be an ongoing issue for me living in Cheney, anytime I wanted something special or to make a larger purchase I was  likely going to need to drive up to Spokane, or end up ordering it online, which wasn’t ideal.  At least if I went to Spokane I would be able to have whatever I wanted same day instead of having to wait who knows how long for something to get delivered.  At least Spokane wasn’t that far away, wasn’t like I had to drive all the way back to Portland, or across the state to Seattle, having to do that would be rather terrible.

An hour later, coffee pot, filters, and a couple bags of coffee in hand, I was pulling back into the lot at Eastern Washington University and heading back up to my room.  I didn’t particularly want more coffee at this stage of the day, it was a bit past noon now, but at least I would be able to have my own coffee come morning and that was a step in the right direction.

Back  in my room I was still struggling to figure out what to do with the rest of the day.  I didn’t have any notifications on my phone  from anyone, which wasn’t really a bad thing.  There were so few people that I really wanted to hear from at this point that keeping myself closed off was for the best I felt.  It didn’t help that there was really only the two people I knew here in Cheney, and I wasn’t exactly in the best position mentally right now to try and meet anyone else either.  About the only thing I could think of to do right now was to see about hitting the campus recreation building, and working out in the gym, either that or going for a run.  Something mindless where I really didn’t have to put all that much thought into what I was doing and it would still be good for me.  I hadn’t done any sort of physical activity since I moved here and I was likely going to need to make some changes with that so I didn’t get out of shape.

I hadn’t been in the campus recreation building since my parents and I came here on the campus tour ages ago.  I remembered something being said about the school planning on doing upgrades or improvements of some sort but I had no idea if they had at this point or not.  I wasn’t much concerned, all I was planning on doing was some cardio work on a treadmill or bike, or if I really hated myself, a stair machine.  I wasn’t really feeling like lifting weights at this stage of the day, hadn’t done anything like that since hockey season and I was feeling a bit weak in that aspect.  They apparently had done some upgrades to the gym area as it looked a lot nicer than I remembered from the tour.  I scanned my school ID and headed to the treadmills.  I didn’t need to hit the locker room I had already changed in my room, one advantage of just living across campus from the gym.  

I got in a decent workout, mostly cardio with some weights thrown in, it felt good to be doing something that took my mind off of everything else.  I needed distractions, and distractions that were beneficial to me like going to the gym were better than distractions like sitting in my room playing video games all day.  There was however a time and place for that as well.  I was just in a bit of a difficult spot with everything and knowing what to do with my time.  I wasn’t going to be in classes till sometime after the new year, so I had several months of time to do mostly whatever the hell I wanted, which wasn’t something I had ever really had.  Closest I ever did was summer vacation during school but those were usually filled with trips, so not exactly a chance to do whatever I wanted, but I didn’t have any real responsibilities during those times either.  The only responsibility I had right now it seemed was to keep myself alive, which wasn’t going to be too difficult I felt.

I knew that when I was going to need to be making more trips back down to Portland on a regular basis to try and get things situated there, that was going to be a challenge perhaps.  That was a long drive, and it wasn’t one I was going to want to be making all that often, especially in my car.  Not exactly the most comfortable ride in the world that was for sure.  I didn’t know for sure what the situation was going to be like with Aunt Sara moving to Portland to escape her husband in Spokane.  I didn’t know how poorly that was going to go, if he was going to cause issues  or whatnot.  It sounded like he wasn’t home all that much anyways so it was hard to say how long it would even take him to notice that she was gone.  I trusted her to make the right decision with all of it and to do what was best for her.  Even though she was family, I hardly knew her, which made things complicated but I had to hope for the best.

The rest of the afternoon passed without much of anything happening, which was what I was hoping for.  I wasn’t much in the mood for anything after what all I had been through the last few days.  Having some quiet time to myself was something I deeply valued.  I didn’t feel like I could adequately start the whole grieving process if I was surrounded by a bunch of other people.  Honestly I wished I was still at home in the house I grew up in, alone, alone with my thoughts and my memories.  That seemed like it would be the ideal spot to start the grieving process, instead of in a tiny dorm room hundreds of miles away.  At least I wasn’t stuck sharing my dorm room with someone, having to do that and grieve at the same time wouldn’t be ideal.

Late that evening, after I had made myself a sandwich in my dorm, to avoid going out and dealing with people in the dining hall, there was a knock on my door.  I didn’t particularly want to answer it.  I didn’t feel like dealing with anyone, but I knew also it was likely one of two people, either my RA, or Grace, and they wouldn’t be the worst to deal with either.  I got up and went to the door, pulled it open, and there was Grace.

“Why haven’t you answered your phone?” she asked straight away.

“I never heard it ring,” I said.  “Actually, I don’t even know where it is.”

I felt my pockets, they were empty, it wasn’t on my desk or dresser either.  Eventually I found it on my bed, ringer turned off, and five missed calls from Grace.

“My bad, sorry about that,” I said.  “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, things are fine, I was just worried about you,” she said.  “How has your day been, are you holding up alright?”

“Yeah I am doing okay, today hasn’t been all that exciting, went to Spokane, got a coffee pot for the room, worked out at the gym and that is about it,” I said.  “What about yours?”

“Just classes for me, nothing exciting at all,” said Grace.  “Are you worried about getting bored at all with no classes for you till after winter break?”

“Honestly, yeah I kind of am,” I said.  “I know some days are going to be a challenge since there is a lot of time between now and then and I don’t really have anything set to do, but I am going to have to make the most of it.”

“When are you going back to Portland next?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, I think it is going to depend on when my aunt heads down there to move into the house,” I said.  “There are some things I need to grab from there to bring back, coffee cups for one among other things that it would be nice to have around here.”

“Well if you go for a weekend and want some company, let me know, I would be up for going too if you wanted some company,” said Grace.  “No pressure though, entirely up to you.”

I thought to myself that having Grace along for the ride could be a good time.  I’d really never done any sort of long trip with anyone who wasn’t family.  Even Eva and I had never done more than just a day trip to the coast, and she drove then.  Doing a little trip back home with Grace could be pretty fun I thought, if anything it wouldn’t be quite so lonely and I wasn’t seeing the downside of that at all.  

“I think I would like that,” I said.  “I will let you know when I am planning on going next and maybe we can work something out if you are still up for going.”

“Sure, just let me know,” she said.  “A weekend away from here could be a good time, and I haven’t been to Portland in I don’t know how long.”

I didn’t have a whole lot else to say, and neither did she, so we just lounged around my room with some music on.  It wasn’t a bad way to spend the evening.  I still didn’t know what if anything would come of things with her.  I wasn’t holding out a whole lot of hope for anything, and at the same time given the relationship with Eva, and how much I still missed her, getting into something else so soon seemed like it would be a bad choice on my part.  Grace took off back to her room to finish an assignment, and I went back to playing video  games on my computer.  

I knew that if I wanted to see Eva I was going to have to book myself a flight to Minneapolis.  There was no way I thought my car would be able to make that journey in one piece.  It could be fun to try I thought, but getting stranded in the middle of Montana or North Dakota was not something I particularly wanted to deal with at all.  I had ample time I felt to figure something out, still almost four full months till I was  going to have to start classes in January, and that should be more than enough time to make it out to Minneapolis to see her.  If I did see her I didn’t know what I was expecting from it.  Seeing her at the funeral was obviously nice, but with us being so far apart now, I couldn’t see any way we could likely  make a relationship work for us unfortunately.  Even if it was something we both wanted, we were both likely going to be away from each other for the next four years or so while we went to school, after that though, who knows.

That was a long time in the future and so much could happen between now and then, hell so much had happened in the last two weeks, trying to figure out what was going to happen over the course of the next  four years was beyond my comprehension at this point.  All I could think about was making it through till the winter holidays and hope that I was able to hold up alright. 

[darkcavewriting]

Day 12

I woke up to Sara shaking my shoulder.  I had crashed hard last night.  She was already up and getting ready to head to work for the first time in over a week.  I on the other hand needed to make the 30 minute drive back down to Cheney to my dorm at Eastern Washington and then see what sort of paperwork I needed to file and with whom.  

“There is coffee in the pot for you, help yourself to anything you want for breakfast,” she said.  “There is an extra key next to the coffee, go ahead and keep that so you can lock the door when you leave.”

“Do you want me to put it under the door mat or anything?” I asked.

“Nope, it is yours to keep in case you need to come back for anything, or if you just want to come up and visit before I likely take off to Portland.”

“Sounds good, thank you,” I said.  “Have a good day at work, and I will let you know how everything goes with stuff at Eastern.”

“Sounds good, I will expect to hear from you tonight,” she said.

With that she headed out the front door, and I headed off to take a shower.  Partially because I was dirty, and partially because I was hopeful that it would wake me up.  I felt incredibly tired still, even though I easily got over nine hours of sleep last night.  There was no way I should still feel as tired as I was after getting so much sleep. 

The shower, coffee, and a frozen breakfast sandwich helped me to feel a bit more alive.  Then it was time to get in my car and drive down to Cheney.  I was hopeful that it would even start after sitting for as long as it had.  It wasn’t exactly the most reliable some days.  I didn’t want today to be one of the days that it caused me issues.  

Heading out to the driveway with my bag, I tossed it in the back seat and got behind the wheel.  The car managed to start on the second time.  That was about normal for it.  Getting on the road wasn’t something I wanted to do but it was something I clearly needed to do.  I was still feeling rather nervous about everything back in Cheney.  I didn’t know if I should be, but at this point I couldn’t help it.  There was so much uncertainty right now for me I didn’t know what to expect once I got back there.  I was hopeful that the university hadn’t made any sort of decision to kick me out of the dorms or anything.  All of the bills had been paid so I didn’t think that would be an issue.  

The drive back town to Cheney was a bit stressful for me.  There was a good bit of wind and I struggled at times to keep my car in the lane.  One issue with having a car that was so damn light.  It wasn’t always the easiest to keep under control.  Still, I made it back to Cheney in decent time, pulled my car into the lot by my dorm, and headed upstairs with my bag over my shoulder.  I texted Sara to let her know that I made it back to my dorm safely.  I still hadn’t heard from Grace or Elizabeth and at this point I wasn’t holding out a whole lot of hope that I would.  I didn’t really care all that much either.  I barely knew them, and with all that was going on with me right now, they weren’t exactly any sort of a priority either.  I knew I needed to focus more on myself, on everything in Portland, and on my mental health, than I needed to on somebody new who would likely just be a distraction to me.  I had been thinking on the drive yesterday that I would be better off putting any effort into anything into things with Eva, even if she was off in Minnesota.  She at least knew me, knew my parents, and knew all of the situation.  There wasn’t any of the getting to know each other nonsense with her, she already knew everything.  I didn’t know if that was what I was going to do, but in my mind right now it seemed more practical than anything.

The elevator dropped me off down the hall from my room.  There was an envelope taped to the door.  I took it off, and unlocked my door and walked in.  There was another envelope under the door as well.  I tossed my bag on the bed and opened the letters.  They were identical, which was going to save me a little time.  The letter outlined what steps I needed to take in order to not have to attend classes this term.  It appeared as though my RA had taken what I had told him and then alerted whatever department was in charge of all this.  It looked like it was going to be a far easier process than I had anticipated.  All I was going to need to do was go to both the housing department office, as well as admissions and present a copy of the death certificate, sign some papers, and I wouldn’t have to worry about anything for the term.  It also stated that whatever fees I had already paid for classes would be refunded.  Hard to go wrong with that.

Before I headed to those offices though, I knew I wanted some more coffee.  I didn’t get much from Sara’s this morning.  She didn’t leave a whole lot in the pot, and I didn’t want to bother to make more, knowing that I had more in my dorm waiting for me.  I grabbed the carafe and wandered down the hall to the restroom to fill it with water.  I had a few people give me strange looks as I walked past.  Not being in the dorm the last week and a half it was obvious that nobody really knew who I was.  It didn’t help that I didn’t make it to any of the get to know your neighbor events because I was either in Spokane or back in Portland.  Maybe now that I was back I should make some sort of effort to try and get to know other people in my dorm, especially if I wasn’t going to be in any classes.  Needless to say I was going to have a lot of time on my hands, so least I could do was try to be social with people.

With coffee made, and in my travel mug, I felt it was alright time to head down to the admissions office with the letter and a copy of the death certificates.  The letter made it sound like I would need to go there first, and then show whatever documents I got from them to the housing office, and then I would be good to go for the term.

Walking across campus I was in a bit of a haze still.  Coffee was at least tasting good.  There was a couple people ahead of me at the admissions office so I waited in line sipping my coffee.  When it was finally my turn at the front of the line I walked up to the counter and showed the man there the letter.  He picked up his phone and called someone to come out and speak with me.  He motioned for me to wait by a door 20 feet away.  I headed over that way and waited.  It took a couple minutes before a woman came out, greeted me, and motioned for me to follow her.  I went back through the door behind her and followed her down a series of hallways to her office.  

“So, Kenrick, I hear that you recently lost your parents,” she said.

“Yes, got the call the first full day I was here,” I said.  “Right after I got back to my room from orientation.”

“That is terrible,” she said.  “I am so sorry for your loss, I see you have the letter we dropped off at your dorm thanks to your RA.”

“Yes, I found two copies of it when I got back here this morning,” I said.

“Got back here?” she asked.

“Yes, I went home to Portland for the funeral and everything,” I said.

“Well, welcome back to Eastern,” she said.  “Your RA told the housing department what was going on, who in turn alerted us, hence the letters, and you being here now.”

“Yes, I presumed that was what had happened,” I said.  “Now before I left for Portland, my RA was saying something about being able to possibly not take classes this term due to the deaths?”

“Yes that is correct,” she said.  “Do you have copies of the death certificates by chance?”

“Yes, of course,” I said as I handed them over.

“Do you mind if I go make copies of these?” she asked.

“No, not at all,” I said.  “Do you need the originals?”

“Nope, a copy will be sufficient, back in a moment,” she said.

This was all going far easier than I had anticipated and that was about all I could hope for given how stressful this last week plus had been.  I was unsure what I would do with all of my free time if I wasn’t taking classes.  As I was thinking about all this, she walked back into her office.

“Here are the certificates,” she said.  “Now, let me tell you how things will work.”

“How all what will work?” I asked.

“Well, everything really,” she replied.  “I will submit the paperwork which will withdraw you from classes for this term, a refund check will be issued to you for all of your tuition, as well as a partial refund on your housing just to make sure that everything is okay with you financially.”

“Thank you, very much,” I said.  “I really appreciate how easy all of this has been, what will I have to do come next term?”

“Next term you should be able to log in and sign up for classes same as you did for this term, there shouldn’t be any issues,” she said.  “If there are though, come see me immediately alright?”

“Of course, thank you, I will be sure to do that,” I said.  “Is there anything else that I need to do with any of this?”

“No, but I would recommend that you take advantage of the counseling services offered here given what you have been through,” she said.  

“Thank you, I intend to,” I said.  “I feel that will be quite helpful to me, or at least worth giving it a go.”

“Well, thank you for coming in so quickly, if there are any issues with anything at all, please reach out to me, here is my card,” she said as she handed me her business card.

“I will, thank you,” I said as I left her office and headed back outdoors.  

Now that I didn’t have classes I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with myself.  I knew that was going to be a possible issue for me.  Too much time on my hands, which, I didn’t know how bad of a thing that was going to be, but here I was.  I headed back to my dorm, I didn’t have any better idea of anything to do, plus I could stand to unpack my bag from the trip home to Portland.  It wasn’t something that had to be done but I knew it was something that I should do, if anything so I didn’t have to deal with it later.  I was tired as hell, but relieved to have all of that taken care of.  It was nice to know that I wasn’t going to have to worry about classes for this term.  Of course that could make going into classes next term a bit more difficult but I would deal with that when the time came.  Still a few months off.  

Back in the dorm, taking care of all that, and knowing I was going to need to do laundry and any number of other things.  I also called my grandparents, who were still at my home back in Portland.  They were there trying to get stuff situated, cleaning out the kitchen, either tossing food out or sorting out what all they could take home back to Port Townsend.  Not having any idea when my aunt would be moving there, presuming that she actually did.  They were glad to hear that I was going to be able to take the term off.  It looked like it was going to be a good thing for me being able to be able to try and focus on what happened and to feel better, instead of trying to focus on classes instead.  I knew I would have a hell of a hard time focusing on much of anything and I sure as hell didn’t need to be starting off my university career doing horribly.  I was just hopeful that the classes I wanted were going to be offered next term as well.  If not, well, I would figure something out.

I did my best to relax in my room the rest of the morning.  I didn’t have anything I needed to do, I didn’t feel like going and doing anything either.  I knew I was going to have to go to the dining hall to get some food though at some point, as well as making it to a store to get some food and stuff for my room.  I hadn’t had a chance to make it out to a store before everything happened.  I should have hit a store in Spokane.  There would have been more variety for places to go.  Out here in Cheney it looked to be pretty limited.  Who knows maybe I would make another drive back to Spokane today or tomorrow for stuff.  All depended on how I felt I presumed.

When I finally decided to head down to go get lunch at the dining hall, I wandered down tot he elevator, pressed the down button and got on.  The elevator stopped at the next floor down, and on got Grace and Elizabeth.  I hadn’t heard from either of them since my first couple days back in Portland.  

I felt rather awkward when they walked into the elevator.  Not having heard from them, Grace specifically, since shortly after I arrived back in Portland, I wasn’t expecting much in the way of acknowledgment from them at all.  That however wasn’t to be the case.

“Kenrick!” exclaimed Grace as she ran towards me in the back of the elevator as she gave me a big bug.  “When did you get back in town?”

“A couple hours ago,” I said.  “I had a meeting with someone in admissions right after I arrived back here, sorry for not letting you know I was back.”

“No need to apologize at all, I know how hectic everything has been for you since you got here,” said Grace.  “I’m sorry I didn’t message you that much when you were back in Portland, I knew you were likely going to be super busy, and I didn’t want to come across as overwhelming or anything.”

“It’s alright,” I said as the elevator doors closed and we started to move down.  “I honestly kind of presumed you just got bored and didn’t want to talk to me anymore.”

“I’m so sorry I made you feel that way,” said Grace.  “That couldn’t be further than the truth, where are you headed now?”

“I was going to head to the dining hall to get some lunch, I haven’t eaten since early this morning at my aunts house in Spokane,” I said.

“That is where we are heading too,” said Elizabeth.  “Want to eat with us?”

“Sure, that sounds nice,” I said.

We all walked together to the dining hall which wasn’t that far away from our dorm.  There was a lot of choices for food, and we opted for the main dining hall instead of any of the smaller food court restaurants.  All three of us got trays that were heaping with food.  We made our way into the seating area and found a little alcove tucked away that didn’t have anybody else sitting in it, sat down in a booth and began to eat and talk.

“So, I won’t be taking any classes this term,” I said.

“You won’t?” asked Grace.  “How can you do that?”

“Well, thanks to my RA I found out about it, and he put in paperwork on my behalf while I was away in Portland,” I said.  “Basically due to the loss of my parents, it allows me to take the term off with no penalty, and allows me to stay in the dorms with no issues even without being in classes.”

“Well that sounds like a really good idea for you,” said Elizabeth.  “I can’t imagine trying to take classes and just being able to focus on anything, this at least gives you a few months, through the end of the year to try and get yourself in a better place mentally before you have to worry about classes and stuff in January.”

“I agree, being able to have this sort of time off, the ability to take advantage of the counseling services here as well, should be beneficial to me,” I said.  “Also I have no idea how many trips back home to Portland I am going to need to make to help deal with stuff either, so I have a feeling these next few months are going to be rather busy for me even without classes to attend.”

“If I can ask, what is happening with your parent’s stuff,” asked Grace.

“Well, most everything goes to me, a few things went to certain family members, but the house and such all go to me as part of a trust, which I can’t fully access till I am in my mid 30’s,” I said.  “I won’t exactly have to worry about money though, at least when it comes to tuition and school expenses, but at some point I should probably try and find a job on campus or whatnot to just have some extra money.”

“It sounds like your parents had everything pretty planned out,” said Grace. 

“They did, which was good, especially as large as the extended family is, but overall it all went well, or at least as well as it could have,” I said.  “The part of the family that lives in Wales all made it over, as well as my parent’s other siblings and whatnot, even my ex-girlfriend made it out from Minnesota to attend.”

“You dated a girl in Minnesota?” asked Grace.

“No, no, she went to school with me in Portland, but she is going to school at the University of Minnesota, on a hockey scholarship, she and I played on the same line for a couple years on our high school hockey team, she won us the state championship with a hat trick in the state final,” I said.

“You played hockey?” the both asked at the same time.

“Yup, I was a left winger on my high school team, had pretty decent stats but didn’t get any college offers to play anywhere,” I said.  “One school back east in New York said they would offer me a scholarship but I never heard a word from them.”

“You know Eastern has a club team right?” asked Elizabeth.

“They do?” I asked.  “I didn’t know about that, it was never mentioned when I was here for the campus tour a couple years ago, where do they play?”

“Right there,” said Grace as she pointed out the window.  “The University Recreation Center, it just was completed this last summer.”

“Interesting, and you say they have a club team?” I asked.

“Yes, and intramural hockey as well from what I have heard,” said Elizabeth.

“Well then, I guess I might need to try and see who I need to get in contact with to play,” I said.  “Of course, all my gear is back in Portland.”

“Well, if you want to make a weekend trip to go pick it up, I don’t think we would mind going with you if you wanted,” said Grace.

“Oh yeah?” I asked.  “I wouldn’t be opposed to that I feel, although, three of us in the car plus all my gear could be a tight fit.”

“I am sure we could make it work,” said Elizabeth.  “We haven’t been to Portland before, or at least I haven’t, have you Grace?”

“I think when I was really young I had been there on the way somewhere else but I don’t remember any of it,” said Grace.  “I would love to be able to go back and actually see things.”

“Well, I will see what works for me and if I do end up going back for that some weekend I will be sure to let you know to see if we can all go together,” I said.  

We all finished eating, and headed back to the dorm.  Grace said she had a class shortly, and Elizabeth said she had a couple later in the afternoon and evening.  I told them I would be around, likely just in my room, as they got off the elevator at their floor.

Back in my room I didn’t know what to do.  It was a bit of a strange situation like this.  There was nothing I had to do, no classes, no deadlines, no practices to worry about, no nothing, and with that I didn’t know what to do with my time.  Even in summer when I was off from school there were still things I had to worry about or do.  Now, there was nothing and it wasn’t going to be easy for me.  I had to make some sort of a plan and try and stick with it.  I really hoped I didn’t end up getting a roommate at some point during the term, that would end up being a bit difficult on me I thought.

I ended up taking care of some of what I needed to do, laundry, calling the counseling center to schedule an appointment, and went to pick up my ticket to the football game this week.  The Eagles were home to take on Western Washington University.  In a couple weeks they were playing back in Portland against Portland State and I thought that weekend could be a good one to go back and pick up my hockey gear and maybe tie it in to going to the game as well.  Still had some time to sort that out though.  Hockey season was going to be starting soon in Spokane, so that was something else to be looking forward to.  I didn’t know how often I was going to want to make that drive up to Spokane though for hockey, especially in the winter.  That drive in the snow and possible ice, in the dark, did not seem like it would be that enjoyable.  Also, if Aunt Sara ended up moving to Portland I couldn’t try and crash on the couch at her place after a game either, which would make things a bit easier.

Lots to consider that was for sure.  I wondered what I should do here in the dorm.  Now that I was back, and I hadn’t really met anyone, I wondered if it would be smart of me to keep my dorm room open at times to see if I could meet anyone else or not.  It would be nice to know some more people in the dorm besides Grace and Elizabeth but at the same time, how many questions did I really want about where I had been and why I wasn’t taking classes and all that.  There was a lot to consider.  I knew that my position here in the dorm was unique because of that, and also because I had a room to myself when I wasn’t supposed to.  I really hoped that I wouldn’t have anyone come join me in my dorm at the start of the next term after the new year, but there was no point in that now, it was still a few months away.

All I had to worry about now was sorting out what I was going to do with my days.  There wasn’t a lot to do right now.  I did call Aunt Sara and leave her a voice mail letting her know that I was not taking classes for the term, and for her to call me if she needed anything.  There really wasn’t anything else I needed to do or anyone I needed to contact.  I did feel I should probably let Eva know what was going on, especially since if I wasn’t in classes it meant I could probably try and catch a flight out to Minneapolis, or risk a road trip out there to visit her.  A flight however seemed like a far safer bet for me.  There was no way in hell that my car was going to make the trip from here to Minneapolis and back and not have some sort of catastrophic issue along the way.

I sent Eva an email.  It was too much to text, and I didn’t feel like leaving a voice mail with her either.  I had no idea what her schedule was and I didn’t want to risk her not picking up.  I felt that if she wanted to talk after she got it, she could and likely would give me a call.  I did miss her, a lot, and with seeing her back in Portland for the funeral, it made it all the more apparent to me how much I really did miss her.  She meant so much to me, and made me so happy, I knew that neither of us wanted to break up but given our current school situations, it really did seem like the more practical choice, even though it was far from the happiest of choices for either of us.  Who knows, in time maybe things would end up working out for us, there was ample time for that possibility.  Right now though, we were close to 1,400 miles apart and that just wasn’t going to work well for us at all. 

The rest of the day I spent in my room just lounging and hanging out.  I didn’t particularly want to be around anyone else, and I had had so much social interaction the last week plus that I was really looking forward to some serious time on my own.  I was used to having ample quiet time when I was living at home, and that was something that I had missed since coming up to Cheney.  Everything had been so busy, all of the time, and it was honestly getting exhausting.  I was hoping that a relaxing evening was going to help things for me but I honestly didn’t know.

[darkcavewriting]

Day 11

This wasn’t going to be any easier of a day either I thought as I was rolling out of bed.  Between dropping off my grandparents at the airport for their flight back to the United Kingdom, to my drive back to Spokane with my aunt, none of it was going to be easy or enjoyable.  First there was breakfast though, that was at least something that wasn’t going to be awful.   My grandmother outdid herself again, another morning with eggs and pancakes and bacon, home cooked meals like this was something I was for sure going to miss in Cheney.  There were a lot of things I was going to miss in Cheney, that I was for sure of.  

I went to drop off my paternal grandparents off at Portland International Airport so they could begin their long and complicated journey back to Wales.  I was going to miss them.  I never got to see them all that often growing up.  Living as far away as we did made it quite difficult.  I was hopeful that I would possibly be able to use some of the newfound wealth to be able to make a trip out there some summer to visit them.  I wanted to have a bigger chance to see more of the United Kingdom.  In all of our trips over there, which wasn’t many, we had never been to Scotland and we had hardly spent any time in England itself besides transiting through London and Liverpool.  Things in the future might allow me to have a bit more a chance to see more of the world than I had presently seen.

After dropping them off and making it home it was time to get in the car with Sara and head back to Spokane.  We both hugged my grandparents, her parents, goodbye and we were back on the road.

“Thank you again so much for coming down here for all of this with me,” I said.

“I wouldn’t have dreamed on not coming down for it,” said Sara.  “Plus I needed to get out of town for a few days myself, it was nice to be around family that I hadn’t seen in quite a while.”

“I just wish it would have been under happier circumstances though,” I said.  “I still can’t believe what all happened.”

“I truthfully can’t either, I can’t believe that they are both gone, it is all so surprising to me, even still,” she said.  “I wish we could have been closer these last few years though, but there isn’t anything we can do about that now.”

“I wish everyone was closer too, but you are right, there really isn’t much that can be done about that,” I said.  “At least even though we are spread out, it isn’t over that big of an area.” 

“That is true, at least with my family,” she said.  “You still have the family over in Wales.”

“True, but the rest of everyone is all here in Washington,” I said.  “Spread out across the state, but still all in the state, and that is at least a little beneficial.”

“True, although like we discussed, I may not be in Washington all that much longer if you are willing to let me move into the house in Portland.”

“Well I am pretty much sold on that idea, I think it will be good for you, and good for me to have someone in the house since I’m not planning on moving back there.”

“Not at all?” she asked.

“Well I wouldn’t go that far, but not anytime soon,” I said.  “I mean I might come back in the summer if I don’t end up finding a job or something to keep me busy in Cheney, but I don’t see me moving back there on any sort of permanent basis until after graduation, at the earliest.”

“That makes sense, and in that amount of time who knows what anyones situation will be like,” she said.  “I really can’t thank you enough for even offering though, it all means so much to me, you have no idea.”

“It’s just the right thing to do,” I said.  “It helps get you out of a shitty situation and it benefits me too, what is not to love about that.”

The drive itself this time was going a good bit slower.  There was dramatically more traffic than either of us were expecting.  Not the end of the world by far, but we were getting tired of being stuck behind tons of semis.  All we could do was the best we could.  It was early evening by the time we made it back to her place in Spokane.  My car was still there sitting in the driveway, a thin layer of dirt was on it.  Was going to need to get it washed for sure.  I didn’t know at this point if I wanted to make the drive back down to Cheney tonight, or if I should just head down in the morning and deal with everything there then.  I Wasn’t looking forward to any of the conversations I was going to have to have while I was there.  None of it was going to be easy to talk about so it wasn’t going to be at all enjoyable for me or anyone really.  I was hoping Sara would be alright with me staying there tonight.  I didn’t want to deal with anything back in the dorm and as tired as I was I didn’t think I wanted to be making the drive down to Cheney in the first place.

We finally pulled into her driveway as the sun was beginning to set.  It had been a long week plus for us.  Now that we were back here, it all seemed so surreal.  I didn’t know how to really feel.  Everything that had happened since I left Portland the first time to come up to Cheney for school had been so unexpected.  Now that I was back I had no idea what I was going to end up doing.  That all could wait for tomorrow I presumed.  I didn’t know what all I would have to go through tomorrow but I wasn’t looking forward to any of it.  I also hadn’t heard from Grace in a few days, but, I hadn’t made any effort to stay in contact with her either so it was just as much fault as anyone’s I felt.

“Hey, do you mind if I crash here tonight and drive back to Cheney in the morning?” I asked.

“Don’t feel like dealing with the dorm tonight?” she asked.  “I don’t blame you a bit, of course you can stay here tonight.”

“Thanks, I don’t want to deal with anything there, I just want to try and get a decent nights sleep and then deal with whatever sort of nonsense I have to deal with there tomorrow,” I said.  “I’m not looking forward to it at all.”

“I wouldn’t be either,” she said.  “If there is anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask, although I don’t know how much I can do either.”

“No worries, I have the copies of the death certificates, I will see who all I will need to turn those into in order to see about not doing classes this term, and then sort out what all else I need to do,” I said.  “I know it is going to be busy, but I hope I can get it all done in one day.”

“Have you heard from Grace at all?” asked Sara.

“Nope haven’t heard a word for a few days,” I said.  “I wonder if I will hear from her at all once I am back or not.”

“Well have you messaged her at all?” asked Sara.

“No, it hadn’t even really crossed my mind, as busy as we have been with literally everything I hadn’t been thinking about her or well anything back here in Cheney the last couple days, plus seeing Eva, just made me realize how much I missed her too.”

“I totally understand that, it sucks that you two are stuck going to school so far apart,” said Sara. 

“I agree, if I end up being off this term maybe I will try and make it out to Minneapolis and visit her,” I said.  “I would rather wait till hockey season though so I could try and see her play though.”

“Well, it isn’t like you won’t be able to afford it you know,” said Sara.  “You have to be able to try and do things that make you happy if you can.”

“True, I do, but I also don’t want to just be blowing a bunch of money just because I can either,” I said.  “I need to try and be at least a little smart with it.”

“That is true,” said Sara.  “One thing you should probably consider is replacing your car at some point, I can’t see yours doing the best up here in the winter.”

“Yeah, probably,” I said.  “I’ll see how it does this winter and I will make an assessment from there I guess, it is in far better condition than it looks like, especially for as old as it is.”

“Well that is a plus at least, just don’t want anything bad happening to you on the road either,” she said.

“You and me both,” I said.  “One nice thing about that car, it isn’t exactly all that fast so I have to drive it pretty cautiously.”

We headed into the house, we were both exhausted.  Sara took her bags to her room.  I slid into one of the chairs in the living room and sunk into it.  I was utterly exhausted, this had been likely the most stressful week and a half of my life.  Between all of the preparation for moving to Eastern Washington, and then everything that had happened once I arrived, there was nothing calm and easy about it at all.  All I could do now that I was back was to try and make the most of everything, even though I had literally no idea what all that was going to entail.  It was damn hard to try and feel positive about things given all that had happened, but I had to at least try.  I knew I was going to need to see what sort of counseling they offered on campus.  I also needed to sort out what all I would do about health care, as I obviously wouldn’t still be covered under my father’s medical plan through Portland State University.  That however was something that could be worried about in the coming days and weeks, not something I needed to focus on immediately.  Finding dinner however was a much more pressing concern for the both of us.  As tired as we were it didn’t seem like fixing anything here was all that practical of a choice, but while Sara was in her room I wandered to the kitchen.

There wasn’t much in the fridge, and while there was a bunch of stuff in the freezer, it was mostly meat that would take ages to defrost and be ready to eat.  I was hoping that there was something we could prepare here without having to go back out, I knew we were both damn tired of sitting in a car.

“Hey, I ordered us some pizza, it should be here within half an hour,” said Sara as she came out of her room.

“I was just looking to see what our options were here and I wasn’t finding much,” I said.

“Yeah, I really need to make it to the store to get some shopping done,” she said.  “Pizza should be alright I hope?”

“Yes, of course, thank you very much,” I said.  “I knew that we didn’t want to have to go back out to get anything after all the driving today.”

“No, not at all,” she said.  “Thank you for everything during all of this, I really appreciate it.”

“It is the very least I can do,” I said.  “I feel lucky to be getting to spend so much time with you after all these years, it has been really nice.”

“It seems like given the house situation in Portland now we might be spending considerably more time together too, and after how little time we have the last 18 years, I think it will be nice,” she said.  “I don’t suppose you have any idea on the timetable of things with the house in Portland?”

“Not really no, I guess it will depend some on what all my grandparents are doing there, and how long it will take to kind of consolidate stuff into the basement or garage or attic or wherever,” I said.  “How much of your stuff were you planning on bringing down with you?”

“I truthfully don’t have much,” she said.  “Mostly everything here is his, and if the house is pretty much fully furnished, I can’t see any reason to bring all that much stuff from here besides clothing and the few small other things that are mine.”

“Well I can’t see any reason why the house in Portland won’t be mostly furnished, I can’t see any of the furniture or anything going away anywhere,” I said.  “If I end up keeping my dorm room all to myself and don’t get a roommate I could see myself maybe brining a chair or something out here, but otherwise, I can’t see any reason why everything that is there now wouldn’t just stay.”

“Well thank you,” she said.  “It isn’t like a ton of the stuff here is actually mine and on top of that I really don’t want to have to pay for a moving truck or anything like that,”

“Any idea what you might do for work down in Portland?” I asked.

“Not really, no,” she said.  “I truthfully haven’t given it a whole lot of thought yet, I may not worry about all that till I get down there to be honest.”

She tossed a frozen pizza in the oven, and we waited for it to bake.  We were both damn tired from the events of the las week as well as from the drive back to Spokane today.  We hadn’t gotten the earliest start to the day so that didn’t help us any.  It wasn’t that late, but we were both visibly exhausted.  I had been wondering on the drive back if I should bother texting Grace to let her know I was going to be back in Cheney tomorrow.  She hadn’t reached out to me at all these last few days though so I didn’t know I should waste any effort.  I had my doubts.  Maybe I should just text her or go to her room once I was back sometime tomorrow.  I was going to have a lot to get done tomorrow and I wasn’t looking forward to any of it.  Still all of it was things that needed to be done, there was no way around that whatsoever.  Dealing with the possibility of taking the term off wasn’t going to take care of itself.  I just needed to figure out who I needed to speak with and what forms I needed to turn in to make that a reality.  

The pizza was eventually done and we sat down and ate.  We were pretty much in silence.  As tired as we were it wasn’t much of a surprise.  All of this had been physically and mentally exhausting.  I was still struggling to grasp the reality of all of this.  It wasn’t easy, and I knew going forward it wasn’t going to be easy either.  That was just the nature of loss I presumed.  The whole grieving process wasn’t something one could just get through in a few days.  It was going to be a long and ongoing process for me, and well, for the entire family most likely.  I wondered how many trips back to Portland I was going to be making.  I wondered how many trips I would be making back and forth to Portland, and possibly even Port Townsend in the coming months.  I didn’t know for sure what the next little while was going to have in store for me.  It really all depended on what happened when I got back to Eastern tomorrow and how all of that went.  If I actually was going to have to go to classes, it was going to be a real mess for me.  I was already a week plus behind, and that was not a good way to start a term at all.  Not much I could do about any of it at this point however.

We ate, and then watched some television before it was clear we were both nodding off on the couch.  Sara said goodnight and that she would wake me up in the morning.  I grabbed the blanket from when I was on the couch here a week ago and made myself as comfortable as I possibly could.  I was hopeful that I would be able to get at least some sort of sleep tonight.  Things were at least, under control at this point, and everything was out of my hands.  All I could do now was hope for the best and go from there to the best of my ability.

[darkcavewriting]

Day 10

I woke up a little after seven when I saw the light creeping in through the curtains.  Not as late as I was hoping to sleep, but it was sure a lot later than I had slept the last couple days.  Waking up at five when you didn't have to was terribly overrated.  I could hear noise outside my room, likely meaning that someone else was already up, hopefully in the kitchen making something.

I got up and headed out towards the kitchen.  I looked over at the couch and saw Sara sleeping peacefully.  She actually had a smile on her face, which was a welcome change. I hadn't seen her smile since I first saw her with my parents when we first got into Spokane.  I could tell then that she was happy to see me then, and I had a feeling that right now she just felt relieved that she was going to be able to get out of Spokane if she needed to, which I knew would be better if Mark really was cheating on her, hopefully he wasn't, but I wouldn't get my hopes up about that.

I quietly made my way past the couch and to the kitchen, I didn't want to wake her up yet if I didn't have to.  I was surprised that the noise and the smells from the kitchen hadn’t woken her up already anyways.  Where I was sleeping was drastically further away than the couch and it managed to wake me up.

My grandmother was up, in the kitchen fixing some biscuits and gravy and there was coffee already ready, I grabbed a cup and sat on the counter and started talking to her about my proposal to Sara last night.  She said that me offering to do that was very nice and that it would honestly be a pretty good idea to have her live at the house so it was not empty unless I decided to rent it out, which might not be the best idea.  All we had to do know was find out for sure if she was being cheated on or not and that would make things very simple.  As would switching houses which was looking more and more like a good idea, and one that I would be very happy with.  As there really was no way in hell I wanted my parents house right now.  If I was to stay in Cheney and try and go to school at Eastern Washington University the last thing I needed to be worrying about was what was going on with the house in Portland.  Renting would be more than I wanted to deal with, and paying for a property management company would be more than I needed to worry about.

My grandfather was up now, prowling for a cup of coffee for himself, and wondering why I was sitting on the counter of all places.  He agreed that having Sara come to Portland to live would likely be a good option depending on what the situation really was there in Spokane between her and Mark.  We still needed to get everything sorted out with the lawyer though to see what all would need to be done before everything was officially mind, presuming that it all was.

A few minutes later I heard and saw Sara shuffling towards us with her eyes half closed also in search of a cup of coffee.  I poured one and handed it to her.  She hugged me good morning.  We went back to the conversation about needing to see the lawyer.

“Have you scheduled a time to meet with him?” I asked.

“Yes, for this morning,” said my grandfather.  “Scheduled at about 10:00 a.m.”

“Sounds good,” I replied.  “Do we know when all the family from Wales is heading back?”

“I think your aunt and uncle were flying back today, your grandparents tomorrow if I am not mistaken,” said my grandmother.  “I don’t remember, there were so many flight details for everyone and then when your Keith was taking back to Seattle and all that I really don’t remember who was leaving when.”

“No worries, at all,” I said.  “Sara, should we just head out tomorrow then?”

“If that works for you it works for me,” she said.  “I am in no real hurry to get back that is for sure.”

“Sounds good, will be nice to spend a little more time with Lowri and Owen, plus I wanted to see Eva again before she flew back to Minneapolis,” I said.

“Oh, have you head from Grace at all these last few days?” asked Sara.  

“No, I haven’t heard from her at all,” I said.  “Then again I haven’t made any effort to reach out at all so it is hardly all her fault though.”

“Still, she knows what you are going through and if she can’t make any sort of effort to see how you are doing, you don’t need that,” said Sara.  “I guess see how things are when you get back to Cheney, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“Who is Grace?” asked my grandmother.

“Oh, she is someone I met when I moved in, lives in the same dorm,” I replied.  “She comforted me when I found out about my parents death and all that, but she hasn’t contacted me at all these last few days.”

“Well, I hope things are alright when you get back there,” said my grandmother.  “What do you think you will be doing about classes?”

“I honestly am not too sure about that,” I said.  “Classes have already started, so I have missed the better part of a week’s worth by now, but there is something about being able to take the semester off due to a traumatic event, so this should clearly qualify so I think I will try and take advantage of that.”

“If you can that seems like a wise idea,” said my grandfather.  “Who knows how many more trips you might have to make back here to Portland, among other issues with just how you are feeling after the loss of your parents, taking the term off could be a wise idea.”

“I just hope that I am able to get the money back that was already paid for tuition,” I said.  “Either that or that it is is just able to be automatically applied to next term.”

“If you have any issues with that, let me know,” said my grandfather.

“Will do, and thank you both so much for helping so much with literally everything this last week, I don’t know what I would have done without you,” I said.

“Think nothing of it, this hasn’t been easy for us at all, it hasn’t been easy for anybody,” said my grandmother.  “All we can do is do our best to get through it and hope that life can go back to some sort of normal within the next few weeks, months, years, however long.”

That was one way to look at it and she did make a good point.  It was hard to say how long things would take to go back to normal.  It could very possibly take drastically different amounts of time for each of us for things to be more, normal.  I don’t know if any of us had any idea what normal was going to look like now.  I think the normal for me was going to be by far the most different.  Or at least it had the potential to be.  I would know more for certain after the meeting with the lawyer and all that but so far it appeared that things for me would never be anywhere remotely the same.

We had breakfast, I showered and put on something presentable to make the trip to the lawyers in.  It was going to be both sets of grandparents and myself there.  I don’t know if any of us really had much of an idea as to what was going to come of the meeting.  It seemed from what we had found in my fathers home office that nearly everything if not everything would go to me.  However, depending on what was on file with the lawyers office that could be potentially different.  We brought the documents from his office just in case.  I got the feeling from everyone in the car that nobody was going to be too upset if everything ended up with me.  The last thing I wanted was a bunch of animosity towards me because of everything.

When we got to the lawyers office, we had to sit around and wait, so much for having a scheduled meeting time I thought as I watched the clock on the wall go from 9:55 a.m. all the way to 10:30 a.m. before we were called into a conference room to meet with the lawyer.  I was nervous, and I had no idea why.  I knew good and well that I had no reason to be.  It wasn’t like I was suddenly going to owe anyone obscene amounts of money.  That seemed very unlikely.  The five of us were gathered around the table.  Coffee was served, all we could do was wait and see what we would be told.

A man finally walked into the room, he introduced himself as one of the lawyers there and the one who would be reading the will.  He said that my parents had made alterations to their will off and on, and that any that we may have found at the house were likely void.  It was true, the one that we found at the house was over a year old so it would be interesting to see how current the one was that the lawyer was going to present us with.  One would presume that it would be more recent.  He had a folder with him, as well as his own cup of coffee.

“So the most recent wills were done about five months ago,” said the lawyer.  “They made changes to them as Kenrick was going to be graduating high school and going off to University, and they felt some changes from what the had done previously would be a safe choice.”

Everyone at the table turned to look at me.  I was sitting there, coffee cup in hand not entirely sure what to think about it.  Given what the other will that we found said, I didn’t know what all they would have possibly changed.  

“Everything will be left to their son, Kenrick, with the exception of a few items that will go to their parents as well as siblings,” he said.  “Some jewelry will go to your mother’s sister, as well as to your grandmother.”

That sounded reasonable to me, and my maternal grandmother smiled at that.  The jewelry that was referenced was items that were given to my mother by her, and now they would be going to my mom’s sister.  

“As for your father, he has left his watch collection to his father, with the exception of his Rolex, which will go to Kenrick,” said the lawyer.

“If I am not mistaken, that watch was what he was wearing during the crash, I don’t know if it was recovered or if it was, what condition it was in,” I said.

“I will have to check on that,” said the lawyer.

“It wasn’t mentioned when the bodies were returned,” said my grandmother.  “None of their personal items were, wallets, phones, watches or even jewelry.”

“That is a bit suspiscious,” said the lawyer.  “Let me get in contact with the authorities and see what is going on with that.”

“Thank you, we appreciate that,” said Owen.

“As for all of the financials, that will all go to Kenrick, however, there are some stipulations listed here,” said the lawyer.  “Firstly, the cost of your schooling at whatever school you decide to attend will be covered by the trust, you will get a stipend of $12,000 a year for expenses to cover everything that isn’t tuition, meal plan, books, dorm and the like.”

“That sounds nice,” I said.  “Means I won’t have to worry so much about finding a job while I am going to classes.”

“After graduation, you will receive a small portion of the trust as well,” said the lawyer.  “There are additional clauses here for if you go to graduate school and the like too.”

“Sounds reasonable,” I said.

“The rest of the money, will be held in a trust until you are 35 years old,” said the lawyer.  “There are some exceptions for reasons you could remove money from the trust early, such as buying a home, unforeseen medical expenses and the like, but generally the bulk of the money will sit, and collect interest and whatnot, for the next 17 years.”

“What about the house?” I asked.

"The house is yours to do whatever you want with,” he said.  “It can not be sold though, also till you are 35 years old.”

“So I will be liable for taxes and the like?” I asked.

“Actually no, you won’t be,” said the lawyer.  “Taxes, insurance and the like will all come out of the trust fund, so you won’t have to worry about that, utilities as well unless you choose to rent the house out.”

“Well that is a relief,” I said.  “I didn’t know how I would manage to come up with the money for taxes and all that while going to school.”

“Yeah that is not a concern, all of that will be handled by myself and the office here, and if you have any questions about anything, we will provide you with the contact information you need,” said the lawyer.

“Thank you,” I said.  “Is there anything else you need from us?”

“I don’t believe so, no” he said. 

“Thank you then,” I said as we all got up, shook hands with him, and were on our way back home.  

All of this was so much for me to take in.  My situation had changed dramatically in the last week and a half.  Now here we all were heading back to what was now my house and I needed to figure out what the hell I was going to do with myself now.  Did I want to go back to school at Eastern Washington, or did I want to do something else entirely.  I had no idea. It honestly didn’t seem like such a good idea to not go to Eastern.  My stuff was there, I was already accepted, and if I didn’t go there I had no idea what the hell I was going to do.  I didn’t want to start looking for other schools, and I didn’t particularly want to go to Portland State either.  Eastern seemed like the clear cut winner.  Plus I wondered if moving back home and living there with how I was feeling would really be such a smart decision for me right now.  I had my doubts that was for sure.

By the time we got back home, relayed what we found out to everyone there, it was time for people to start prepping to go home.  It was going to be strange come tomorrow when it would just be myself, Aunt Sarah, and my mom’s parents there.  Not that it was a bad thing of course but after there being so many people there, going back to a more manageable number would be nice.  We would be heading back to Spokane soon I was sure.  Sarah couldn’t afford to keep not going in to work that I was sure of.  

The whole situation with her wasn’t great.  Knowing how unhappy she was with everything with Mark, it wasn’t easy on her and I wished that she wasn’t in the position she was in.  However with me inheriting the house, it was a possibility for her to maybe move down to Portland, live there, and start over with things.  I didn’t know if she was going to take me up on that possibility but offering was going to be the very least I could do.  It would make me worry a lot less about the house with there being someone there, and it would help her to get out of an awful situation.  Seemed like it was a win for everyone involved.

All I wanted was to be happy and comfortable.  Right now I for sure wasn’t happy given everything that had happened.  Losing my parents was like a massive punch in the gut.  Combining that with all of this though, it at least made things a little bit easier to swallow.  Even though they were gone, and that was something I was going to have to deal with for the rest of my life, they at least had thought to make sure I was taken care of and that I wouldn’t have to worry so much about things and that was in itself a massive relief to me.  When I initially got the news I had no idea what it was going to mean for me.  I knew it wasn’t going to be good, and no, it isn’t good, at least it isn’t as bad as it could be.

At home we all had one more big meal together.  I had no idea when the hell I was going to see everyone again, and likely never all under one roof again either.  I had to make the most of this opportunity while I had it.  It was so strange to think that my parents were gone, and I was still struggling to process that.  I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and I was already thinking that I should probably look into seeing what sort of things Eastern Washington offered for therapy whenever I got back up there.  

I didn’t know yet if I was going to try and take classes this semester or not.  At this point with as much as I had missed, I was going to need to have a meeting with someone when I got there to figure out what my options even were.  I was hopeful that my RA was correct and that I would be allowed to take the semester off because that would be a massive relief to me.  Even going back next semester and doing classes would be a challenge I felt but at least I would have a bit more time to acclimate myself to Cheney and everything there.  Maybe I could get away with just taking a single class and being able to focus on that.  That could be a pretty decent option for me I felt.  One class seemed like it could be manageable, a full course load, much less so.   All I really wanted was to just be alright with whatever I ended up doing.  Anything was going to be a challenge I just needed to try my best to do the best I could.  

 The rest of the night was as uneventful as could be.  Everyone was tired, or closer to exhausted.  None of this had been easy for anyone, especially the family coming in from Wales.  All that travel just for this, not easy at all for anyone.  All we could do from here was our best at moving on if we were able to. The next few months weren’t going to be easy for anyone, that was something I was damn sure of, myself included.  I knew I had to try and do the best I could for myself though because this was going to be weighing heavy on me for quite some time.   

[darkcavewriting]

Day 9 - Funeral

I slept poorly, which was not a surprise to me at all.  There was too much on my mind, with the funeral, all the people, and just not knowing what to expect.  I knew that we were going to be heading over there to where it was being held a couple hours in advance to help with setting up and making sure that things went reasonably well.  I didn’t know who all was going to be helping with the setup.  I knew it was going to be me, and my maternal grandparents and Aunt Sara, but I wasn’t sure who else would be going early and who all would just be going nearer to the time things were supposed to start.  That was something I hadn’t really been around when they were discussing it.  Not that it made a whole lot of difference to me.

I showered, got dressed, headed down and had some coffee and a bagel.  I wanted to keep food light, and the kitchen was packed with people so I wanted to make it as quick and easy as I possibly could for myself.  I wasn’t sure when exactly we were going to be heading out.  Probably fairly soon I imagined.  I headed back to my room, and went looking for my suit, and also for a decent tie.  The suit was easy to find, the tie somewhat less so.  Still, I managed to get both out and on, and by the time we were ready to head out the door I looked pretty good all things considered.  Getting to the funeral home wasn’t too bad, it wasn’t all that far away.  Walking in and seeing big pictures of both my mother and father up at the front hit me, really hard though.  Due to the nature of the accident and the condition of the bodies, they had both been cremated, so it wasn’t open casket or anything like that.  That made it a little easier I guess.  After seeing pictures of the crash and the bodies, I didn’t know if I could handle seeing them in person.  This whole day was going to be difficult as is, that would have just made it dramatically harder on me and likely everyone.

There wasn’t a whole lot for us to do, so it was a good bit of sitting around waiting after we got there.  I didn’t mind that, it was good to be out of the house, it was good to not be around quite so many people too.  Before long, people started arriving, it was still early, but, near enough to the time that things would start.  Everyone who had been at our house had arrived, then it was a mix of my parent’s friends, co-workers, all of the department that my dad worked in at Portland State as well as what appeared to be some of his students.  Eva and her parents arrived, other neighbors of ours.  Before long, it was near standing room only.  Everyone had things to say, about my mother and father, and them as a couple.  I didn’t realize quite how well loved they were, especially my dad at work.  So many students were there who had things to say about him.

I got up and spoke, and struggled through it.  Fighting back tears wasn’t easy, but, I got through it and I felt better afterwards.  I felt relieved having spoken, but, it was still a hard situation for me to be in.  There wasn’t anything easy about it, at all.  

I didn’t know what the post funeral plan was, I don’t think I was ever around when it was discussed.  There wasn’t anywhere at the funeral parlor to do any sort of wake or reception, I didn’t even know if one was planned.

“Grandma, what is the plan after the funeral?” I asked my maternal grandmother.

“We were planning on inviting people over to the house and having something outside in the back,” she said.  “I guess we should have asked if that was alright with you, I’m sorry.”

“No, that is totally fine by me, I just didn’t know what the plan was,” I said.  “Is there food and stuff over there?”

“Yes and no,” she said.  “We were going to grill up burgers and stuff, but we were getting a bit of stuff catered from that cafe up on Woodstock.”

“Sounds good, thank you,” I said.  “Thank you for taking care of so much of all of this today, I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“You would have been alright, but I am glad we were all here to help, none of this is easy, at all, and it doesn’t get any easier either,” she said.

Damn near everyone came to my parents home after for drinks and some food.  Their house was positively packed, probably the most people that had ever been in it at one time since it was built back in the 1940's.  It had been full this week with just family, and now with an additional 50 plus people, it was overwhelming as can be.  I was happy to see everyone, especially since people were in a better mood now than they were earlier at the funeral, which was nice.  It was good to see smiles on peoples faces and that I was actually able to sit and talk with some of the people whom I had never met, including my mothers old college roommate that for some reason she never mentioned to me.

Apparently once my mother got married she cut off contact with her, and there was never and explanation for why.  This struck me as terribly odd and it really did not make much sense at all since my mother was actually pretty open about friends from college, when she attended Western Washington University.  My grandmother could attest to the face that she was my moms old roommate because she had met her before on multiple occasions.  None of it was adding up, at all.  I couldn't see why my mother would never mention her, especially when she mentioned other friends and had actually had them visit at various times during my life.  I asked Mackenzie, her old roommate, if there was any reason that she thought my mother would have done that.  

“I have no idea, once she got engaged, she never called, and we were very close before that, she got invited and came to my wedding but I never got an invitation to hers,” she said.  “It was all very strange, I never had any clue as to why.”

“Did your husband ever say anything about it?” I asked.

“Not that I remember, and I can't ask him now since he got himself shot in California after he left me for another woman.”

“I didn't know, it seems terribly odd to me, I mean even knowing my mother had her issues, it seems odd she would just cast you out of her life like that,” I said.

“It has honestly bothered me to a certain extent for the last twenty three years, I know that sounds bad, but there was never any sort of indication as to why she did it,” said Mackenzie.  “She was usually so predictable and considerate, I never understood why, or if I did something to upset her, and if so, why would she come to my wedding.”

I had no idea what to say.  I was interested to see if there might be something I could find out as to why it might have been the case, not that I had any idea at all where to look, but it was worth a shot I  guess.  I got her phone number and told her that if for some unknown reason I was able to come up with any sort of conclusion I would let her know.  

She saw my Eastern Washington hat sitting on the edge of the couch and commented about it.  I said that I was going to school there now, just started actually.  She told me she actually lived in the area up in Sandpoint Idaho.  What a small world it is I thought to myself.  It seems like everyone lives in the area around Spokane anymore, not that living there was a bad thing, just a bit odd.  I told her that I might just drop in sometime, to try and figure things out, or get details, or just to visit Sandpoint.

“You are always welcome don't worry, just give me a call, I have a nice little cabin on the lake.”

“Sounds beautiful,” I said.

“It is, you have to come see it,” said Mackenizie.

“I will, soon, I promise.”

She said she had to take off, needed to get on the late flight back to Spokane so she would get home tonight as she had work in the morning.  I gave her a hug and thanked her again for coming.

People were slowly starting to trickle out, it was beginning to get late and people had long drives and or flights to make.  I still had no idea if I was heading back to Cheney tomorrow or not, and it looked like Sara didn’t know either.  I asked her and she said she really didn't want to head back, being in Portland made her miss it terribly, which I could relate to, even though I had only really been gone for two days before we made the trip back.

I asked her about our status for tomorrow, she said it was pretty much entirely up to me, which I was not at fan of.  It really did not bother me one way or the other if we left tomorrow, or if we prolonged our stay in Portland by a day, or two or possibly even three.  I did indeed want to get back to Cheney, see Grace and figure out what in the hell I was going to do about school, but, all of that could indeed wait if needed.  I knew that I would have to make a decision about the school aspect within three days, and the sooner I did it was probably better, which really did not excite me, but it had to be done.

We still needed to sort out the will situation.  It seemed as though after today, everyone would be leaving with the exception of both sets of grandparents.  My aunt and uncle from the UK both had to get back to their respective jobs, as did my mothers siblings as well, with the exception of Sara.  So, once the house cleared out, it would give us a chance to try and sort out what the actual plan was in regards to everything.  I guess we needed to see my parent’s lawyer for the will it appeared.  I didn’t know if anyone had scheduled a meeting for that or not.  Should probably ask one of my grandparents about that, if anyone had done the scheduling it would have been them.

Staying in Portland for an additional day, or more seemed like a must.  There was no way around it.  Was hopeful to sort out some more of the financial situation with my parents, as, I had next to no money myself and trying to find a job immediately in Cheney may not be the easiest thing to do, even if I didn’t take classes this semester.  

I mentioned this sad fact to my grandmother to see what she had to say.  They said that since I essentially inherited everything my parents had, there would be no issue getting me money to live on in Cheney, but for the time being they would set up an account for me with a sizable chunk of cash that I would have access to.  

“We do need to go get everything clarified with the lawyer and your parent’s accountant though,” said my grandmother.  “We scheduled a meeting tomorrow, are you still able to be here in town by then?” 

“At this point, there is no reason to go back to Cheney until everything is sorted out here, so yes I can stay for sure,” I said.

That sounded like a decent idea to me, being broker than hell on a permanent basis was not something I really was looking forward to, and this seemed like a reasonable way to get around it, perhaps I might even be able to replace my aging and falling apart car.  I liked it and all, but I really wish I had something at least somewhat more reliable.  If I wanted to be doing any sort of real travel in it, that could very well prove to be a bit of a challenge, one that I really did not want to have to deal with unless I had to.  I was honestly shocked that the car managed to make it to Cheney in one piece.  The whole situation with that wasn’t something I would likely do soon.  I was generally happy with the car, and until I knew for sure what I was going to be doing this term I likely wouldn’t make any hasty decisions.

I was hoping I would be getting back to Portland soon, but I knew there were still things to be dealt with in here, but at the same time, I knew my grandparents would be helping as best they could.  I knew that I should probably get some of the things I might actually want in Cheney to take back with me.  Mainly a handful of reference books and some other clothing, and a few other odds and ends, including a floor lamp, as the one ceiling light in my dorm room left a lot to be desired at night as it was significantly brighter than what I really wanted.  So it was agreed that Sara and I would load that into the car now so that if we did decide to leave in the morning we would be able to just get on the road and not have to move stuff in the morning.  I had my doubts that we would leave tomorrow but we weren’t sure if we would or not at this point.   

Fitting everything into her car was a piece of cake, not that there was too much to fit honestly.  A couple boxes of books, another box of random crap, and a lamp, not too terribly bad.  Not that my down room was that big in the first place to fit everything in, but not having a roommate sure as hell helped.  I was hoping that I would not get one come spring semester but I was not going to bet on it.  Living with someone would be nice in some aspects but in others I really hoped that I could live alone for the whole school year, and then possibly find an apartment or something along those lines to move into for the summer and the next school year, presumably on my own as well.  Then again, depending on my financial situation I might even be able to buy a small house there and then sell it whenever I left Cheney and actually make a profit on the deal which would even nicer.

There were still a good amount of people milling about when we were done with all that.  Most of the people form the University had gone home, most of what was left was family, neighbors, Eva and her parents, and a few other people who had come down from Washington.  Things were a lot calmer than they were a couple hours ago.  I wasn’t used to that amount of people in the house, on the deck, in the yard, and everything.  It was a bit overwhelming but now it was a lot more manageable.

Once everyone took off, and it was just family, it was so late and we were all so tired that I was wondering if I should just head to bed.  Still wasn’t sure what the plan was for the morning but I was hardly concerned about it at this point.  Whatever was decided on would be fine I presumed.  I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to Cheney.  I wasn’t in a hurry to do anything at all at this point.  I knew I would have to go back to Cheney at some point, that was inevitable, but I wasn’t in any sort of hurry for that at all.  I knew when I got back there that there would be a large list of things I would have to take care of and I was hoping I could put those things off for as long as I possibly could.  

Sara and I were hanging out on the couch, things had been put away, food stuffed into the refrigerator and mostly everyone had already gone to bed.  We were the only ones up that I was aware of, at least down in the common area of the house.  Sara wasn’t looking overly happy.

"You alright?" I asked, You don't looks to thrilled that we are maybe going back tomorrow."

"Eh, I guess I am alright, I just miss Portland, the people, the city, everything, and things aren't terribly happy at home anyways, I have really enjoyed not being there," she said.

"Not happy at home?"  I asked.  "Things not so well between you and Mark?"

"No, not really, I think he might be seeing someone else, when he leaves town for work, I saw some suspicious calls on our phone bill whenever he is gone," she said.

"Have you talked to him about it at all?" I replied.

"No, I'm too afraid to mention it, especially after we have been together for ten years, it feels terrible to think that he could be cheating on me," she said.

"Well at this point confrontation might be your best bet ya know, better to know, than to keep wondering," I said.

"You have a good point with that, but still I really don't know for sure if I even want to know," she said.  “The thought of things ending with him, just, the whole thought of that just makes me feel so damn anxious.”

"If he is doing it though, do you really want to stay with him?" I asked.

"I couldn't make it up there on my own, especially with how little my job pays, and I don't even know anyone else in Spokane to speak of, which is a small issue."

"Well, do you want to move back to Portland or back to Port Angeles?"  I asked.  "There is kinda a house here that will be empty that you could live in if you really wanted to, and I am sure your family in Port Angeles would be supportive if you left him too.

"You would really let me live there?" she asked.

"Better than it sitting empty, and better than you being unhappy in Spokane," I said.  “Would have to make sure the house was really free for me to do with what I wanted and int hat case, I wouldn’t see why not.”

"True, but, what if he isn't cheating?” she asked.

"Well, I would clarify that first before jumping into anything, but once this whole thing here with the houses is settled, just let me know and I sure as hell don't have a problem with it,” I said.

"Thank you so much, it means a lot, I thought I would be stuck out there with him no matter what, and in the job I hate," said Sara.

"Hell, you're family, don't you worry about a thing, alright?" I said.

"I will sure as hell try not to, but it's damn hard not to," she replied.

"I noticed Mark was being kinda distant when I saw you guys with my parents,” I said.

"I know, he used to be a lot more outgoing, I really think he is hiding something, I don't know what but I really think he is hiding something big," she said.

"Well, figure it out and we can go from there, just let me know alright?"

"Will do, now lets get some damn sleep, I'm fucking exhausted,” she said.

We got ready for bed, I was pretty damn tired as well, it had been a stressful few days and I was hoping that eventually it would subside for me. I knew it probably wouldn't with Sara, given her situation with Mark, but all things considered I really hoped that she managed to come through all of it alright.  I really worried about her, being trapped in a shit situation that one did not want to be in was never fun.

I headed back to my air mattress.  I checked my phone, a text from Eva thanking me again for inviting her and letting her know about the funeral and everything.  She also asked if it was possible to see me before she left to go back to Minneapolis.  Not knowing when we were leaving for sure I didn’t know if that would be possible but I told her that I would like to if I could.  I missed her, a ton.

Sleep came fast for me, I really hoped I would not wake up too early, but I had the sinking feeling I would, I did nearly every day I had been here, and I had a feeling that tomorrow morning would be no different.

[darkcavewriting]

Day 8

I slept like the dead, which I needed.  It helped that I went to bed dramatically earlier than I had been.  I didn’t even really say goodnight to people, I just made my way to the room where I tucked my air mattress and passed out.  It was something I so clearly needed.  When I woke up, I could see the sun peeking through the edge of the blinds.  I couldn’t hear any noise from elsewhere in the house, but as I looked at my phone and saw that it was after 8:00 a.m., I knew good and well that there was no way that nobody else was up.  There was also a text from Eva, saying that she was boarding her flight and that she would text me when she touched down at PDX.  I couldn’t wait to see her.  It hadn’t even been that long since I had seen her, and I still missed her terribly.  I wondered what her reaction would be for my idea of popping out to Minneapolis to see her if I didn’t end up doing classes this term.  

Everything was pretty much wide open for me.  I didn’t know what the next few months were going to hold for me.  Hell even the next year or so.  I would think that there was about an equal chance that I quit school at Eastern Washington and come back to Portland as there was of me staying and starting classes there.  I had no idea what the best choice for me was at this point.  If I came home and decided to go to Portland State I would be able to live rent free at home, so that would be a decent option, plus tuition would be a bit less as well.  I did feel though that sticking it out at Eastern Washington was probably a smarter move.  I was already there, or at least my things were, and I felt that there wasn’t much point in making such a drastic decision, at least not immediately.  I could see how the first year there went, and make an assessment from there.  If by springtime I was hating things in Cheney, I could apply to transfer back to Portland State and that would be that.  Having options was nice, not knowing what the best option was though left a lot to be desired.

I rolled off the air mattress onto the floor.  Rummaged around to where I left some clothing to put on the night before, and slowly made my way towards the kitchen.  I was tired still, which given how much I slept was a bit of a surprise.  I was hopeful that after a cup or two of coffee I would be a bit more alert and awake.  I didn’t know how today was going to go, I hoped it would be calm here at home, I knew there were likely some last minute things to do with the funeral but my grandparents were working on all that.  I was hopeful otherwise that it was calm and that I might have a chance to see Eva tonight.  I know that even as bad as I was feeling right now, seeing her might be able to make me feel a little bit better.  I missed her a lot more than I wanted to admit, it was difficult with us not talking like we used to.  I didn’t think there was any way that things would ever end up going back to the way they were before.  I knew she would likely stay in Minneapolis, and well, I wasn’t.  Things could change that was possible but not overly likely though.  

I went and got myself some breakfast.  It was just my grandmothers that were up.  They were in the kitchen drinking coffee and tea and catching up after all the years.  I shuffled into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee and mumbled good morning to them.  I was still tired even though I slept well.  I was just still very out of it mentally and I had the distinct feeling that I would be for a considerable amount of time.  I didn’t know how I would react to all of this long term.  With all of this, I had a feeling some therapy wouldn’t be the worst thing for me once I got back to Eastern Washington.  If anything it likely wouldn’t hurt me at least.  Given how everything was going now, I felt I could probably use all the help I could get.

Since nobody was making anything for breakfast at the moment I rummaged around in the freezer and dug out some frozen waffles.  They would be quick, easy, and somewhat tasty.  I knew I needed to eat something, but nothing sounded good.  I just wanted today to be over, and to get on to the funeral tomorrow.  Not that I was looking forward to that at all.  The sooner it came and went, the sooner it would be over and I could make some attempt at getting back to whatever life was normal now.  I didn’t know what normal was going to look like now.  It would be very likely nothing like life was a couple weeks ago that was for sure.  I knew my grandparents would likely be a lot more involved in things.  It would be nice to have them more involved with things but the whole situation was a gigantic headache for me, and that was to be expected.  Nothing would get things to go back to how they were before, that was unavoidable.  All I could do was hope that I would end up being okay in the long term which I was hopeful that I would.  

I went back to relax and read for a bit to try and take my mind off of everything.  It was getting exhausting having all these people in the house.  Growing up we never had this many people over at once.  I wasn’t used to it at all.  It was more than I was particularly comfortable with, I was ready for things to get calmer.  The peace and quiet of the dorm room sounded pretty appealing to me right now.  Peace and quiet and a proper space to myself would be a big plus right now.  All I wanted was a quiet space to myself where I could just think about things and not have to worry about anything.  I liked the calmness, and that was something that was distinctly lacking right now at home.  With this many people in the house though that was unavoidable.  Maybe I should go out for a walk, maybe I should wait to see if I could go out with Eva and grab a coffee or a meal or something later in the day.  It would just be good to get out of the house for a little bit.  Even better to be able to talk with her.  I wondered how things were going for her off in Minneapolis.  I knew hockey hadn’t started for her yet so that was something that would be coming up in a couple months or so.  Between hockey and classes, I knew that if we did start talking more before then, whatever communication would probably start to drop off because of that.  

Waiting around was one of my least favorite things to do.  I tried being social with all the family hanging around, but after all this time together I didn’t have much to say to anyone.  Everyone was a bit on edge, waiting for tomorrow.  It wasn’t great.  There wasn’t much to be done.  My grandparents, aunt, and uncle from Wales didn’t want to go out and do anything.  I had suggested hopping in the car and taking them out anywhere they wanted just to get out of the house, but they showed no interest in doing so.  So much for that idea.  I couldn’t stand everything in the house being as awkward as it was.  I don’t think it was anybody’s idea of a good time.  It was what it was though, there was nothing we could really do .  It was all a waiting game.

Finally my phone alerted me to a new text message.  Thankfully from Eva.  She was back, at her parent’s house and wanted to know if I wanted to go get coffee.  I told her that I would love to and I headed out to her place to meet her.  I told my grandmother I was going out for a bit, not that I thought she would need anything from me, but in case anybody happened to wonder where I had wandered off to.

The walk over to Eva’s place was relaxing.  It was comfortable outside a light breeze but the temperature was still in the mid 70’s, it would be cooling off soon enough though and autumn and winter, with their consistent rain would soon be upon the Portland area.  All that could be done now was to enjoy the nice weather as much as we could before the gray skies arrived and lasted through spring.

Eva was outside in the front yard with her mom when I walked up.  I headed over to the both of them to say hello.   They both came over to me to give me a hug at the same time.  

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” said Eva’s mother Gwen.  “I can’t even imagine how you are feeling now.”

“Thank you so much for letting me know,” said Eva.  “I wish I could do more for you, I am here for you though, I promise.”

“Thank you, both of you,” I said.  “I don’t know how I am feeling now either to be honest, I just feel empty inside.”

“That is a normal feeling,” said Gwen.  “I know when I lost my mom, even though her health wasn’t the best and it wasn’t exactly a surprise, it still just hit me so hard, if Leo and I can do anything for you at all, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you,” I said.  “I really appreciate that, you and your husband Leo have always been so kind and welcoming towards me, it really means so much, thank you.”

“You have always been so good to Eva, how could we not be that way towards you?” she asked.

“Want to head and get a coffee and go for a walk?” asked Eva.

“Yes, please,” I said. 

Eva hugged her mom goodbye and we headed off in search of a coffee and maybe a snack.  The first place we headed to, our normal coffee shop we would always visit, was closed for the day already, sign on the door saying they were sold out.  That wasn’t too uncommon for them, whenever they sold out of baked goods they usually closed up shop.  Wasn’t so ideal for anyone just wanting a coffee though.  In the neighborhood the only other option was a Starbucks.  Otherwise we would need to walk home and snag a car and go off to somewhere else.  That seemed like more than we wanted to bother with, so Starbucks it was.  I wasn’t feeling fancy and just ordered myself a basic black coffee.  I knew I could get something a bit fancier but I wasn’t in the mood for that.  I didn’t really know for sure what I was in the mood for.  Eva got a mocha, and we found a small table in a corner and sat down.

“So, how are you feeling?” she asked.

“Empty?” I said.  “I don’t really know, the last week has been a damn blur, between moving, the death, coming back here, all the family being in the house, it is so damned overwhelming I don’t know what to think or feel about any of it.”

“Do you think things will feel different after the funeral tomorrow?” she asked.

“Possibly, I don’t know,” I said.  “If anything I think once people start heading home and the house becomes less crowded that may help me feel a little less overwhelmed.”

“What are you going to do about school?” asked Eva.

“I’m not sure about that either,” I said.  “There is supposed to be some sort of policy at Eastern Washington that if you have a death in your family of this magnitude you are eligible to take the semester off and not worry about it affecting your academic standing, so seeing as how I have already missed some classes, doing that probably seems like the best choice, if I am able to qualify for that.”

“That seems like a reasonable plan,” said Eva.  “I couldn’t imagine starting classes with all of this going on, would you move back to Portland, do you even want to stay and attend Eastern Washington?”

“I feel that staying at Eastern is probably more practical, I have been accepted, all my stuff is there, I may as well see how it goes for the first year, and if it goes like shit, I can always move back here and go to Portland State in a year if I wanted.”

“That seems smart,” said Eva.  “I hate to ask this, but, do you think you would consider going to to Minneapolis and go to school with me at the U of Minnesota?”

“I’ll have to see what all happens with things here, the biggest thing that prevented me from going to school so far away was the cost, and now with my parents gone, all my family is out here, well, except for the family in Wales, so I don’t know if I want to be that far away, being there with you though would be pretty nice.”

“I’ll be real honest, I don’t know how well I am going to do out there in Minneapolis,” said Eva. “I don’t know anybody, have only really met people on the hockey team and a few other people in my dorm and it is just, lonely.”

“Well, you know I am only a phone call or a text away,” I said.  ��I miss you, a lot, I really wish we were going to school closer together.”

“I wish we were too,” said Eva.  “I don’t think I can change schools that easily at this point what with hockey and everything.”

“I would never ask you to change anything, you have an amazing chance her to play for a great school and I would never want to be the reason that you couldn’t,” I said.  “I guess more than anything I hope we can still stay fairly close, even with the distance.”

“I think we can,” she said.  “I am sorry about being so distant since we decided to end things, it was really hard for me, and I am sure it was for you too.”

“Yeah, it was,” I said.  “I understood why, but that didn’t make it any easier.”

“Well I guess that is something we can work on,” she said.   “We can both try and be better at communicating, I think it would be good for both of us, especially given everything else going on.”

“I agree completely,” I said.

We finished our beverages and I walked Eva home.  It was really nice to spend part of an afternoon with her and it helped to take my mind off of everything else that was going on.  I felt a bit more calm, more relaxed, and I unfortunately knew that once I walked in the door at home all of that would likely go away.  I got Eva to her front door.  She pulled me close and have me a massive hug and kissed me.

“I miss you, so much,” she said.  “I’ll see you tomorrow, but if you need anything tonight, please let me know.”

“I will, and thank you for a wonderful afternoon,” I said.  “I really appreciate you coming home for this.”

I headed the few blocks home and was greeted by food on the table.  It appeared that while I was out, Grandpa Owen had headed to the store and bought a ton of stuff to fix for dinner, I could see him out on the deck in the back of the house next to the grill.  It had been so long since I had had anything he had cooked.  Whenever we were in Wales, which wasn’t at all often he cooked nearly every night, and he was damn good at it.  I knew that this meal was going to be something special.  The main table wasn’t big enough for everyone, so somebody had fetched a table we usually used outdoors and set it up as well so there would be enough space, however, I knew I was going to need to go track down some extra chairs so nobody was stuck standing to eat.

It took a bit to do that, most of the extra chairs we had were not exactly designed for sitting at a table.  There were a few rolling desk chairs, as well as a ton of camping chairs which were a bit too low, but we had to make do with what we had at this point.  If anything it was just going to be nice for everyone to eat together.  I knew that having everyone together like this was a rarity.  It was rare enough having all of my maternal or paternal family together all in one place at the same time, let alone both of them together at once.  I had a feeling that there wouldn’t be too many other occasions where something like this was likely or even possible.  Having family so spread out like this made it difficult to say the least.

Dinner was delicious, everyone was content after it.  We all knew that tomorrow was going to be rough, the was nothing to look forward to about a funeral at all, but, it was something that had to be done and we all knew it.  I wondered how many other people would be there for it.  There was the potential for it to be quite large.  We would know soon enough at least.

After dinner, and everyone hanging out drinking evening coffee and talking, it was time for all of us to get to bed.  Tomorrow was going to be hectic, stressful, and a whole host of other things I felt.  I was relieved that it was all going to be over soon so life could maybe go back to being a little more normal.  Not that I had any idea what normal was going to look like anymore.  

I knew I was tired, and that tomorrow was going to be a busy and stressful day, but at the same time I didn’t really want to go to bed either.  I wondered if Eva was up for talking.  Not that I had any idea what all we had to talk about given how much we had talked earlier today.  Still, talking with her sounded more enjoyable than trying to fall asleep.    I shot her a text message asking if she was up for a phone call.

It took her a bit to respond to my text message but she said she was up for that and that she would call me shortly.  I didn’t have to wait long, less than five minutes later my phone started to vibrate. 

“Hey Eva, how has your evening been?” I asked.

“Not so bad, came home, had worked out a little, did dinner, now talking with you,” she said.  “How about you?”

“Same as yours only I didn’t do any working out,” I said.  “Thank you again for getting coffee earlier, it was really good to see you today.”

“I feel the same,” she said.  “Thank you for inviting me out, I really appreciate it.”

“It is the least I can do,” I said.  “Are your parents coming to the funeral tomorrow as well?”

“Yes, of course,” she said.  “Even though they didn’t hang out with your parents a ton, they still want to go.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said.  “I feel really lucky that your family has always been so kind to me ever since we met.”

“Well you have always been kind to me too, so it is easy for them,” she said.  “You were the first person to really welcome me when I transferred here, I was so damn nervous when we moved.”

“I’m really glad I did,” I said.  “Never would have expected things to end up how they did between us just from how things went back then though.”

“Me either,” said Eva.  “Thank you for always caring about me, I really appreciate you.”

“I appreciate you too,” I said.  “I should probably try and get some sleep, tomorrow is going to be a very stressful day.”

“That is a good idea, I will see you tomorrow alright?” she asked.

“Of course, sleep well,” I said.

“You too,” Eva replied.

I knew I needed sleep, I knew tomorrow was going to be a very busy and stressful day, I just didn’t know how busy and stressful it was going to be but I wasn’t feeling the most optimistic about it.  

[darkcavewriting]

Day 7

I woke up far too early.  It was far earlier than I needed to be awake, the flight wasn’t supposed to get in till mid afternoon.  There was no reason for me being wide awake a little after 5:15 a.m.  Yet here I was, wide awake, and falling back asleep seemed rather unlikely at this point.  No matter how much I wanted to.  I had the feeling I would be the first one up.  As I went down to the kitchen, my assumption was correct.  I wondered if I should make some coffee.  I didn’t want the coffee pot to wake everyone else up, but I wanted something warm to drink.  Only Sara was in an area without a door, so she would likely be the only one that would wake up.  I really wish the kitchen had a door that could be closed.  No such luck on that though.  I rummaged around in the cupboards, looking for my mom’s French press.  I knew she had one, she used it occasionally but I didn’t know where she stored it.  I was trying to be as quiet as possible as I looked for it.

I found it above the stove, as well as her electric kettle.  I filled the kettle with water and turned it on.  Making coffee in that manner was going to be at least somewhat quieter.  If I could avoid waking anyone else up this early it was probably a good call.  

With coffee in the French press brewing, I grabbed it and a mug and carried them back to my room.  No reason to be out elsewhere in the house potentially waking anybody up.  That wasn’t something that needed to happen, at least not now.  If nobody else was up by seven or so maybe I would go back to the kitchen and start making breakfast. What to do between then and no I had no idea.

I checked my phone.  There was a message from Eva, asking if we could get together at some point when she got into town.  I responded telling her that I would love to see her for coffee or a meal or something like that.  I missed her a good deal.  It was hard not to.  After seeing her at least 6 days a week for most of the last couple years, it was hard not to miss her.  I still didn’t think that there was any real chance that we would get back together.  With the distance, it just wasn’t at all practical.  Cheney to Minneapolis was a considerable distance.  Longer than it was overly feasible for us to consider for a relationship.  I didn’t think it would likely be fair for either of us to go back to a relationship.  Between the distance, and what I was going through with the loss of my parents, it just wasn’t a good situation.

I went through a couple cups of coffee.  The French press was now empty.  It was a bit after 6:00 a.m. now, and I made my way back to the kitchen.  I heard noise in the bathroom downstairs, so I wasn’t the only one up now.  That was a bit of a relief.  Maybe I should start trying to tackle breakfast of some sort.  As I cleaned out the French press, my grandmother came into the kitchen.

“You are up already?” she asked.

“Yeah, I have been up about a hour,” I said.  “Already made some coffee for myself, didn’t want to wake anyone else up.”

“Well, I am up now and so is your grandfather,” she said.  “Want to give me a hand with breakfast?”

“Sure thing, I should probably make some more coffee too,” I said.

We got to work in the kitchen and soon there was enough food to comfortably feed everyone in the house and even likely have some leftovers.  Soon everyone came drifting into the kitchen from wherever they were in the house.  People in various states of still being asleep.  It was good to see people up, but today was going to be another time of sitting about waiting for things to happen.  In my case, waiting till it was time to go to the airport to pick up the family from Wales.  I wasn’t sure when Eva would be getting into town, but I wasn’t having to pick her up, that would be up to her parents.  I was hopeful that I would be able to see her at some point besides the funeral.  

Breakfast passed, people got into more presentable clothes, and I waited around.  I drank even more coffee.  I was having to wander my way to the bathroom every 15 to 20 minutes because of it.  It was a bit excessive but I had nobody to blame but myself for that too.  Still, there was no threat of me falling asleep today.  The coffee drinking, and when I was younger, the tea drinking was a nervous habit.  When I was nervous or anxious about something  I would start drinking whatever warm beverage was handy.  It was a strange habit, nothing that anybody else in my family did, so I had no idea where I picked it up from.  All I wanted right now was to be at Portland International Airport picking everyone up and bringing them back home.  True it would make the house even more crowded than it already was, but at the same time, it would be the first time everyone would be under the same roof, and likely the only time they ever would be as well.

It wasn’t the easiest for my mothers and father’s families to be close.  The amount of times they had even been around each other was minimal, only twice that I could think of.  At my parent’s wedding, there were countless photos of everyone together, and then when I was a kid, my dad’s family came over from Wales, and my mom’s parents had come down from Washington.  Other than that, there weren’t any times I could think of.  We had gone to Wales, but my mom’s parents hadn’t so I believed that they had only been around each other twice.  I was hoping that wouldn’t make things awkward here.  It was bad enough that the house was going to be so full, but we were just going to have to live with that.

I did my best to make my room as habitable as possible.  It was going to be a snug fit for multiple people but I was sure they would be able to get by.  I wasn’t super excited to be relegated to an air mattress but it wasn’t the end of the world and it also likely wasn’t going to be for too long either or so I hoped.  I presumed that within a day or two of the funeral I would be back on my way to Cheney.  Or so I hoped.  I had already missed some of my first classes, and that was hardly a concern to me at this point.  Professors had been emailed, and that was about all that I was able to do about things from this far away.  

Right now the thought of going to classes was pretty far away from my mind.  I didn’t even know how I would be able to focus on things once I was back in Cheney.  I was leaning towards the option of not taking classes this term.  I knew it probably wasn’t the best thing for me to do, but I didn’t see how I could manage to be a decent student with how things were going now, and missing most of the first two weeks of classes.  It was going to be a lot to take care of when I got back to school at Eastern Washington but it was something I was going to have to deal with all the same.  I didn’t want to start off behind here, that wasn’t the way to go through with things.  All I could do was make the best of things.  I wanted to make everyone proud and graduate from Eastern Washington University with a degree.  All of that was far from my mind now.  I just wanted to get though today, that was going to be a big enough struggle for me I felt.

I was doing my best to ignore all the conversations going on around me in the house.  I was walking in a haze.  It was getting to be the time that I was going to need to head off to the airport to pick everybody up.  I had to rummage around for the keys for my mothers Subaru Forrester that was in the garage.  I didn’t even know when it had been driven last, I hoped that there was no issues getting it started.  Thankfully there wasn’t and I was able to maneuver it out of the garage, down the driveway and then I was on my way to I-205 and Portland International.  I got to the airport about 15 minutes before their flight landed.  I knew they had already gone through immigration in Los Angeles, so it shouldn’t be that much of a delay from when they landed to when they would be walking out and meeting me.  I still had time to grab a coffee before sitting down and waiting for them to walk out of the exit.

It had been a few years since I had seen everyone.  Aunt Soren had been here most recently.  It hadn’t been that recently though, a couple years or more.  I hated that I didn’t get to see that side of the family so much.  Given the distance though, it was a hard situation to work around.  Wales was a bit further away than my mother’s parents, and flights to Wales were hardly inexpensive either.  I knew that once everything here had settled down some, that I would like to make a trip over there myself, it wouldn’t be easy, but I thought that I would enjoy a solo trip to the United Kingdom, there was so much over there we had never visited when we went.  I also wanted a chance at being able to take a major trip on my own.  Finding the time, and the money though would be a challenge.  I was sure I could work through that though, if I wanted it bad enough I knew there would be a way to make it happen.  

Eventually I saw the four of them coming out from behind the security wall.  I hadn’t seen my Uncle Lloyd in years, and he looked a lot different from what I remembered.  His hair was longer, but thinner too.  He had aged a good deal it looked like, more so than the rest of the family, however I had also seen all of them a lot more recently.  I waved to them and they all came towards me.  I gave them hugs and handshakes and then we headed down to baggage claim.  It took longer than I would have expected for their bags to make an appearance but once they did, we gathered them all, headed back upstairs and across to the parking garage and the car.  Half an hour later we were pulling into the driveway at home.  

Helping with the luggage and guiding them all into the house we were met by everyone else.  Hugs, handshakes, and tears all around.  They were all happy to be seeing each other but not at all happy at the circumstances in which all of this was taking place.  This was nobody’s idea of an ideal situation.  All we could all really do is attempt to make the best of it.

The rest of the day was spent primarily in the kitchen and dining room, with massive amounts of coffee, tea, and eventually wine and beer being served.  We ordered pizza and got it delivered.  Nobody was in the mood to cook, or to go anywhere.  Just a couple days now before the funeral.  As good as it was to have everyone here, I was looking forward to things going a bit more back to normal.  Of course at this point I didn’t even know what normal was going to look like.  Even before, I had no idea what normal was going to look like off at Eastern Washington.  I wasn’t exactly looking forward to starting classes, there was a good bit of anxiety even before losing my parents.  Now, I was looking forward to all of it even less.  

I crashed early, I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and hoped that I could get some decent rest.  Being pushed out of my room wasn’t ideal, but I was able to make myself comfortable on an air mattress in the other spare room.  It left a lot to be desired but it was at least a fairly private space that was quiet enough.  Nearly everyone else was still up, but I was able to get the room quiet enough that I thought I would be able to get to sleep.   I did want to read some before bed as well.  First though, I checked my phone.  There were a couple emails from Eastern Washington’s automated online system alerting me to things that were upcoming on campus.  There was also a notice that there would be a refund for additional financial aid being mailed out in the next week.  A bit of money back would be nice of course, however I wondered at the same time that if I ended up not taking classes this semester due to the deaths, would all the money that had been paid already for tuition be refunded as well.  That would be helpful as well, as without classes, and all the trips back and forth to Portland, I could see spending a seizable chunk of cash on gas for the car among other things.

There was also an email from Eva.  It was unlike her to email, usually she was a bigger fan of text messaging, or calling.  I honestly didn’t know if I had ever received an email from her in my life.  It was just a more formal way or communicating than what we usually did with each other.  I opened it up, and it was a massive wall of text, drastically more than I would have expected.  The email hit on so many topics as I glanced at it.  I went over to where my air mattress was and made myself comfortable on it.  There was a lot to get through in this and I didn’t see any reason to be standing around and reading it.

She apologized first, for everything.  For the loss my my parents, for going to school so far away, for ending things between the two of us because of her going to school halfway across the country, and how much she wished she was back here with me.  She said she would be getting into Portland tomorrow before noon, and that if possible she would love to see me tomorrow night if I wasn’t too tied up with things to see her.  She wasn’t going to be in Portland for that long, only a couple days, and then it was back to Minneapolis for classes and everything.  She said not to respond tonight, because she would be asleep before her horribly early wake up call to get to the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport to make her way to Portland.  She said to text her tomorrow whenever I woke up, and that we could hopefully meet up tomorrow evening.  

After reading through her email, there was an awful lot on my mind too.  I wished that things were different for us too.  After all we had gone through together, with hockey, winning a state championship, and largely being inseparable for the last two years, to this, it wasn’t easy.  I hated that this is where things were for us.  I wondered if I should consider going to school in Minneapolis.  It was a school I had looked at before, but I wasn’t that crazy about it.  However if I knew someone else there, that would change things a good bit I thought.  One thing that crossed my mind was that if I didn’t do classes this semester, maybe I could head out to Minneapolis for a week or so, and see how I liked it.  Would be nice to explore things out there on my own, and with Eva if she was able to have time to show me around.  It was something to consider, but, I could possibly have that conversation with Eva in person tomorrow.

[darkcavewriting]

Day 6

Sleep soundly I did.  I woke up with my book resting next to my head, still open on the pillow.  I was also somehow all wound up in the sheets and blankets, I have no idea how I managed to do that, or how I was going to get untangled.  I slowly tried to get my legs unwrapped so I could make my way to the bathroom and then to the kitchen to make some coffee.  My head was throbbing, aspirin and coffee would hopefully do the trick.  Anything to help try and make the morning and the day better.  I knew that today would likely be just as stressful as days prior.

The coffee to wash down the aspirin could not come soon enough but they finally did. Soon after as I was making the best attempt I could to throw some sort of breakfast together my head finally stopped pounding, that was a very welcome relief. The last thing I wanted today, or really any day, was to have a lingering headache, that would just make the whole thing even worse than it was going to be already. 

Aunt Sara wandered into the kitchen and I poured her a cup of coffee and pushed it towards her on the counter as I kept tending to the bacon and the pancakes I was attempting to fix for everyone. I could tell by the look on her face that she was very surprised that I was actually cooking.

"How come you are making breakfast?" she asked me. "I was going to get stuff going once I got up."

"I couldn't sleep, and my head was pounding and once I made some coffee I figured I might as well make some food to go with it, and pancakes seemed like the hardest thing to get wrong," I said.  “Also, I didn’t want my grandmother to have to worry about breakfast this morning either.”

"Fair enough, I am sure nobody is going to complain, thank you,” said Sara.

Food was slowly but surely getting ready, I could hear people making noise elsewhere in the house, they probably smelled the coffee brewing and bacon cooking, I poured some mugs of coffee and waited for people to join us in the kitchen. It was a strange thing having all of these people in my house at the same time. Any other time there would just be my grandparents, or my aunt and uncle from Port Townsend, or my other uncle, Keith, whenever he randomly decided to stop by.  It was almost never this many people at one time, except for my mothers 50th birthday, that was a time when the house was packed with family and friends.

I could see the bags under my eyes when I looked in the mirror the last two days, and that was something I was not accustomed to, but the lack of quality sleep and the stress was eating away at me, all things considered they were damn normal feelings, I was just unaccustomed to them, especially for this reason.  I was hopeful that things would improve in the coming days.  There were doubts for certain though.  Long term I had no idea how much all of this would impact me.  I wasn’t used to loss like this, at all.  To lose both of my parents at such a young age, before even losing my grandparents, that was rough, incredibly rough.  I knew it was likely to have a considerable impact on me and my life.

My grandparents soon joined us in the kitchen and they both thanked me for the cups of coffee I had out, My grandmother looked significantly more awake and cheery than I did, which I was glad of, at least someone was getting a decent nights sleep around here. It would be a bit rough if nobody was sleeping well.  My grandfather looked the same as ever.  He was hard to read, he perpetually looked upset, even though he rarely was.  It was always difficult to read his facial expressions, but he always seemed to be in a positive sort of mood.  Now, he just looked tired.  We all did besides my grandmother.

Food was ready and I put the pancakes on a platter for everyone as everyone made their way out the kitchen and into the dining room.  The conversation was light over breakfast, I don’t think any of us had any idea what we would be doing today.  I knew I needed to try and contact my grandparents in Wales to see if they had booked a flight out here yet, and if so, when we would need to pick them up at Portland International Airport.  I also wanted to see what I could figure out about what I was going to do about school, that was still weighing heavy on my mind.  More than anything I wish I was back in Cheney in my dorm and not having to worry about all of this, but with a curve ball like this it isn’t something that one can prepare for. I knew I was going to figure out also who all else to let know about the funeral, they had friends and co-workers, which I almost never saw them with which made things rough when trying to plan things.  I didn’t have access to either of their phones to go through their contacts, so that was going to make things challenging.  Probably needed to contact my dad’s department office at Portland State to let them know, and then look through my parents written address books and see how current they were in order to contact people.  I didn’t know for sure how big of an event we would want to do.  The fact that my grandmother said they were planning on doing both of the funerals at the same time, it made sense, but at the same time it didn’t seem like it was at all something common.  It made sense to me though that doing them both at the same time, seemed like the most practical way to do it.  Could also depend on how many people planned on coming.  I wasn’t sure what venue she had in mind and the size constraints of wherever that was.  I was leaving all of that to her.  

I figured that another cup of coffee would help and a walk around the neighborhood.  That always seemed to calm me down so I yelled towards the room that I thought my grandmother was in that I was going out for a walk and out the front door I went.  Their neighborhood was a nice quiet one in South East Portland, one I had been walking around in since I was a small child, going to the park a few blocks away as a kid to play.  I loved it there, so much more personality than the more suburban neighborhood my parents lived in.  I could see other people as I walked going about their morning routines, getting the paper and having coffee and making their way to work.  I was in a daze, even though I felt I got a passable nights sleep.  A good half hour later I had made my way all around the area just trying to calm myself and get myself into a better state of mind.  It appeared to work, and the coffee managed to warm me up for the most part which was also very welcome.  I made my way back to the house and headed inside.  I forgot to grab my phone before I went out.  I made my way back to my room where I left it and saw that the notification light was flashing from a text message.  I checked to see who it was.

Surprisingly, or at least it was a surprise to me, it was from Grace.  The message very simply said that she hoped that I was doing alright and that hoped that I would be back in Cheney soon.

As usual she managed to catch me completely off guard, and honestly, I loved it.  It was really nice to know that there was someone out there thinking about me and hoping that I was actually doing well.  I missed her too, even though I had only known her for such a short time I knew that there was a connection between the two of us and I was very much looking forward to going back and having a real chance to get to know her even better than I already had.  My mind was just so far away from everything in Cheney right now.  Going back had been on my mind but there was so much stuff to get done here, I had no idea when I would be going back, either for classes, or to pack my things and move back to Portland.  Given everything I really didn’t know what decision I would make.  As much as I wanted to go to school at Eastern Washington, I didn’t know if starting classes now, or even in spring, was going to be a good idea for me.  I would have to see what all sorts of accommodations or services Eastern Washington had to offer for someone who was in a position like mine.  I knew what I was going through was likely uncommon.  I was hopeful that they had something to offer.  If I did go back and start classes, I didn’t want to do poorly because of my mental state because of the grief.

As I came back downstairs Sara could tell from the smile on my face that it was most likely Grace who sent the message, I could tell she was going to ask, I just nodded and said yes.  The smile was enough for her to be able to tell.  What to do for the rest of the day though.  We had gotten so much done yesterday.  All that there was for today was to contact the family in Wales to see if they had sorted out their travel to Portland, and then start contacting people about the funeral once a date was set for it.  No matter what I knew we or I would have to contact Portland State University both about my dad’s death to his department, but also to their human resources department to deal with whatever life insurance, pension, and all of that.  I wasn’t looking forward to any of that at all.

I got on the phone to Wales calling Lowri and Owen, my grandparents there, to see if they had sorted out their travel plans.  It was mid-afternoon there so I was hopeful that it wouldn’t be a challenge getting in contact with them.  I got an answer on the third ring.  

“Kenrick, how are you?” asked grandpa Owen.

“I am doing alright I guess,” I said.  “Have you all sorted out your travel to Portland?”

“Yes, we are on our way to London as we speak, on the train,” he said.  “We fly out early tomorrow to Los Angeles and then have a connecting flight to Portland, we will be there tomorrow afternoon.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.  “Will it be just you two, or will Seren and Lloyd be with you too?” 

“It will be the four of us, Soren is already in London, and Lloyd is meeting us in Los Angeles as he is still working in Germany,” said Owen.

“I will be sure I come in a big enough vehicle for the four of you,” I said.

“We could catch a taxi if we needed to,” he said.  “Might be easier since there is four of us.”

“No, we will be there to pick you up,” I said.  “I will see you tomorrow and thank you again for coming.”

“We couldn’t imagine not coming, see you tomorrow,” he said.

That settled that at least, they would all be here tomorrow.  Now I needed to pass that information on to my grandmother here, and then also try to figure out what we would do about sleeping arrangements.  Giving up my bed seemed to be a practical choice, but that would only fit two people.  There was still Aunt Seren and Uncle Lloyd to find rooms for.  I should have asked Grandpa Owen if they had booked hotels or not.  It wasn’t going to hurt to try and find more space here, but it was likely going to mean finding some more air mattresses.  I was pretty sure we didn’t have any more in the garage or in storage elsewhere so I would likely have to run to a store and grab a couple.  Worst case we ended up not needing them.  The idea of adding an additional four people to the house was a bit much.  We didn’t have that much space and things were crowded enough as it was.  Still, until we knew for sure what the plan was, it was better to be prepared.

I wandered around the house looking for my grandmother.  I found her in the kitchen making more coffee.  I let her know that I had spoken with the family in Wales, and that they would all four be arriving tomorrow from Europe.  

“Well now that we know that they will all four be here, I can work at trying to get the funeral scheduled,” she said.  “Today we should probably work at contacting friends, co-workers, and the like for your parents to alert them both of what happened, but also of the funeral.”

“Agreed, we should,” I said.  “It isn’t going to be easy that is for sure, but it is something we can start on once the funeral is scheduled, I presume the three of us, you, Sara, and myself, can work on calling and contacting as many people as we can get in contact with.”

“That sounds reasonable to me,” she said.

“I was thinking, possibly I should go down to Portland State to my dad’s departments office and let them know in person,” I said.  “Might be better.”

“That is a good point, that would probably be a reasonable plan,” she said.  “I feel you will have to go down there a fair bit, especially once the death certificates arrive to deal with all of your dads benefits and retirement stuff through Portland State.”

“Agreed, I am not looking forward to that, at all,” I said.  “I hope the process isn’t overly difficult.”

“With it being a university job and not some private entity I feel it probably won’t be too bad, just might be complicated because of both of your parents being gone at once but, we won’t know till you go talk with them.”

That was something I was going to have to deal with sometime in the next week I imagined.  I knew it wasn’t going to be an enjoyable process but it was something that was going to have to be done.  I was hopeful I would be able to get back to Cheney within a week but with the way everything was going, I didn’t know how likely that was going to be.  Given everything I knew I shouldn’t be in that big of a hurry to go back, but I wanted things to go back to normal, or something more resembling normal, and that would be a decent start to that.

My grandmother got on the phone to the funeral parlor, and arranged for the funeral to take place in a couple of days.  Hopefully that would be enough time to get word to as many people as possible about it.  I called Eva and let her know.  She said she would contact her parents and see if she would be able to fly home for it.  I was hopeful she could, and if she did, she promised to let me know.  I headed off to Portland State University to the Urban Planning and Development department office to let them know what happened.  It had been a long time since I had been to the office and it had moved buildings since I was there last.  I finally had to stop in the student union building to get directions.  Once I made it there, I was asked to sit in the waiting area for the department chair, who was currently in a meeting.

It wasn’t too long that I had to wait thankfully.  Someone had gone and pulled them out of the meeting.  The department chair, Dr. Price came and motioned for me to follow her to her office.  

“I hear you are here to talk about your father, Tomos, no?” she asked.

“Yes, he is dead, as is his wife, my mother,” I said.

“Both dead?” she asked.  “What happened?”

“They took me up to Eastern Washington University where I was to be attending school, they dropped me off, and the next day on their way across Washington they struck a elk with the car, and swerved and went off a cliff,” I said.  “Once emergency services were able to get down to the vehicle they were both gone.”

“That is horrible, I am so sorry for your loss,” she said.  “I don’t even know what to say, nothing prepares you for something that sudden and unexpected.”

“No nothing really does prepare you for something like that,” I said.  “The funeral has been scheduled for a couple days from now, here is all the information on where and when if you want to post it for everyone in the department.”

“Thank you,” she said.  “I appreciate that.”

“It is the least I can do, I hardly know how to get in contact with anyone that would want to come,” I said.

“It can’t be easy, I am so sorry,” she said.  “Also, I guess there will be the issue of dealing with your fathers office.”

“Issue with it?” I asked.  “What is wrong with it?”

“Well nothing is wrong with it, just that everything in there will be yours to deal with whenever you choose to,” she said.  “I think the only thing in there that is property of the school and the department is the furniture, everything else was his.”

“I haven’t seen his office in years, is there any chance you could show it to me?” I asked.

“Of course, follow me,” she said.

She led me out of her office, down the hall, and up a flight of stairs.  The door closest to the stairwell was my fathers.  She fumbled to dig keys out of her pocket, and finally got the door unlocked.  Walking into his office here was about the same as walking into his office at home.  It was a jumble of books, papers, maps, and everything else scattered all over the place.  I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

“Looks a lot like his office at home,” I said.

“Well, it is nearly all yours I believe,” she said.  “There may be a few documents, maps, and the like that may be university property, or part of research or projects that he was working on with colleagues, but that can all be discussed and sorted out whenever you are able to come sort through things.”

“That sounds fair to me,” I said.  

“Here is my card, and cell phone number, let me know when you think you will come by, and I will make sure to be here to let you in, and make sure you have everything you need,” she said

“Thank you, I really appreciate that,” I said.  “Likely after the funeral as with all the extra people in our house right now, I don’t know where I would put any of it once I brought it home.”

“No worries, just let me know, and I will send out a department announcement about the funeral, thank you for coming in person to let us all know about it, I am so sorry for your loss,” she said.

“You are welcome, and thank you,” I said.  “I appreciate it.”

I was off home, which was a relief.  I didn’t know what to think after all of that, other than that I was exhausted.  Dealing with other people like this and passing along the news of the accident and deaths was not at all an easy thing to deal with.  On top of how I was already feeling, all of this was mentally taxing.  By the time I got home, all I wanted to do was sleep, and it was barely past noon.  As much as I wanted to sleep, I knew that wasn’t a decent option.  There was still so much to get done.  There was always going to be so much to get done.  

There was food waiting on the table for me, soup and sandwich,  I was shocked that the soup was still hot.  My grandmother was a pro at guessing when I would be getting home.  She sat down across from me and asked what all I had been able to accomplish at Portland State.

I told her that I had spoken with the department chair, saw my dad’s office that would need to be cleared out, and that they would send out an announcement to the department about the funeral.  She was glad that the trip there had been easy and that I was able to speak to the chair, instead of just leaving a note with someone.  It meant things were more likely to get done that way.  She was less thrilled about the news of the office.  That had the potential to be a challenge, would need a big enough vehicle, as well as space here at the house to stash stuff.  As if the house wasn’t incredibly full of my dad’s stuff already.  Just another thing we were going to have to deal with, however there didn’t seem to be any rush to get it done either.

After I finished eating, I checked my phone and found a voice mail from Eva.  She had spoken with her parents, and she as well would be flying back to Portland for the funeral.  That was a very pleasant surprise and not something that I was at all expecting.  I didn’t expect her parents to be willing to fly her back home for the funeral so soon after she got to Minneapolis.  It wasn’t like she could easily drive back to Portland like I was able to.  

There wasn’t much else I was set to accomplish today.  With my dad’s side of the family coming into town tomorrow, all there really was to do was to try and make some space for them.  It was going to be a challenge, but, we would do our best.  I presumed they planned on staying with us but it really hadn’t been discussed.  Better to play it safe and have space for them, than it would be to just expect them to get a hotel and then have issues when they had decided to stay with us.  No point in not being prepared.

I was glad today has been a little less busy.  I knew not all the days here would be like that, but having a calm day was a nice little rest from the days prior.  We were all still very much in a haze, and it sucked.  Nobody was happy to be here, but we also all knew we didn’t have any choice in the matter.  Being here was the responsible thing, what we had to do.

The rest of the day passed without anything particularly happening.  I watched some baseball on television, Seattle at home against Oakland.  Not that I was overly invested in the Mariners, but it was something to take my mind off of everything.  I would take just about any distraction at this point.  I wished Eva was here, I was glad she was coming back for the funeral but I knew that was going to be difficult for me too.  I missed her, a lot, and I really wished that we didn’t end things, even though it was the responsible thing to do we both felt at the time.  I wondered if anything with that would change.  I doubted it.  Everything was different now, so who knew what might come of things.

Eventually I started nodding off on the baseball game and decided to call it a night.  Tomorrow would be a busy day, picking everyone up from the airport and getting them all settled.  Then a short amount of time till the funeral.  After than, would things go back to normal?  I doubted it.  I didn’t even know what normal was going to look like.  I wanted to get back to Cheney, but I knew even that was going to be difficult.   

[darkcavewriting]

Day 5

The clock on the bedside radio said it was 5:27 a.m. I was not excited by that, in the least. I knew I went to bed early, but it was still far too early for me to be awake. I got out of bed and stumbled off towards the bathroom.  I could see the light coming up the stairs from the kitchen and figured I might as well look and see who was up.  I headed downstairs and there was my grandmother standing at the stove throwing eggs into a pan.

I was surprised to see her up so early, even though she went to bed the same time we did I guess I was just not expecting to see her up before six in the morning, let alone fixing food.  I was cold, but I was still hungry.  I asked her what I could do to help out.  She put me in charge of making coffee for everyone, which was eight people, which meant we would need to make at the very least two pots, so I went to the garage to track down the other coffee pot to make two at once.  I didn’t know for sure if my niece and nephew drank coffee but it seemed like a better idea to make more than we needed than not enough.  Thank god my parents hadn’t thrown out the old pot when they got a new fancier one for Christmas one year.  Otherwise it would be a while before there was coffee for everyone.  And the one thing I can say is that we all love coffee, and without it, we can be awfully pissy, and with the given situations that would not be a good thing in the least.  Everybody was on edge enough as is. While I set up the coffee pots to brew and tracked down the air pot to put the brewed stuff in my grandmother began to make omelets getting out several blocks of cheese and other ingredients like bacon and mushrooms.  I knew that there was going to be no way I was going to be going hungry while I was home, which was good, because there was no way for me to make anything like this in Cheney in my dorm room and that would stink, living off of cereal did not sound too terribly fun to me.  I would have to live off the dining hall food, and I didn’t know how good or bad that was yet.  At least until I got out of the dorm, if I ever did for that matter.  I hoped I would at some point in time, but at this point who knows.  I didn’t even know if I will stick it out in Cheney or if I will move back to Portland during this term. 

Given the deaths there is a real chance that I might.  Although already being admitted to Eastern and getting a bit settled there before all of this went down it would not make too terribly much sense to just leave, but that may be the best course of action.  If I was to leave I knew it would be unlikely that I would get all of the money back for tuition, housing and all that.  However there was a chance that the special circumstances of all this might allow me to be refunded if I was to leave. 

The first pots of coffee were ready and I transferred them to the air pot and set out to make two more pots as I poured myself a cup.  I could hear some stirring from the living room.  I had a feeling that Sara was smelling the coffee and finally beginning to wake up.  I knew that if I was laying there the aroma of the coffee and the cooking of the bacon would be more than enough to rouse me from even the deepest sleep. 

I was right, she came stumbling into the kitchen wrapped up in the little fleece blanket that was laying over her all night.  She looked tired, but I knew that once the coffee and the food hit her she would hopefully feel better, I hoped I would feel better too for that matter.  I knew it was going to be a terribly stressful day, and I was hoping to a certain extent that it would fly by, but I doubted that it would. All the days were likely going to be stressful for the foreseeable future, I couldn’t see any way that they wouldn’t be. That would be hoping for far too much I told myself.  There was no way I was going to get that lucky with this shitty situation.  I knew it would drag on and on, but at least I was expecting it, so it wasn’t like any of it was at all unexpected.

I told my grandmother about the option of possibly not taking classes for the semester.  She did not seem to be too terribly thrilled with that idea but I could tell that she knew that it might be the best and most logical choice for me.  I was thinking of calling Grace and getting her opinion on the matter, but the last thing I wanted to do right now was talk on the phone with someone.  Something to put off till later I thought.  Also far too early in the day to try and call her.  Eva on the other hand, I should probably text. K- Hey Eva, I hope things are going well in Minneapolis.  I don’t know if you might have heard, but my parents died in a car crash.  A day after they dropped me off for school at Eastern.  I’m back in Portland now, not sure when the funeral is going to be.   I had been putting off contacting her because of how much I missed her.  I wished that we were going to school closer together, I really could have used her around right now.  However she was 1,700 miles away right now, and that was more than a little rough on me.  I wished things could have been different. Not that she was my girlfriend but to be terribly honest I did miss Grace even though I had only been gone for a day. There was just something about her that managed to put a smile on my face whenever I saw her or thought of her.  It was a similar feeling to how I got when I first met Eva.  Not that I thought that things may turn into a relationship with Grace, but it did seem that it could be a possibility.  I didn’t know if I was ready for something like that now.  This soon after so many big things happening, but only time would tell.   Everyone was finally up, and the coffee and food was flowing around the table as everyone had breakfast. My great aunt and uncle appeared to have no plans at all and intended to stay around my grandparents house the whole day, at least they would not be in our way at my parents house I thought. They were the last people I wanted over there going through my parents shit. It was decided that we would head over shortly, across town to their place to see what sort of a wreck the place was in, as it was always a cluttered mess, and then to begin to determine what the hell was going to happen with everything. The will after all was somewhere in a file cabinet in the house supposedly. Sara asked me how I was feeling. "Alright I guess, I slept as well as it could be expected." "Thats good, I could imagine being back in your own bed was pretty comfortable?" "Yeah, even though I had only been away from it for two nights it was good to be back in it." After breakfast, my grandparents had me come with them into my dad’s home office where the file cabinet was. Apparently my parents had told my grandparents that the wills were in the file cabinet, I would have never known. Knowing them I would have expected them to be in the safe deposit box at thew bank or something like that. These were copies it seemed as we opened the drawer to find them. Copies were good enough though, they were sealed and dated a little over a year before. “The official ones are with your parent’s lawyer I believe,” said my grandfather.  “But they are identical to these, so that shouldn’t be a concern, there won’t need to be a reading of the will to my knowledge, unless some family member contests what is in here as being unofficial.” The wills were very simple and straightforward. They named my grandparents as long as they were alive the executors of the estate and that they would be responsible for the financial aspect, clearing up all of the bills and the like, but all of the possessions were to go to me, house included. I had a feeling that this might have been the case, and I was not terribly excited. They had so much stuff, it was going to be an exhausting process to assess everything. The thought of getting all of it for myself, I was less than thrilled. I made this very clear to my grandparents. It was something that I knew was going to be utterly exhausting to deal with. "I have no idea what to do with the house,” I said.  “It seems weird to pay for utilities and stuff and not be living here, but it isn’t like renting it out when it is full of stuff is a possibility either." "Well there would be no rush to make any sort of decision on that," said my grandmother. "You could go to school here and live her for essentially nothing by yourself if you wanted." "I have already moved to Eastern got settled for the most part, I might as well try and stick things out there for at least a while you know?" I said. "True, just know that the house is here for you," she said. "I think we could spend a good bit of time down here from Port Townsend if we wanted to, to try and make sure the house is maintained" "I wouldn’t want you to feel forced to do anything like that,” I said.  “We have plenty of time to figure everything out, it isn’t like the house is going to get foreclosed on or anything, just have to keep up on the utilities." “True, and that isn’t so bad, utilities, property tax, homeowners insurance, all things that are easy to deal with, compared to dealing with a mortgage company and changing all that documentation,” said my grandfather.   “Do you know what sort of financial situation my parent’s were in?”  I asked.  “I knew as a family we weren’t poor, but I have no idea what things looked like financially for them, am I going to have to worry about the money to pay for any of the stuff with the house?”

“We would have to find bank statements, but between what they had in the bank, investments, your dad’s retirement through Portland State University, as well as whatever life insurance policies they both had, I don’t see any reason why you would have to worry,” said my grandfather.  “As best as we know, they didn’t have any real debts, the house and the cars are both owned outright, so I feel that things should be pretty comfortable.” With that we began to sift through the mountains of paperwork that I knew my grandparents would have to assess to figure out what sort of investments, insurance and the like my parents had, to close accounts and get the money to me, or to bills or whatnot. I felt very lucky that they were willing to do this for me. At 18 I knew there was no way in hell I would be able to go through all of this on my own and actually have any sort of real idea at what I was doing, it was a huge relief, almost a weight being lifted off my shoulders.  If it was just me having to deal with all of this on my own it would have been horribly overwhelming.  It was bad enough as it was.   We left my grandfather in the office to make an attempt at organizing the papers and Sara my grandmother and I progressed through the rest of the house. There was so much random stuff everywhere.  Remnants of my dad’s work was everywhere, books, boxes of photographs, printouts of historical maps of cities, there was stuff of his in nearly every room. I knew that there was not any real room for anything in Cheney, and it wasn’t like urban planning what I was going to school for either.  I didn’t want to jump into things, throwing things away, given that at present we didn’t know for sure what was going to be relevant and what wasn’t.  Some of my dad’s stuff may need to go to some of his work colleagues if it was related to stuff that he had been researching, or stuff for classes.   Having my parent’s house meant I would also be able to come back to Portland whenever I wanted and not have to worry about a place to stay which would be very nice. The thought seemed so foreign in my mind that I actually was going to own a house, such a drastic change from a few days earlier. I was not about to complain, the change of events was obviously going to drastically change my life, I just hoped more than anything that it was going to be a change for the better. I could hardly see that it could make things any worse, but only time would tell. We went out to the garage, sitting there was my mothers Subaru Outback, she loved that little car. I had only driven it a few times, but it was fun to drive, and likely a lot more reliable than my own car.  Still, I loved my Plymouth Arrow, no matter how shitty it might be. The garage was a mess, but that seemed to be the nature of garages. All of the yard tools, lawnmower and the like as well as all of my dad’s other tools, many of which sitting unused for years.  Stuff bought specifically fro a given project and then never needed again. There was camping equipment, a small tent and sleeping bags that had had been heavily used over the years. Those I thought could actually make their way back to Cheney in case I ever got the burning desire to go camping. It seemed like a good option to have, and with not having to share a room with anyone at present I had ample extra space to store things. Other than that in the garage there was a freezer of food that there was very little that I could actually do anything with, there was the yard furniture, a table and six chairs, as well as a propane grill and a smoker.  Those would obviously stay here, not anything I could use up in Cheney. "I can’t see any reason to get rid of anything out here," I told my grandmother.  “Maybe the cans of old paint, but the tools and the yard stuff, it would be silly to get rid of that.” "That sounds good, even some of the tools you may not need or use, at least you will have them for the future if you move back to Portland," she said. "There is plenty of room to store them and if you decide to sell them that would be alright as well." I was never a big fan of some of my parent’s furniture choices, and I felt that if I was to keep the house, I would want to replace a lot of it.  True, that would cost a good bit, even if I was to get most of the new stuff from IKEA.  Not that I really gave a damn about the financial aspect, all I cared about was removing the stuff that I know I was never got to use, or that I didn’t like the looks of. The housewares it made sense to keep, the clothing, not so much. By the middle of the afternoon we were all exhausted, it had been a more or less productive day all things considered.  I was glad that there wasn’t any sort of rush to get through all of this.  It was so comforting to know that I could take as much time as I wanted and that I didn’t have to worry about being out of the house by a specific date. We deiced that it was time to call it a day and start trying to figure out dinner, that was perfectly fine by me, figured we would go pick something up and then once again probably call it an early night, which after all of the hectic work, it only made sense.

When we got back downstairs from my parent’s room I was shocked to see steaks and the rest of a complete meal sitting on the table waiting for us. Apparently my aunt and uncle figured that since they weren’t helping with going through things  that they might as well cook us dinner for when we were done.  We had been so preoccupied with everything around the house we didn’t even notice. We all were shocked, they were not noted for always being the most helpful people, but this was a nice change. We were all starved, and the food looked and smelled wonderful. We thanked them and all sat down at the table to enjoy the tasty meal. Everyone had a tired look on their face, tomorrow was going to just as hectic.  My grandmother said that she had finally been able to get a hold of my paternal grandparents in Wales, and that they would be flying in to Portland in a couple days, as well as my Aunt Soren.  Nobody had been able to get in contact with my Uncle Lloyd so it was unsure if he was going to be making the trip for the funeral or not.   After dinner I headed to the couch and just sat there, exhausted, half expecting to fall asleep right there. Sara came over and sat next to me, and said that I should probably call Grace and let her know how things were going here. I really was not in the mood to be on the phone right now, but she was right it was something I should do, even if I didn't want to. I really did not need to come across as an insensitive jerk, at least not now anyways, I told her I would keep her updated so I knew I should. I fumbled around for my phone, headed up to my room and gave her a call. She picked up on the second ring, which surprised me, nobody ever picked up that fast when I called. "Hey sweetie, is everything going alright in Portland?" she asked before I could even say hello. "For the most part, just going through stuff here, my dad’s family will be here from Wales within a couple days," I said. "Also I saw the will today, it looks like I get more or less everything, even the house." "That's wonderful, are you going to move back to Portland?" she asked. "Not right now I don't think, during the semester I will probably be going back and forth a lot, perhaps taking my RA up on a policy that allows me to not take classes because of their deaths, I am not sure,” I said.  “I don’t know if I want to move back here now, I feel like I should at least give things at Eastern a shot and see how I do.” "That might be a good idea, give you a chance to get your head settled ya know, this has been pretty damn traumatic for you, even if it doesn't seem like it now, this is a really major thing going on right now for you and it is bound to catch up with you in the next moth or so, and having classes in the way might not be so good for you," she said.  “It will be nice for you to have a place in Portland to go if you ever want to go back though.” "You are right about that, I do get that feeling that in a while everything could come crashing down, I sure as hell hope it doesn't though, that is the last thing I need," I said.  “I have never lost anyone that was this close to me before.” "True, but you have to grieve, it is not healthy not to you know,” she said.  “Just do what comes naturally, you will have days where you don’t feel like doing anything and on those days you shouldn’t force yourself to." "I will I promise," I said. "Everything going alright with you back in Cheney?" "More or less, I miss you, everything is just kinda boring right now, Elizabeth hasn't been around, shes has been seeing a couple family members over in Pullman so I have had the place to myself and I am a little lonely." "I'm sorry, I wish I was there." "I know you do, but you need to be in Portland right now, you know that." "I know, I know," I said. “I should probably let you go for now, still have stuff to get a little bit done before I crash in bed." "It's alright I know you do, be safe, and take care sweetheart, I will see you when you get back." "Alright, have a good night,” I said as I disconnected the call. It was good to hear her voice again, Sara was looking over at me when she saw me come back into the living room, she could see the smile that I was trying to hide on my face. I know she could tell that there was something between us. Even though I didn't know what that something was. I was sure as well that there was indeed something there, and hopefully it would be something good once I got back to Cheney. I was looking forward to going back but not at all really wanting to leave Portland right now, it was a very odd situation, but I knew it would all manage to work itself out somehow in the end. "You like her don't lie," said Sara, who walked into the room." "Yeah, I do, its probably pretty obvious," I said. "Well the smile sure as hell is a pretty big tip off," said Sara. "She sure as hell better treat you well, if not I won't be pleased," said Sara "You don't need your first relationship away from home ending up being a disaster, I know how little fun that is, promise me that if you ever have any issues or anything call me, you know I am here for you." "I promise, and thank you," I said. "I am so glad that you live so close, it will be nice, I really wish that we could have been a closer family, it is a shame that my parents did not want to be." "That's how they were, nothing can be done about it, at least not now, but we can try and make things stronger between all of us now, don't you worry alright?" asked Sara. "I won't I swear," I said. We both kicked back on the couch to relax and make a general attempt to enjoy ourselves watching a crappy early season football game on the television, Bowling Green taking on the University of Minnesota, two schools we both knew nothing about, but at least it was something to take our mind off of everything else going on around us thank god.  It was a decent enough distraction then again at this point pretty much anything was a welcome distraction from everything going on around us.  I really wish things would return to normal.  I was still trying to figure out if I would head back to Cheney after the funeral or stay in Portland for some time afterwards.  I felt that going back might be the best bet, and then heading back to Portland as needed on my own.  I knew that if my grandparents were able to handle a lot of stuff it would be better in the long run anyways.   Even though it was still early much like last night we were both still quite tired and felt that calling it a night rather early would still be a very wise choice.  I hoped I would sleep as well as I did last night. I felt even more tired, it had actually been a physically busy day after all, which was far more tiring than just sitting in a car all day.  Right now the whole sitting in the car thing did not seem so bad, still boring but a lot less tiring than actual physical labor.  

We folded the couch back out and got ready to call it a night.  I fetched Sara an extra blanket, and I headed back up to my own room.  I decided to read a little before bed, but first I checked my phone, and saw a few text messages and missed calls all from Eva. E- What happened, how are they gone? Call me E- I’m so sorry, please call me when you can E- It doesn’t matter how late, please call me tonight As insistent as she was I felt that I should call her back for sure.  It was late though, past midnight in Minneapolis, but I was hopeful that she would be up.  I pressed the button to call her back and waited. “Kenrick, thank you so much for calling me, what happened?” she asked. I told her everything from the last couple days, how I found out about the accident, coming home to Portland with my Aunt, the not knowing for sure when the funeral would be, and everything else.  It was so much easier to talk with Eva than it was with Grace, because Eva had been around my parents a good deal, and she knew how my relationship with them was and everything.  Hell she had met most of my family in the couple years we were together. “Do you want me to try and come back for the funeral?” she asked. “I would love it if you could, but you just got to Minneapolis and how practical would that be for you to come back here just for it?” I asked. “Who cares if it is practical, I feel like I should be there,” she said.  “I am going to call my parents and let them know about everything if that is alright?” “Of course that is alright,” I said.  “I just don’t want you feeling obligated like you have to come back here for the funeral if it isn’t the easies thing for you to do.” “I will let you know, but I will do everything I can to make it back,” she said.  “I miss you.” “I miss you too, a lot,” I said.  “I really wish we could have ended up going to school closer together.” “You and me both,” she said.  “It would have been nice, especially in a time like this, however I am glad you are in school so close to home so it was so easy for you to get back on short notice.” “Me too,” I said.  “It helps a lot.” “Being out here in Minnesota away from everyone has been a little hard on me so far,” said Eva.  “It isn’t that I haven’t liked it out here this first week, it is just really overwhelming going somewhere so far away where I don’t know anybody at all.” “Well you know you can always talk to me,” I said.  “Even though we aren’t together anymore that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.” “Thank you, that really means a lot,” said Eva.  “You have so much going on right now, I don’t want to be a burden or anything on you.” “You could never be a burden,” I said.  “You will always be very important to me.” “I appreciate that,” said Eva.  “I will call my parents shortly, let them know about what happened, and see if it is possible for me to fly home for the funeral whenever that is.” “Sounds good, just let me know what is going on,” I said.  “Once we have a more concrete idea on when the funeral is I will let you know, I would imagine next week.” “Of course,” she said.  “Try and I have a good night, I miss you.” “You too,” I replied. It felt good to talk with Eva.  We hadn’t spoken much since things ended between us, which made me sad.  From going from talking near daily for a couple years, to this, was just a pretty drastic change in a short amount of time.  I wished that things would have been different for us.  If we could have ended up going to school closer together things likely would have been very different.  Her getting the chance to play hockey at the University of Minnesota though was not something that should be passed up though.  I was so incredibly happy for her and everything she had achieved. I headed up to my room, and hoped that I would be able to sleep some tonight.  Reading for a while helped to make me a bit more relaxed than I had been.  Finally I managed to slowly drift asleep, within a couple hours though I woke up and at first shot up in bed to a sitting position trying to figure out where I was.  Being in my own room, I don’t know why I felt like that.  Maybe it was because the last few days had been so damn stressful.  I knew I needed to try and get a decent nights sleep.  I hadn’t slept well since I left for Cheney.  Between the hotel bed, the dorm bed, and then everything since then, sleep hasn’t been something that was coming easy, or in any sort of restful manner.  

[darkcavewriting]

Day 4

There was no alarm, but I could tell from the sunlight peeking through the blinds, and the smell of coffee and bacon that it was probably morning and that getting my ass up would be in my best interest.  I rubbed my eyes and adjusted to my surroundings, my head was throbbing, what a shock. I stumbled into the kitchen and said good morning to my Aunt Sara and asked where the aspirin was.  She told me to grab the bottle above the coffee pot and to grab a cup of coffee to wash it down with and that would take care of my hangover.  I followed the directions and within a hour after having eggs, toast, and bacon my headache had indeed dissipated.   Watching her in the kitchen I could tell she was still not emotionally alright.  This bothered me, even though given everything it was pretty much to be expected for the both of us.  She looked like she was walking in a daze, and I am sure I looked about just as bad I presumed. “You doing alright over there?” I asked. “I could be a hell of a lot better but I will be alright I guess, just happy I am not here at home alone, that would be a whole lot worse I think,” she said.  “Thank you again for making the drive up here last night, I really appreciate it.” “You got that right, I am happy that I am here as opposed to be back in my dorm,” I said.  “Yeah, Grace is there, but other than that, the dorm room itself kinda sucks, even though I have a room to myself, at least so far.” “So tell me about Grace.” I told her about how we met and how much time we had spent together since we moved into he dorms and how she was there to try and comfort me when I found out about the accident.  I also mentioned how she was really cute as well.   “She really knows how to put a smile on my face.” “So where do you think its going to go?” asked Sara.  “A relationship perhaps?” “Well after the relationship ended with Eva this summer, I don’t know if I want to get back into anything quite this quickly,”  I said. “Oh?” she asked.  “Why did that end?” “She ended up getting a scholarship to play hockey at the University of Minnesota and we decided it likely wouldn’t work out,” I said.  “I should probably let her know about my parents, she always did like them” “Well, my advice then is to let things happen as they do whatever you do, don't rush anything,” said Sara.  “Given the move, and then this, so many major things happening in such a short time span, it wouldn’t be the best to make any other major decisions right now if you didn’t have to, things like this can easily cloud your judgment.” With that the phone on the kitchen wall rang, it was my grandmother calling.  She was calling to say that they got conformation from the authorities in Spokane that the bodies would be arriving in Portland at the funeral home tomorrow and that the funeral would then be scheduled for sometime in the following week.  She advised that Sara and I head out to Portland today if possible or tomorrow at the latest to help organize things.  Mark would apparently not be making it as he would still be in Montana and unable to leave.  My grandmother also said she had been reaching out to my father’s parents in Wales to try and organize their flight to Portland, as well as that for Aunt Soren and Uncle Lloyd.  My grandmother also noted that she and my grandfather, would be on their way to my parent’s house in Portland today, and would meet us there.  They would be driven down by Aunt Jill and Uncle Dave, who had arranged for a hotel for them.  My grandparents however would be staying at my parents house. I relayed this information to Sara, she let out a deep sigh and said that we should probably pack stuff up and hit the road before long, no point in rushing the trip tomorrow if we could get there today.  I agreed, I did not want to have to make a mad rush back to Portland if it was at all avoidable, and having a little time to get things organized back home would probably be a good thing as well, with my parents house that was likely to take a month.   After we ate I helped Sara grab stuff for at least a week and she packed it into a couple small suitcases, I grabbed my track bag, the only thing I brought with me and we headed out to the car.  We agreed that we would take her car, as it would be far more practical and faster.  Most things were faster than the Arrow, especially her Mustang.  We realized though that I would need to stop in Cheney to get some more clothing, as the one change I had would not last for any real amount of time in Portland unless I felt like doing laundry every single day, and that did not sound like too much fun to me.  I knew I still had some clothing in my closet and dresser back home in Portland, but none of it was stuff I wore much, and none of it would be remotely appropriate for a funeral whenever the hell that was going to take place.   The drive down to Cheney was faster with Sara behind the wheel, she was after all a lot more familiar with the road than I was and her car was able to maintain a speed better than my ancient Arrow.  We made it to the dorm in good time, I told her I would be as quick as possible to grab some clothing, tell both my RA as well as Grace that I was going to be out of town for who knows how long and then we would be back on the road. Making it up to my room was a piece of cake, I grabbed a few changes of clothes, my dress shoes and a tie and stuffed them into a backpack, as my suitcase was still filled, mainly with books that had yet to be unpacked.  I clicked off the light, locked the door, wrote a note saying I was out of town on the message board outside my room and was off to find my RA.  That proved to be a tougher challenge.  Being a weekday morning and with classes still yet to start, the chance that he would actually be in his room was minimal.  I knocked and as I suspected he was not there.  Another student in the hall said that he had just headed down to the front desk, so I hustled down the stairs in an attempt to find him.   He was there, thankfully, and I let him know what all was going on and that I would be back, whenever I got back, hopefully before the start of classes if I could, but that I could not promise anything at this point in time.   “Hey, I understand, you have to get everything taken care of, don't worry about anything alright?"   "Thanks, I will try to get everything in order while I am back home, we will see how I hold up during classes." The next thing was to see if Grace was in her room so I could let her know that I was taking off.  I went back up the stairs to the fifth floor hoping that she would be there.  I knocked and waited.  I could hear movement inside so i lightly knocked again.  She opened the door and looked half asleep still.  While rubbing her eyes she was able to tell that it was me and leaned out the door to hug me. "I'm glad you are back so soon." "I'm not back though, that is why I came to see you," I said.  "I'm off to Portland with my aunt right now, I just wanted to come and let you know so you didn't wonder where the hell I went." "How long will you be gone?" "I have no idea, hopefully less than a week, but I don't know how much stuff I will have to try and sort out while I am back home,” I said.  “Also the funeral, which we don’t know when it will be yet, as my father’s family have to come in from Wales and elsewhere in the United Kingdom.” "I'm going to miss you,” said Grace "Well you can still call me, I will probably need the occasional distraction, it will probably be a pretty damn depressing time down there,” I said. "I will, you can count on it, be safe sweetie," said Grace. "I'll try to be, ill see you when I get back," I responded. And back down the stairs I went to the car and back onto the road to Portland.   Having Sara drive was a big relief, it gave me a chance to try and relax and mentally unwind, the last day was pretty damn taxing.  I made sure to give my grandmother a call and let her know that we were just pulling out of Cheney and would be in Portland by the evening.  She mentioned that they were just past Olympia and that dinner would be ready whenever we happened to get in, and that the guest room was ready for Sara, which was also a big relief, the guest room was noted for being a catch-all room for things that didn't have anywhere better to go in the house.  I wondered where my grandmother had planned on putting things.  I was glad they she and my grandfather were already on their way down The first part of the drive until we made it into the Tri Cities where we stopped to get a cup of coffee and fill the gas tank back up.   "Thanks for driving," I said.  "It has really given me a chance to try and let my mind rest." "I know this have to be tough on you, don't worry about it alright?" said Sara. "I'll try not to, it's just rough, everything you are doing means a lot to me." "We are family, don't think anything of it, I know you would do the same,” she said. With coffee in hand and a full tank of gas we were ready to get back on the highway back to the City of Roses.  It was nice to be in a car that had a real cupholder, and not what I had to create in my own car.  We talked a bit on the way, which was a good distraction, since I knew that once we got to Portland there would be no rest till we made our way back towards Spokane.  We both know it was going to be an incredibly busy few days, or longer, for all of us.  The worst part was that neither of us knew exactly what all was going to be in store for us once we got to Portland, besides the funeral, which we didn’t even know when it would be, we had absolutely no idea what would need to be done with my parents estate, until the will was dealt with, and if everything went to me, that meant I was going to really have a hell of a lot to get done in possibly a very minimal amount of time, and that was a cause of at least a little worry to me. I figured that if that was the case I could try and have my grandparents deal with the bulk of it, as they would actually be physically there in the Portland area, or at least my grandmother had said that they planned on staying at my parents place until things were more situated.  Somehow the idea of coming in to Portland from Cheney every weekend to try and sort crap out was not terribly appealing to me, even though I enjoyed driving that would have been overkill in more ways than one, the Arrow would for sure meet a very speedy death.  As much as I loved that car, I knew good and well that it likely wouldn’t last my entire time at Eastern Washington University. The ride was smooth and moderately quick.  I knew I was going to be happy to get back to Portland, which was in a way funny because I only left three days before.  What can I say, Portland has that sort of effect on me, I was often happy to leave, on trips and the like, but always happy to be coming home too.  I knew that in the long run my stay away from Portland would not at all be permanent, I knew good and well that I would be back.  The city itself had a way to take a hold on you and you just fell in love with the place I knew I did, it was after all my hometown and I had grown to love it over the first eighteen years of my life. We were finally back, pulling into the driveway at my parents house, I was sick and tired of sitting in the car, there had been far too much of it the last few days.  For it only being the middle of the afternoon I felt quite exhausted. At first glance I did not recognize the other cars parked out front of the place. I then realized that it appeared that my great aunt and uncle from Port Townsend were there as well. This caught me off guard, I had not expected them to bring multiple cars.  I knew it was going to be good to see them, it always was. Tired or not I was still hungry and I was hoping that my grandmother had something ready to eat. We made our way to the front door and it opened up in front of us. My grandmother ushered us in the door and there was the rest of the family lounging in the living room. It was a strange setting, it had been years since I had seen everyone all in one place at the same time.  My aunt and uncle as well as a couple of their children who were a few years older than me.  I hadn’t seen them my cousins in quite some time. I could feel the tears building up in the corners of my eyes. It was going to be an interesting few days that was for damn sure. Everything was turning into such a blur it was miserable.  My mind was racing non stop, and I didn’t know what to think about anything.  One thing that did cross my mind was that I should call or text Eva, even though we hadn’t spoken in weeks, to let her know what happened with my parents. My grandmother asked us how the drive was and all of that fun stuff, we tossed my Aunts bags in the spare bedroom on the floor, and then mine up in my room to deal with later and made our way back out to the living room to see everyone. My  aunt and uncle let us know that they were going to sleep here, in that bedroom, which kinda pissed us off a little bit, but there was nothing we could do about it, the sofa bed was the next best thing, along with the floor it seemed.  There were way more people in the house than I think I had seen for years.  There wasn’t enough room for everyone in the house, I was going to have to rummage around for the air mattress, and hope that it wasn’t in the Vanagon with my parents.  In that case it would be gone forever most likely.  I didn’t even know what had happened with the Vanagon and any personal stuff that was in it.   We talked in the living room while my grandmother was in the kitchen throwing food together for all of us, which was soon to be ready. It appeared as though my aunt and uncle from Port Townsend would be heading back, as well as their kids in a couple days, and then coming back for the funeral whenever that was.  That would just leave myself and Sara, as well as my grandparents which was fine by me.  That was going to make the house a lot more comfortable.  A good deal of my family was great but only in relatively small doses. The thought of having to deal with most of them on any real sort of prolonged basis made my head hurt especially if we were all crammed under the same roof. I hoped that my dads family would be making it out here from Wales on such short notice.  I knew that she had spoken with my paternal grandparents, but I didn’t know when to possibly expect them here in Portland.  My grandmother had mentioned that they were waiting to even attempt to schedule the funeral until we knew what the travel situation was with them, as well as with my Aunt Soren and Uncle Lloyd who were both in the United Kingdom as well. Dinner was good, baked chicken, and then it was soon to be time for bed for my some, which was fine by me. I knew that I was going to want to head to bed at a early time, I was exhausted, stressed and had sixteen million things going in my head and just needed some way to relax and try and make the best of things. Sara and I agreed that the sofa bed, which was a queen sized one would be the best for her, my cousins would take the air mattress which I managed to rummage out of the garage.  It wasn’t the best of the ones we had but it was far better than sleeping on the floor.  I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.  Something comfortable and familiar.   It was early indeed when we all decided to call it a night, just barely after nine in the evening but we knew that the next several days would be a hectic mess, and I was not looking forward to them, then again no one else was either for that matter. While I got settled in my bed, I struggled to get comfortable.  A hour or so after I went to bed, and after reading for a while and being unable to fall asleep I decided to go down and get some water.  I looked over at the couch, I could tell that Sara was having issues falling asleep, tossing and turning a bit, I walked over and asked her if everything was alright. "Yes everything is alright, I am just finding it a little hard to get comfortable," she said. "This whole situation has moved so fast I just I am still in a state of shock I guess." "I can understand that, I am too, we just have to do what we can I guess," I said. "There really is no other way around it." "If you need to talk or anything, you only have to ask," I said. "I know, thanks, same goes for you," she said. "I am shocked you are taking this as well as you are." "Me too, me too, I'll probably have a break down in a couple weeks,” I said.  “At least more of one than the one I am currently having that is.” "If you do, feel free to come on up to Spokane to talk, our door is always open." "Thanks, I will." With that I headed back up my room and I was eventually able to drift off in to sleep.

[darkcavewriting]

day 3 pt 2

We lounged for a while longer holding hands by the tower and when we could tell that the sun was finally beginning to go down we started walking back down past the stadium and towards the dorm. I knew that I should call my grandparents and see what new details I could get about what happened, and also get some dinner, since I completely forgot about lunch, and was feeling very hungry. The day was almost over and it seemed as though it had flown by, then with news like I had received it had a way of throwing everything into a whirlwind around me.

We made the walk back as the sun began to go down, I told Grace that I was going to have a busy night and most likely be on the phone for at least a couple hours trying to figure out exactly what all the hell was going on and if there were any new details. Grace said that she understood and that she was glad that she was able to get my mind off of it for at least a little bit. As we got back to the dorm she made it a point to tell me that if there was anything at all she could do to help to let her know. She also told me to text her and keep her updated with any new information that I might learn. I told her I would and went up to my room to deal with the inevitable. I grabbed my phone off the desk and made the first of what I had a feeling would be many calls of the night and dialed up my grandparents. They picked up on the first ring, which was uncommon for them, but I had a feeling that they had been on and off of the phone all day. I also knew they didn’t have caller identification and were likely just picking up every call today. They likely had the phone close to wherever they were, and I really could not blame them as it was likely ringing all day.

They finally gave me all of the details of the crash that they got from the Washington State Patrol who had been on the phone with them off and on all day. There were apparently a handful of elk that ran across the highway outside of Chelan and in swerving to avoid them my father clipped one of them and then went off the side of the road into a very deep ditch on the right hand shoulder of the road. Both of my parents were pronounced to be dead at the scene, and the bodies were taken to Seattle to be shipped back to Portland. The funeral was going to take place in only a few days, and that I should also probably make an attempt at coming home for it, since classes would not have started yet. My grandparents also told me that I should call my Aunt Sara as she and Mark would be driving down to Portland for it and they said that they would likely be willing to pick me up so I didn't have to drive myself. I thanked my grandmother for that information and said that I would call Aunt Sara once I got off the phone with her to figure out what the plan was going to be. I told my grandmother how terrible I felt, like I was in a daze, and how I didn’t know how I was really supposed to feel. “There is nothing you can do about that, you feel how you feel,” she told me. “It's no secret that they could be a bit difficult at times, and I don't blame you one bit for being confused, but please at least come home for the funeral.” “I will, I promise, I couldn't imagine not coming, classes don’t start till next week,” I said. I told my grandmother goodbye and that I loved her and that I would get on the phone with Sara in a couple minutes. I looked around my desk for my Aunt Sara's number and finally found it buried under a notebook and my wallet. I dialed her up and I could hear the uneasiness in her voice. I told her that her mother, my grandmother, had told me to call to see about the ride back into Portland, and to see how she was holding up, as her husband Mark was in Montana for work for the next couple days. “Honestly, I am taking this a whole lot harder than I thought I would,” said Sara. “I was never really close with her as a sister because she was twelve years older than me and I disagreed with a lot of the things she did, but right now I feel like a wreck.” “Is there anything at all I can do for you?” I asked. “Short of driving up here to make sure I don't go completely crazy not that I can think of.”

The thought of driving up to Spokane in the dark was not something I was looking forward to, I detested driving in the dark, my vision was utter shit at night and driving in the Arrow made it even worse. Night time driving on unfamiliar roads it would make it even less exciting, but at this point it appeared as though making the drive might be the best possible thing I could do. “Honestly, if you think it would really help, I could do that, I would just need directions on how to get there,” I said. She rattled off directions and I plugged them into a map program online to get the best route and told her I would be on my way within an hour. “Thank you so much, you really don't have to do this for me,” she said. “If it keeps you feeling sane and from doing anything irrational it is the only logical thing for me to do, ill see you in a little bit,” I said With that I hung up, grabbed my phone charger, toothbrush and deodorant off of the shelf and threw them in my track bag along with a pair of shorts and some other clothing and headed for my dorm room door. As I clicked off the light and walked into the hall I was met by my RA, asking me exactly where the hell I thought I was going, as we were apparently having a floor meeting in fifteen minutes. I laid it all out for him explaining the whole situation with my parents and my aunt in Spokane and said that I would be back, whenever the hell I got back, which might not be till right before classes started or possibly even after depending on how everything went down back in Portland. He claimed to understand and that we needed to talk when I got back, as apparently with the death of my parents I would be eligible for counseling and therapy, and if needed could take the entire semester off if I felt that I needed to emotionally. I told him that I would meet with him later, and made my way down the hall to the stairs. I was trying to decide if I should tell Grace and Elizabeth that I was going to be gone, indefinitely, and I figured I should and headed to their room and knocked. I heard some movement inside and then Grace opened the door. She saw the bag in my hand and asked if I was heading back to Portland already. I then told her about my aunt who was my mothers sister living in Spokane and how she was home alone and not taking things well at all, and how she and Mark would also be taking me to and from Portland for the funeral and that I had no idea when I would be back in the dorm. “I'm gonna miss you, I have had a lot of fun with you the last couple days,” said Grace. “I will miss you too,” I said. “I promise I will keep in touch while I am away.” “Promise to be safe, and at least call on occasion?” asked Elizabeth. “Of course, ill let you know when I get to Spokane tonight too, okay?” I said. “Please do,” Grace said, and with that she kissed me not on the cheek this time but on the lips, it caught me terribly off guard, as it was not expected at all. I hugged her close and kissed her back. I told her I would be back as soon as I could. With that I headed off to my car.

My car roared to life on the third crank of the ignition. I knew I was going to have to get that looked at sometime in the near future. I tucked the printed directions under my leg and dropped the car into reverse. The Stray Cats came blaring through the radio, singing about being 18 miles away from Memphis. Memphis was not my destination but the song seemed fitting for the occasion. I eased the car onto the main drag, which would end up connecting me to I-90 up at Four Lakes the finish the ride into Spokane. More than anything I just wanted the drive to be easy and painless, and so far so good. Traffic was minimal which was a relief as my vision was making it hard to focus when there were oncoming cars on the two lane road. The music was keeping me company as I merged onto I-90 and punched the gas towards the floor to get the little car up to the speed limit.

Nearly twenty minutes after I thought I would arrive at my aunt's house I finally did. I was exhausted from the drive, being tailgated is never fun, especially when I have no idea where I am going, I finally managed to find the right street and make it to their house. I pulled my car into their massive driveway and grabbed my bag from the passenger seat and headed to the door. I didn't even have to knock on the door, when I got up to the porch the door flung open and Sara was standing in the doorway. She looked like a disaster, her hair was a mess and I could tell that she had been crying as there was makeup smeared on her face. I hurried in the house and closed the door behind me and she made her way over to the couch and motioned for me to sit down as well. I grabbed a seat on the opposite end of the couch and kicked my shoes off, trying to get comfortable. “Thank you so much for coming Kenrick,” she said. “I really was not expecting it you to drive up tonight especially not really knowing where you were going and given how you are likely feeling.” “I could tell you needed some company and since I knew I was going to have to come up here anyways in order to get to Portland.” “Still I am sure you had things going on the dorm and such that would have been more productive.” “Well, possibly, I did make fast friends with a couple of cute girls a floor below me.” “That must be nice, and a good change from how everything was back in Portland I would imagine too right?” she asked. “Anything would be a change from Portland, you know that.” I told her. “With how everything ended with Eva, with us going off to different schools, and just getting to be on my own, everything is a pretty big change at this point.” "Go grab yourself a beer or something out of the fridge, I could imagine you need one right about now." "Uhhhhhh, I'm not even close to 21 yet though." I said. "So?" she asked. "You have likely just had one of the most stressful days of your life, believe me, you need a drink, just grab one, not like you are going anywhere tonight." I didn't want to argue anymore so I got up and made my way into the kitchen and fumbled around for a light switch to see what sort of beer actually was in the fridge. I was expecting to see Bud or something along those lines, but instead saw a plethora of micro brews and that lead me to have no idea which one to choose. "So whats good in here?"

"Try the Widmer, it isn't too harsh, you might like it." So a Widmer was indeed what I got for the both of us, once I found the bottle opener hanging on the door of the fridge I knew I was in business. I took the first sip as I walked back into the living room and plopped down on the couch again, not bad I thought to myself. Sitting in the living room was an odd feeling, I had not spent any real amount of time at their home since I was a small child, around eight or ten years old I thought, and it still looked nearly the same as back then from what I could remember. I listened to Sara talk about her sister, my mother, and how shocked and sad she was about her sudden death. They were not close because of the age difference but there was still the sisterly connection between the two. One thing that she said she was worried about was my grandmother and grandfather and how they would handle the death. She thought she should possibly temporally relocate to Port Townsend to be near them in case any sort of depression started to set in with them. "That might not be such a bad idea, especially since they are both verging on hitting 90, the last thing they need at this point of their life is depression," I said. “This can’t be easy on them at all.” "Maybe after the funeral I can head up there and stay with them for a month or so and see how they are taking things, their home is large enough," Sara said. "Then again I will probably have to help them organize your parents things and estate and all, especially with you starting classes, which would mean we would all be down in Portland instead." "I think your grandmother said that when she saw a copy of your parents last will they had damn near everything going to you," said Sara. That didn’t surprise me too much, I mean I was an only child, but, both of my parent’s parents and my parent’s siblings were still alive so it was a bit of a surprise that everything would go to me. I couldn't imagine what I would do with their house, I sure as hell did not want it now, what with going to school in Cheney. I would likely either be renting it out or selling it I guess would be my options. It was not a bad house, an average size, but relatively small compared to a lot of other houses in the neighborhood. Though but in a nice area of the city, maybe if I was to go to school at Portland State, but, I didn’t exactly want to do that. Portland State didn’t have any programs that particularly interested me.

“I can envision a rather large yard or estate sale I think, getting rid of things, not like I would have anyplace to store them," I said. “Not anytime immediately though, but likely maybe by spring time.” "You don't want their house?" "Well, I wouldn’t be opposed to that, but with me living here now, what in the world am I going to do with it, how would I maintain it and all that?” I asked. “If I rented it, I would still have to find somewhere to put all of their, and also my things that are still there.” “That is a good point, you have a lot of things to consider," said Sara. “Do you know if the house was paid off?” "As best as I know, yes it was paid off, which is one less thing to worry about, it is going to be a good bit of a mess trying to figure out what to do, especially with all of the other family involved, you, and Keith, and then my dads family back in Wales,” I said. “I really hope things don’t get too ugly with people fighting over things.” "Well you know that if you ever need someone to talk to I am always here, and our house is always open to you, no matter what Mark ever says, trust me okay?" said Sara. "If its cool with you, it sounds good to me, it means a lot to me that you would offer that to me, I know we were never really that close, mainly thanks to my mother," I said.

"I got lots of updates from your grandmother on how things were going with you, actually made it down to see a couple of your soccer games when you played out in Hermiston and Pendleton, just never said anything because I knew your parents were going to be there." I was shocked, I had no idea that Sara had made it out there, or that she got updates from my grandmother, my grandmother never mentioned that to me, but it was a very comforting thing to know that Sara cared. It was nice to finally know that she actually gave a shit so to speak, as it wasn’t all that apparent at least from my mother that she cared at all. I thought the beer was starting to show some affect, but being the first time that I drank, I really didn't know. All I did know was the the bottle was empty and I was tempted to head back to the fridge and fetch myself another one. “You want anything from the kitchen, a drink or anything?" I asked Sara. “Grab me another Widmer too I guess, nothing else really sounds good,” she said.

I grabbed another two and brought em back into the living room with the bottle opener and cracked them both open. "Thank you for actually treating me like an adult,” I said. "Well you are an adult silly, away from home on your own, you can make your own decisions now and not have to worry what others are going to say about them," she said. “Also, after the day you have had, it is the least I can do, and it isn’t like you aren’t driving anywhere tonight either.”

She was right, and it was one of the, if not the main reason that I had decided to go to school at Eastern Washington. I could be myself, make mistakes and live life how I had always wanted to, as opposed to how I was told to or expected to. The new found freedom was a wonderful thing. We both sipped our beers and relaxed on the couch. The clock showed that it was getting late even though I still felt very much awake. I saw Sara yawning on occasion she looked absolutely exhausted, she had after all been at work for the bulk of the day. Working across the border in Post Falls, Idaho for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game she tacked on a two hour drive to her already long day at work. However once she got the news today she left work early and called it a day. Working with the Department of Fish and Game she had connections with the Washington State Police due to occasional poaching of deer and elk and was able to get some information about the case from her contacts there. A hour later after another round of drinks it was obvious that we were both getting mighty tired and it showed. "I should probably get some sleep," I said to Sara, who was sitting there with her eyes mostly closed. "Well, you have your choice of where to sleep, I might just crash here on the couch, so there is my bed, and the guest bedroom and there are two beds in there, or there is always an air mattress on the floor in here, which might be warmer with the wood stove in here." said Sara. "It is supposed to get down into the 40's tonight and the other rooms don't stay that warm even with central heating." "I guess an air mattress would be alright, less distance to fall out of bed," I said.

Sara got up and started rummaging through a closet looking for the mattress and the corresponding pump, none of the pumps seemed to fit the mattress she already found, which posed at least a little bit of a problem. I could always sleep on the floor I thought, not that I particularly wanted to but if that was the most comfortable option, so be it. Close to fifteen minutes later she finally found a pump and mattress that went together and we set it up between the couch and the wood stove.

I could tell that Sara had managed to fall asleep pretty quickly, I however kept tossing and turning, the first night in any strange bed or place was always a challenge, and tonight proved to be no exception. Sara looked incredibly comfortable curled up on the couch, oh how I wish I was sleeping like her right now I thought to myself. Eventually sometime between midnight and three in the morning I know that I managed to fall asleep, finally, thank god.

[darkcavewriting]

Day 3 Pt 1

Orientation was the last thing I wanted to do today. I, for some reason beyond the grasp of my mind woke up before 6:00 a.m. This was not even common during high school, and here I am wide awake and ungodly hungry. I groped around the bookcase for the coffee filters and the can of coffee so that life would actually seem possible after my first cup.

Between the coffee in the pot and the frozen waffles in the toaster I knew the morning would be survivable, somehow. Coffee was pretty much my only vice, then again at 18 it was about the only legal option I had, besides cigarettes, and they had no appeal to me, so coffee it was, by the pot full. I screwed around online, checking my email and generally wasting time before the 9:00 a.m. orientation. I figured that a shower would probably be in my best interest so I took one, threw on some shorts and a Winterhawks shirt and made my way out to Reese Court, the basketball arena where it was to take place. Orientation as I was expecting was boring. Basic college stuff which was covered in high school, and just common knowledge. Three hours of my life I knew I would never get back. When I got back to my room I saw my cell phone, I thought I took it with me, apparently I didn't, I checked for missed calls or text messages, hopefully from Grace, but there was a missed call and voice mail from my grandparents instead so I listened.

The message was slightly urgent and told me to call them immediately. This was very uncharacteristic for them, so call immediately I did, the news that they told me had me slink to the floor instantly.

“Your parents died in a car crash, they drove off a cliff outside Chelan today, we don’t have any more information other than that right now,” is what my grandmother told me.

I didn't have any idea how to react, other than I starting to cry. Even though I didn’t always see eye to eye with them, and moved to Cheney to be away from them for the first time in my life. I did not want them dead, but they were now and there was nothing I could do about it. I was in a state of shock, obviously and really had no idea how to react, nothing can prepare you for something so sudden and unexpected like that. I told my grandparents that I couldn't talk now and that I would call them back later to find out anything else I needed to know or if they had any more details on anything. It wasn’t like them to drive off a cliff or anything, my parents were both exceptionally cautious drivers and the Vanagon wasn’t exactly difficult to control, or possible to drive at a high rate of speed either.

I leaned against my bed sobbing, I had never had to deal with any deaths in the family. Now totally out of the blue this happened and it just blindsided me. I was in a complete state of shock. There was really no other way to describe it. I had to have sat there for at least two hours just sobbing and shaking. They had their faults, of course, more than some, less than others but they were my parents, and I did love them, and now there were gone and there was nothing at all I could do about it. The relationship with them wasn’t exactly strained, and the largely let me be my own person growing up. I just wanted a proper taste of freedom away from family, which is the biggest reason I picked going to school here in Cheney. They had always been supportive of me, academically, and athletically, but at times they weren’t the most supportive in other ways. When I showed signs of my horrible self confidence when I was younger, in elementary and middle school, they did little to help with things, or see about taking me to a therapist.

My phone started to vibrate on my desk, I grasped for it and looked at who was calling, it was Grace. I managed to somehow say hello, even though I could barley talk. She could instantly tell that something was wrong, and said she would be down to my room in a minute.

Under a minute later I could hear the knocking at my door. I struggled to get up and open it. She walked in and I could tell by the look on her face that she was genuinely worried. I spelled it all out for her, how I heard from my grandmother and then proceeded to go into a state of shock. The look on her face was in almost as much shock as the one on my own. There was no way I could communicate verbally right now, so I had to write everything out for her on paper.

“I am so sorry Kenrick, I feel terrible for you,” Grace said. “I can't even imagine how bad it must be after only being here for a day and all of a sudden have your parents are gone, you must feel terrible.” “Believe me, I do,” I wrote. “There is no way I could have ever thought about or expected anything like this to happen to them at all.” “Is there anything at all I can do for you?” she asked. “Short of bringing them back to life, I have no idea, I am really not in a good place mentally right now,” I wrote out. “Is there anything at all I can do for you at all, to make things any easier?” Grace asked. “Seriously I will do anything I can to help you out and make you feel better, you don't need to be feeling like this so soon after moving here.” “I really don't know, my emotions are a complete mess, I don't know what to think about anything right now,” I finally was able to speak out to her. “Do you want to come with me, get out of your dorm room for a little bit and go for a walk or something?” she asked. “Why not, it might get my mind off of things briefly at least,” I managed to choke out. We headed out of the dorm towards the stadium, where there were trails leading up the the water tower she said. Anything was better right now than being stuck in the dorm room with my mind taking control of everything. It was nice to be outside with the ability to let my mind wander more than it was doing when I was in my dorm room. Grace said that she knew quite a few trails in the area, and even up in Spokane and that she would be more than willing to take me hiking with her if I was ever interested in going. I told her I would be, and that I would like to take a shot at climbing Mt. Spokane at some point. “Mt. Spokane?” She said, “That is a piece of cake, no problem.” I was excited to see her optimism, I had always wanted to go hiking when living in Portland but my parents were not outdoorsy in the least, so it was something I never got the chance to take advantage of. Now that I was in the Spokane area I figured I might as well try to take as much of an advantage of the outdoors as I could. Now that I actually had the chance to spend some real time outdoors in the real outdoors, not the city I knew good and well I should take advantage of it, and getting to do so with Grace would be a nice little added bonus as well. We finally made our way up the the water tower and kicked off our shoes and sat in the grass, Grace scooted around so she was facing me. She held out her hands and held mine in them and asked me what I was feeling. “I feel loss, hurt, empty inside, that is the best I can describe it I guess,” I said. “What would you like to try that might make things better?” She asked. “I know you only found out a couple of hours ago, and are still shocked, but is there anything at all I can do for you?” “I really do not know for sure, make sure I don't go crazy, or do anything stupid, or start getting terribly depressed?” I asked. “Well that can't be to terribly hard, especially since classes don't start till next week,” she said. “If you wanted I could stay in your room at night, so you aren’t alone if you want, especially since you have the extra bed.”

“Anything to help you feel more at ease and comfortable, I know how it is to lose a family member, waking up screaming in the middle of the night is a terrible feeling,” said Grace. “I lost a grandmother a couple years ago who I was very close to, and it wasn’t easy at all, it still isn’t some days.”

“You would really do that for me, even though you have only known me for a few days?” I asked. “More than anything right now, you need a friend to make sure you don't do anything drastic, and that you take care of yourself,” Grace said. “And seeing as how you don't know anyone else here I am very willing to be that friend.” “I do have an aunt and uncle in Spokane, but I don't even know if they know about the crash yet,” I said. “I know that if I had to I could go stay with them if needed, but that might not be the best idea.” “Well if you decide to, you can, but at least stay here for tonight, I know you will have to go back to Portland for the funeral I would presume sometime soon,” said Grace. “Very true, I would imagine that it would be held in the next couple weeks at the latest,” I said. “Thank you so much Grace, everything you have offered to do means more than you could possibly know.” “Anytime sweetheart, this is university, you need to make the most of it, everything will all work out in the end, and I will do anything I can to help you out,” said Grace.

[darkcavewriting]

Backstory part 1

Portland, the Rose City, Stumptown, my hometown, even after leaving for university, and the job following in the Sierras and then my eventual return. Portland would always be home, even without any family here. The closest family I had was my grandparents, living up on the Olympic Peninsula, and some other assorted relatives scattered across Washington as well.

Here is my story, as best that I know.

The 12th of March, 1984, a Monday, was the day I came out of the womb, at Providence Hospital, huddled up to I-84 in Northeast Portland. I was a bit early, around a month, and only tipped the scales at three pounds one ounce. After a few weeks, two and a half to be exact, I finally came home to my new home in Southeast Portland, near Reed College, and Woodstock Elementary School. It was the only home I would know until University time came.

My early years were nothing overly special or exciting, my mother stayed home with me till I was old enough to start school. My father taught at Portland State University. His schedule was perpetually in flux between classes, faculty meetings, office hours and research, to say he wasn't around a ton between September and June was an understatement. However during the summers it was typically the three of us in the Volkswagen Vanagon on the road for two solid months. The travel was wonderful, it was one constant, even when I started school. The summers were always filled with travel. My father worked in Urban Planning and Architecture so a good deal of the trips involved him taking lots of pictures of various city designs, freeway layouts and multi use buildings, as well as urban renewal and gentrification projects wherever we were headed.

Small towns where the mining industry had ceased operations on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, to post riot Detroit, and even the sprawl of Silicon Valley, those were all places we went. Detroit more often than not was a destination, or at least a stopover as my father was intrigued by the city, as well as a lot of other places in the “rust belt”. How it was the only major metro area in the United States to largely, vanish. I grew to think of Detroit in a way as almost a second home as a child as we went nearly every summer via the Motor City to wherever we were heading.

Starting school was rough. I was a relatively quiet child in my early years I was not one to particularly go out of my way to make friends and the like. This was possibly because before I started school I hadn’t been around that many other kids my own age. I did what was expected and nothing more. I was happy, or should I say, I felt I was happy. I don't really know if I was or not. I started playing soccer at a very early age. My father played on a pub team, or at least that is what I guess you would call it. It was primarily made up of other faculty and staff at Portland State. In his youth he played professionally in Wales, his homeland, for Corwen FC, before attending university at Cambridge, and then before coming across the pond to the United States to teach.

He was quite skilled. Easily one of the better players on the squad, and potentially could have been able to crack the roster of a semi-professional side somewhere in the United States, at least when he was younger. However he was comfortable teaching, and the closest semi pro team was a hour away, in Salem, Oregon, and that was hardly practical. More than anything though, he loved the game, loved his teammates and the chance to play for a relatively competitive team in Portland.

Obviously, I developed my love of the game from him. We practiced together, either at Woodstock Park, across the street from our house, or on occasion in our somewhat cramped back yard for what seemed like hours on the nights and weekends when he wasn't tied up with grading papers or prepping lectures. Each of us clearly were working on entirely different things, after all I was only six. and with him being a couple years over 40, however still quite active and in shape, occasionally running a half marathon. He made sure that I learned how to use my quickness on and off the ball from day one, he assured me that if my footwork was top notch than the scoring would follow. Even though I was not the most social kid in school being on a soccer team was a different story entirely. I worked hard even at 6 to play my best to help whatever team I was on. My father would have been a great coach except the fact he didn't have the time. Well that and most of the team probably wouldn't have been able to understand a word through his Welsh accent.

The accent, well I was used to it, and my mother didn’t have one, she wasn’t from Wales. My father had met her during a summer teaching stint at Western Washington University in Bellingham and ended up relocating with him to Portland when he got hired on at Portland State University. They ended up getting married a couple years after that. Generally speaking their marriage was a happy one. The fighting, bickering and arguing had always been minimal at best. The gave each other adequate space to do their own things, for my dad to research as needed, travel, and keep odd hours when he was working on articles to publish.

My dad would occasionally take the semester off from teaching to work on an article or section of a book. He would sometimes hole himself up in his home office for days on end, only coming out for sleep, the bathroom, or to bring in food while he was working. Sometimes he even slept on the couch in the office instead of going to bed in my parent’s bedroom. He claimed that by doing that and therefore not drawing out the time it took to write each revision of the piece it would allow him more time overall with us at the end. One spring break he holed himself in the office to write a couple of articles that he had already done the research for. Instead of drawing out the process over the 10 days, he spent the first three days of spring break working 18 hours a day writing and editing. Once finished he insisted we take a spring break trip, one of the first that we had been able to take in ages, out to the Southern Oregon Coast for some camping and fishing near the Rogue River.

My mother was different from my father. She was very quiet and reserved, much like me. She had a degree from Western Washington University in English, but she worked as an interior design consultant for offices and workspaces with an office furniture dealer in Portland. Glamorous it was not but she was able to be creative, which was something her parents did not encourage much when she was growing up. Also she was able to make good money on commission when her designs were chosen and furniture was purchased. My parents didn’t go out a ton. What with my fathers odd schedule, often teaching evening courses and their overall relatively simple lifestyle, I wasn’t left home all too often with a babysitter or anything along those lines growing up. On the rare occasion they wanted time to themselves their go to was one of our neighbors daughters, Kellie, who was in her mid teens when I was in my early years. I tried to make things easy for her, that was something that looking back on my life was very apparent. I was always trying to be accommodating to others not rarely putting myself first. Generally I was a very calm child and I knew her due to both of our parents being friends, we both had a sort of mutual level respect or something along those lines and we would do what he needed to make the arrangement work. I knew she wasn’t the biggest fan of having to look after me but she didn’t complain much either.

I will say that I remember whenever she would cook dinner for the both of us, which was not terribly frequent, that is was always very good. She never had a bunch of friends come over while she was watching me. Never had a boyfriend over or anything like that at all. She knew that if my parents found out it would have not been good. She was also planning on going into Elementary Education after graduating high school and she used the time with me to read to me and help me with whatever school stuff I had, especially as I grew older. In some aspects she was like a sister to me, as I was an only child. It was nice that she only lived a couple houses away. She was the only person who was older than me, but not an adult that I was around on any sort of regular basis that wasn’t either in a classroom setting or on a team I was on.

As I went through elementary school I slowly became more social and occasionally would have friends over to the house. I never really had what I would consider a best friend during that time. I managed to do well enough in elementary school, not that grades then particularly meant much. I was nervous going into middle school though, different classes, different teachers, as well as a hell of a lot more students that I didn’t know, there was a lot to be nervous about in my mind.

I struggled a lot in the beginning before finally getting into a rhythm in the late fall which was a good thing as my father was starting to worry about me and my performance. Math wasn’t my strong suit but I was excelling in nearly everything else, netting a GPA in the 3.7 range which made me feel quite pleased, as were my parents. Middle School offered more distractions, more sports as well as a lot more girls.

I was never the type to think that girls were icky or the whole girls have cooties nonsense when I was younger. I never bought into that line of thinking, but at the same time the thought of dating someone at that age also seemed incredibly silly and largely pointless. It wasn’t that something at the age of 13 was going to last forever, and I sure as hell wasn’t ready for or even thinking about having sex at such a young age. I wasn’t much for talking about stuff like that with my parents or anyone really. I kept all or at least most of my feelings to myself. I was hoping once I started high school at Columbia I would be able in some manner to break out of my shell a little bit more than I had already.

I felt that I should but I wasn’t overly sure why. I was afraid of putting myself out there, getting hurt, the pain of rejection especially when it came to both friends but girls as well. I was not all that confident of my skills in anything, academics, athletics, social or otherwise. I believed that I was a complete disaster in all ways, even though I had nothing to base those feelings on. My grades were rather good, athletically I was pretty average, not the best player on the soccer or basketball teams I was on, but far from the worst as well. Socially was the only spot where I struggled some, however as I got older things improved slowly.

It wasn’t that I came from a non loving family. True, my father was a bit distant at times but there was no doubt in my mind at all that my parents really did love and care about and for me. The whole being terrified thing was completely self imposed which was a bit of a cause for concern. I didn’t feel I had any reason to feel as down or depressed as I was, yet here I was. Everything in my life was pretty damn good.

In an essence I started high school at Columbia early thanks to soccer practice starting several weeks prior to classes. It gave me a good chance to familiarize myself, at least a little, with the mammoth brick school in Southeast Portland. I knew a decent amount of the other guys on the team, having either played with them at some point, or against them. Through tryouts I got bumped from the Freshman team to the Junior Varsity team which was a surprise to me. The three weeks prior to classes starting went by far quicker than I thought they would. My first day of high school was upon me and the nervousness and butterflies were back with a vengeance. I really didn’t have anything to worry about. I knew this. It wasn’t like it was the first day at a brand new school where I didn’t know anyone at all. Still I was nervous as can be as I got a ride from my mother in their Volkswagen Vanagon on the first day. At least it wasn’t my first time in the school that morning. Although it was my first time actually entering through the front doors instead of from where the locker rooms were located. I knew at least roughly where my locker and first class were supposed to be, so off in that direction I headed. I was hoping for the best but was not at all expecting it.

My first day was relatively unexciting, hell the only real exciting part about the entire first week of school was the opening soccer game. It was a non-league match against Silverton, a Thursday night match at home. Junior Varsity at 4:00 p.m. followed by the Varsity match at 7:00 p.m. We played well, Silverton was a smaller school located south of Portland near Salem. They had a good team that controlled the flow of a good deal of the game but could not find the back of the net. We took control of the match in the second half and managed to coast to a 3-1 victory. I played the bulk of the game, getting subbed out in the 73rd minute after assisting on our second goal. The Varsity side had fewer issues, attacking from the opening whistle and found themselves leading 3-0 at half time. Making substitutions at the half Silverton managed to gain a bit more control over the match but ended up losing to Columbia 5-0.

The stands were rather vacant for both the JV and Varsity matches, perhaps 30 non family members in the stands. I didn’t know what to expect given it being my first high school game and all. Besides my mother I didn’t recognize anyone else in the stands. Then again it wasn’t like I was expecting to either. My dad was teaching one of his usual early evening classes so he wasn’t able to come and the only real people I knew that I could consider friends were on the team with me. Perhaps for the league matches more people would show up, I truly had no idea. Overall it was a good first match for me especially given I was a year or two younger than the bulk of the other players on both teams. It also did not hurt that Silverton really was not that great. I knew every match was not going to be that easy. In our league Cleveland, Benson, and Central Catholic were always powerhouses. After the post game cool down and meeting with the coaches I finally made it home by about 10 p.m. and promptly took a shower and went to bed, I was exhausted. The energy from the match was so much different from that in any practice, it could only be described as draining.

By the time I woke up the next morning it was a struggle to get out of bed at least more so than usual. Another shower was in order for sure to try and wake up. I needed all the help I could get this morning. Breakfast by itself wasn’t going to be enough alone to motivate me to get out the door. The shower helped, I was still sore though. I had a feeling that would linger for a while. I was happy I was able to get a ride to school from my dad today instead of walking, especially with the amount of rain coming down outside. A typical early September in Portland.

There was no praise to speak of at school for the soccer team. Nobody truly seemed to give a damn about them. Then again the attention paid to our football team wasn’t the best either, which was surprising to me, especially considering how they qualified for the state playoffs nearly every year. The week drug on, this was one of the only weeks of the season where we only had a single match. As the term went on and on the matches ended up being the only real bright spots. The classes and such were rather dull to me. When it cames to friends, besides the few I had on the team, I really didn’t have any or many others to speak of. Even people I had known since elementary school weren’t people I spent any real time around. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world but it was a bit annoying to me. I wish I had more friends, people to spend time with outside of school. I wondered how much I would see any of them outside of school after soccer season has ended. By the end of the season the varsity team had a respectable record of 7-4-1, but still failed to qualify for the state tournament. Interest from students was minimal, even with the relatively impressive record. Impressive at least compared to the years of losing records we had achieved in the last decade or so. At our final home game of the season we saw the best crowd, a couple hundred people, which was nice, but compared to our football team, and even the first basketball game of the season, it wasn’t much. Between the impressive record, posting five shutouts, and the marked improvement over the last several seasons when the team only won two or three games a season I was just expecting more I guess. I managed to play a couple games on the varsity side late in the season, coming on as a substitute. In those two games I managed to pick up one assist.

[darkcavewriting]

Damaged AF

What a mess I am

It is no secret at all that I am a horribly damaged person. This isn’t something I have been good at hiding or even something I have all that much tried to hide to be honest. Perhaps I have hidden or tried to hide the extent of the damage. Either to people around me or even to myself. I am truly not quite sure. Maybe I was trying to tell myself it wasn’t as bad as it really was. Of course it was that bad, it was most of the time even worse.

Ever since my therapy appointment the about a month ago I have been trying to come up with the words to write about it. It hasn’t been easy. The pain of going back and thinking about that relationship, as many years ago as it was. Even though it only lasted for about 2 years of my life, it has had a profound negative impact on me and who I am. I am a shell of the person I was before I met her, and I am truthfully terrified I will never be close to the person I was before I met her ever again.

Having my therapist tell me that I was lucky to get out of the relationship alive hit me, a whole lot harder than I expected. I hadn’t expected her to say that honestly. Once I had found out about my ex’s diagnosis, I knew that being with someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Personality Disorder, depression, and the like wasn’t going to be easy on me, but I don’t think I ever fully grasped just how bad it was, or how much worse it could have been still, both for me and for her as well. I didn’t find out about the diagnoses until we had been talking for a while and possibly not till I had already gone to London to visit, I truly don’t remember. All I can say it was after I was already heavily mentally and emotionally invested in everything with her.

I second guess everything anymore. I have anxiety about a lot of things now, before her I would only be anxious sometimes, and usually only if I was in a large crowd in an unfamiliar location. Big crowds in familiar places like airports, stadiums, and the like were never an issue for me. Now I get anxious talking to people, anxious when I feel like people are taking a long time to respond to messages, or it seems like their tone changes. I am horribly anxious that friends, people I have known for years, will just vanish, and stop talking with me. Those fears may have been slightly present before, but they are dramatically worse now, and I utterly hate it. I rarely ever feel calm anymore or at peace, and that sucks. I expect things almost to go from one crisis to another, that is what it seemed like life was like for those two years.

I think a lot of that has to do with perpetually being left on read by her, or getting the silent treatment for hours, or days, when she would take something I said out of context or not listen to my explanation of it and then refuse to speak to me for however long. Also when there was nights she would go out with her friends/roommates and I would hear nothing of her, and would have to check various social media to make sure she was still alive. There was a constant state of worry, especially when there was one night that she did end up in A+E at hospital and I don’t think I ever got a real explanation of why she went there. If I did, I don’t remember, it was either someone spiked her drink, or it was the time she tried to take a ton of pills and kill herself, I don’t really remember. I hate to admit it but so much of that just blurs together. I know there was one night she did get her drink spiked, came home and we talked on Skype and then she had no recollection of it the next day, the whole situation was just a mess.

The fact she threatened to kill herself if I ever left or ended things wasn’t a great thing to be confronted with either. I was walking on eggshells with her all the time. I was never at ease. Whenever I was there in the UK, at Heathrow, and flying back home to the states, she said if I went through security and got on the plane we were done. She knew good and well I couldn’t just leave my job in the states, or my parents, grandparents, etc. It wasn’t like I had any sort of Visa that would allow me to stay and work in the UK and I sure as hell didn’t have enough money to last there more than a few months, nor could she afford to take care of both of us on her part time salary. By the time I got home to the states I would usually have to apologize a ton for leaving and then within a couple days I would hear from her and things would go back to normal, whatever normal was.

On a couple occasions I ended up with a headache from tension/stress/anxiety or whatnot that lasted for weeks on end without going away. I think at the peak I had one that lasted over two months. It wasn’t bad but it was annoying as hell. It never just stopped being there reminding me it was there, and I knew good and well the relationship was the cause of it. I don’t know why I stayed as long as I did. Partially I feel was because I was scared she would go through with killing herself. I didn’t want that hanging on my conscious, even though it wouldn’t have really been my fault, I never would have gotten over it I am sure. Even after she cheated on me, at least once, likely several times, I still couldn’t bring myself to end things, I kept hoping things would get better, and occasionally they did for a little while, and then they went right back to how they were before. It wasn’t great.

It finally ended, she ended it, she met someone else, someone local, and, well that was it. I blocked and deleted her on everything before after a couple weeks when it was obvious she was gone and wanted nothing to do with me anymore and I haven’t heard a word from her in years now. Truthfully no idea if she is still alive.

I should have been responsible and gone into therapy after getting out of the relationship. I didn’t though. Partially because my health insurance at the time wasn’t the best, and I would have had to pay for the first $2,200 or so in fees out of pocket, and also because I really didn’t want to admit to myself exactly how damaged I was after the relationship. Being out of the relationship, I seemed better, I felt better, but as time has gone on, I have shown to myself that I am indeed not better at all. Therapy would have probably done me some good, a lot of good, more good than jumping back into dating about 5 months after things ended. That was not my smartest work, that is for sure. And from that, it is how we got to where I am now still a mess.

There is also the fact that before that relationship there was well ever since I started dating when I was what, 20 I think, nothing but a string of generally bad relationships, one after another, some lasting for a few weeks, some for a few months or a year or so. Only one decent relationship that lasted three or so years and I was stupid enough to end it. I didn’t have any real reason to but I did and in some ways I kind of regret it. She has since gotten remarried (she was married before she met me) she was also 14 years older than me, which, well, yeah, I don’t know it just kind of worked for us. But no, I have had countless crap relationships and an equally high amount of crap sex if I am being honest, and well, lets be honest, it all sucks.

I know also it didn’t help that a couple years after the UK relationship ended my dad died. None of us had any idea how unwell he was, he didn’t know how unwell he was. There was no indication he would be gone so soon. After losing him, I went downhill even more than already was, and the spiral has just kept going since then. I am numb, and unsure of everything, and have just been along for the ride ever since. He was doing poorly for about 4 or 5 months or so. It was some sort of blood infection and that and a handful of other things were listed on the cause of death on the death certificate.

In about a 5 year time period since I moved back home from Reno I lost both grandfathers, my dad, and a co-worker who was like a dad to me in some ways. It hasn’t helped, at all. All of that loss in such a short time period and yeah, there is nothing easy about that whatsoever. Now all that is left is my mom, grandmother, and my aunt, and me. Being an only child and an only grandchild isn’t my idea of a good time. Anymore everything falls to me, and fuck is it exhausting, mentally and physically, and there is no way it is going to get any easier any time soon.

I daydream on the way to work of making a wrong turn, instead of making the turn to get onto the ramp for the bridge to go to work, instead going further north and making the turn onto I-84 East instead and just going, with no real plan, away from here, with whatever is on my person. I am an empty shell of the person I once was. I have so many things I want to do with my life but I feel there is no way I can do them, there is no encouragement, the is no anything here at home pushing me to do the things I want to do. All I want to do is sleep and do mindless things to distract myself from how horribly unhappy I am.

There are a few bright spots at least. I am relieved I am in therapy, and with someone who gets it, between the damage from the past relationship, all the grief and loss, the damage from childhood, the damage from well, everything really. I need to do a lot to heal, need to do a lot to be the version of me that I want to be, the best version of me. There are also a couple really great people I have in my corner who have been a massive help through things, who have been encouraging of me getting better. The worst part is, I am terrified of losing them too thanks to all the trauma, even though I know I wont leave me, my mind thinks I will and that is something I am going to need to somehow unlearn and it isn’t going to be an easy process,

I have a long way to go to get better. I have to somehow start putting myself, my own well being, mental, emotional, physical, first for the first time in probably a decade, and that is going to be a serious challenge. It has to happen, and change though, otherwise I know the stress will send me somewhere I don’t want to be way too soon. Things have to change, and I have to be in charge of those changes, otherwise I am just going to be as miserable going forward as I have been for as long as I can remember.

I mean, I don’t really feel that any aspect of my life has been all that easy, but maybe that is normal, I don’t know. All I do know is that I want to be happier, I want to be better, I just want just be, well, the me that I know or feel that I can be. I don’t know. I lack motivation, I lack the will to work on my many countless projects like I mentioned to you. I know they are there, I know they need to be worked on, and I think about them all the time, yet I don’t actually do anything writing on them, and well, there is the issue.

Thank you for reading this, I know none of it is exactly happy, and it doesn’t paint me in the best of light, but it is who I am, or most of who I am, and well, yeah, I don’t know where I am going from here, but it needs to be somewhere better.

[darkcavewriting]

Day 2

Day 2

I woke up early, at about 7 a.m. I threw the crappy bag of coffee in the tiny machine in the room, and hoped there was enough for all of us to have a couple cups. This was before I heard my my mom say that there was a continental breakfast down by the office with coffee tea and all that. My parents of course wanted me to go grab stuff for all of us and then eat in the room while they were packing stuff up to go, I didn't want to but since this was my last day of really having to put up with them I figured I might as well do it to make them happy. I came back to the room with two trays with waffles pancakes cereal muffins and coffee and juice, hoping that it would suffice for them. I was not terribly hungry and managed to have a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee as I threw my stuff in my track bag and I was ready to go.

The dorms opened for move in at 9 a.m. and I wanted to be there early so it would give me more time to get organized and then my parents could be on their way to Grand Coulee where they were planning on spending a few days on vacation before returning to Portland.

We finally had their car packed back up and were on the road back down U.S. 395 to Cheney and were looking to arrive around 9:30, which was not too bad I thought. Still early enough to get all settled in and then get textbooks and wander around campus and get myself oriented.

The drive down to Cheney was very quick, traffic was slightly heavy, as there were a good deal of other people making the trek to move in as well, which was to be expected. We arrived a little after I expected and pulled up at the entrance to Dressler, and I went to the table to check in and get my key. I met my RA, Matt, who was from Spokane and we went in to check over my room and make sure that there were no issues.

“There is one thing you should know,” Matt said. “Your roommate, who was on the football team decided to not attend this year, so as of right now, you will have nobody sharing your room.”

“Well that is interesting,” I said. “Will thee be somebody to replace him?”

“That is hard to say, we have quite a few empty rooms so unless there are a ton of people who sign up for dorm rooms it looks like you will have it to yourself till at least spring semester,” he said.

“That is a welcome surprise,” I said. “There won't be an extra fee I hope?”

“Nope, not your fault he canceled,” he said.

“Cool, well guess I better start getting stuff moved,” I told him as we headed back out to star unloading my car.

I told my parents the good news, and they didn't seem to show any emotion one way or the other, which was to be expected from them. The move in went a lot faster than I anticipated, partially because I just took everything and loaded it into the room on one side and figured I would unpack it at my leisure, knowing my parents wanted to be out of Cheney as soon as possible after lunch so they could make the drive Northwest to Grand Coulee. I got everything out of my car, and my parents Vanagon and into somewhat of an organized pile on the floor, and called it good. It was strange seeing damn near everything I owned in a pile, but I was happy to finally be here in Cheney to give myself a chance to actually be myself.

I drove the car around the building to my parking spot and walked back to where my parents were parked, got in and we headed down the street to get some lunch before they took off. We had a quick meal at a 24 hour diner down the street from the stadium, said our goodbyes and I told them I would walk on back to my dorm, it was only a few blocks, and it would give me a chance to see the place in more detail than when I took the tour of campus two years prior. Everything around campus was a bit smaller than I remembered, but I was happy to be there, big cheesy smile on my face and all, I was actually happy, and that was a damn good feeling to actually have. The unpacking process went well, not having a ton of stuff made it a lot easier. The first thing to unpack were a good dozen boxes of books, novels and reference alike into the small bookcase next to the desk, then the computer and clothing, and after that, everything was looking pretty good, except the mountain of empty boxes which I soon took out to the dumpster at the back of the building.

I checked my phone to see the time, barely after 2:00 p.m. so not too late, I thought I would head out for a run and then see about calling Grace to see what she and her sister had in mind for dinner, as I was searching for my running shoes, which somehow managed to find their way into my hockey bag, my phone started vibrating on my desk, I glanced at the screen and saw that it was Grace, so I picked up.

“Hey there, how did the move go?” I asked. “It went great and yours?” she said. “Really easy, then again I hardly have anything so it was not hard,” I said. “We want to come see your room, what number are you?” She asked. “619, the door is open,” I said. “Be there in a second,” she said, and with that the line went dead.

My heart started pounding a little harder, I really don't even know why I am nervous I told myself, especially after last night. Probably a natural reaction I told myself. I tried to push my butterflies down as I knew that there was nothing that I should be worried about in the least, but still, I felt a bit intimidated by two very attractive females. I mean hell, I felt a bit intimidated by Eva, my girlfriend in high school, and we were together for two years.

A couple minutes later there was a knock on my door frame and as I looked up they both walked in. They both looked great, which was not hard for them. Now that they were both standing as opposed to sitting in a hot tub I was able to tell that Grace was a bit shorter than Elizabeth, who was close to my height at a little under six foot. They were both dressed very casual, jeans, flip flops, and Eastern shirts, both looking stunning, in my opinion. Grace had a cute pair of glasses on, which looked great, of course my opinion was biased but I couldn't help but smile when I saw them.

They came in and sat on the edge of my bed, and looked around my room. They noticed the hockey sticks.

“You play hockey?” “Yeah I played in high school, my team won the state title last year,” I said. They knew that I was in good shape obviously, as they saw me in the pool last night, but not looking like a terribly physical guy I don't think they expected me to play “rougher” sports. I was able to use my speed and endurance to my advantage.

“We both ran cross country in high school, we only had five girls so it was tough but we had fun, kept us in shape.”

“Thats obvious, you both look great,” I said. “I ran track in the spring, soccer in the fall.”

I could tell that Grace was blushing a little so I made an effort to change the subject. “How is your room looking?” “Good, we pretty much did the same thing we did last year, actually live two doors down from where we did last year.” “Well that is good I guess,” I said. “This is my first time out on my own, but you probably already figured that out.” “Well it was a little obvious, where is your roommate by the way?” asked Grace. “Apparently I don't actually have one, he left the university and if I do have one it wont be till spring semester,” I said. “Well you know what that means then, you can put both of your beds together and be a lot more comfortable.” “Why the hell didn't I think of that?” “Because you haven't lived in a dorm before silly, lets go to the store to get you some bigger sheets to fit the two mattresses at the same time.” And with that we were off to the store in my car. The whole situation was so foreign to me, but I took it all in stride. You only live once I kept telling myself and you might as well make the most of the situation. We grabbed some sheets, a cool looking floor lamp and a couple prints to throw up on the wall. I was sure not expecting to get help decorating, but I was happy to take advantage. We headed back to my room, shoved the beds together put the sheets on, and get everything organized so it looked halfway decent. By the time we were done it was time to consider dinner. “Wanna go to Waterman's?” “Waterman's? What the hell is that?” “A dive of a bar and grill across street on the other side of campus, for dinner.” “Sure why not, better than whatever I could fix in my room, or get at the dining commons I presume,” I said. We headed out across campus towards the place. They told me that went either by Waterman's or the Eagles Nest, it was a popular place for students, and had amazing food for cheap prices, sounded like a winner to me. When we got there and walked in, it was packed, it was move in day after all so that was not much of a shock. Grace reached out and grabbed my hand and drug me into the crowd. Elizabeth was leading the way to the corner, past a grouping of pool tables and a couple dart boards and through an entry way to what appeared to be a small separate dining room. She grabbed a couple menus and grabbed us one of the two remaining tables and we sat down. “The bar area is always packed, damn near every night, but you can usually get a seat back here in the back room if you just want food.” “That is good to know, also good to know they have some decent pool tables.” “You can always get a game, some really bad players too, also easy to get a beer here too, legal or not.” “Oh really?” “Yeah, they rarely check ID, and if someone else gets a pitcher and you get a glass they never check ID's back at the table, if you are into that sort of thing.” “Good to know, for the future.” “Then again you can always ask us for anything, we know some people who can get us whatever we need, beer or hard stuff.” “Also good to know.” We all got massive burgers, and enjoyed our food, chatting throughout. We settles up the bill, which was under twenty bucks for the three of us, and then headed back to the dorm. “Any chance I could see your room?” “Sure, why not, we can hit ours on the way to yours.” This comment caught me off guard, on the way to mine? I didn't realize they were planning on heading to my room too, but whatever, I wasn't going to question them. We got back into the dorm and headed up the stairs to their room on the fifth floor. Grace opened the door and as I walked in I was shocked. It was obvious they knew how to fix up a dorm room really nice they also had a whole year last year to practice. It looked more like a real apartment than a dorm room, and the view out the window with the sunset over the hills was beautiful. I took the chance to sit on the edge of one of their beds, apparently Elizabeth's and thanked them for taking the time to go out shopping and to dinner with me.

“We could tell when we saw you at the pool that you were lonely, it wasn't really obvious but we could tell by how you swam and really didn't pay any attention to us like most guys would have that there was something up,” said Grace. “You are not a bad looking guy, pretty damn cute actually, and looked like you were going to be in need of a friend once we knew you were going to Eastern, you really are a nice guy.”

I really didn't know what to say to this in the least, I was used to not hearing much of that from my parents for years and explained that to them. I also mentioned how I had only had one girlfriend, and how we split up because she went off to school at Minnesota. “Don't worry,” said Grace. “We will do whatever we can to make sure you are in a better place here at Eastern, no more negativity, be yourself and be happy.”

“Thank you,” was all I could say.

I reached out to give her a hug and they both came over and held me tight. I really had no idea on how to react to any of this, it was just so much different from anything I was used to. From having fairly cold parents who rarely showed emotion to having to attractive females holding me and saying I was going to be much happier in Cheney, I really did not know what to expect but I got the feeling that all of this was going to make for a significantly more exciting life than what I was used to back in Portland. “I should probably get back to my room, call it a night,: I said to the both of them. “But, it's not even 10:00 p.m. and you want to go to bed already, you're kidding right?”

“No, not really, but I guess I could stay up a while longer if I have to.” Now I have to admit, this was a first, never before had I had been in a situation like this, a day of firsts it seemed for me, not that I minded of course, anything was better than the monotony of life at home where it was always the same situation day in and day out. Change was going to be good for me I kept telling myself, I just was going to have to get used to it.

Elizabeth got a movie and threw it into the DVD player and we all got comfortable on one beds facing the television. Nothing like a cheesy college comedy while in a dorm room I thought. I was tired, and I could feel my eyes growing heavy, I really did not want to fall asleep but I had a feeling that it was going to be unavoidable. Grace, who was sitting to the left of me noticed that I was beginning to nod off and poked me in the side and whispered “don't you even think of falling asleep.”

“Believe me I don't want to, I promise.” She then reached over and pulled me close to her, away from Elizabeth who was a good couple feet away on my left and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. This caught me even more off guard I rested my head on Grace's shoulder and made a general attempt to keep paying attention to the movie, but my mind was obviously wandering. Grace and I continued to hold each other through the rest of the movie, as Elizabeth appeared to fall asleep at the other end of the bed. It was late now and I knew that I really should probably make a general effort to get some sleep, I did have new student orientation in the morning, which I was not at all excited about. I told this to Grace and she looked even less thrilled than I felt and said that she was sorry that I had to go.

“You know we will be a floor below you all year long, don't worry about having to bail on one night,” she said. “You are always welcome down here, just give me a call if you want to hang out.” As she said that she gave me another kiss on the cheek as I walked out of the room and back up to mine to get some much needed sleep.