The Place I Call Home

As I laid on the bed in the room that I’ve come to know as my own for the past 18 years I began to question things. With the big day coming up I started to contemplate if I had any unfinished business left here in my hometown. I was going to be heading to college in just 3 days and I felt like I had a ton of stuff left unfinished, but couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was that had me feeling this way. While I was struggling to find answers, I started trying to take my mind off the idea entirely.

              Since I was about to start the next chapter of my life, I only found it fitting to look back on the previous one. Now I’m sure there were many ways to go about this, but the only way I knew how was to scroll through that fossil known as Facebook. The moment I got on I was bombarded with a flood of congratulations notifications that would take me an eternity to sort through so I decided to hold off on that for a bit. The first stop for me was looking back through my albums.

              I had scrolled all the way to the very bottom and came across one album that didn’t ring familiar to me. It was called the dark days. My immediate reaction to the title could only be described as just complete indifference. It didn’t really seem like much to me even with the name. I had just assumed it was just like my former 14 year old self to post a name like that. Though I didn’t understand just how accurate the name truly was.

              The first picture I came across was me and my former girlfriend, Amber. Now we all know that high school relationships were never meant to last, but I didn’t think that they were meant to end so badly. The details of the whole thing were a bit fuzzy, but the more I looked at the picture the more it came back to me. Seeing the baggy hand-me-down jeans left by my older brother really started making me feel like I was being thrust back into my old body. All of a sudden, the memory of the day that picture was taken had hit me all at once. I remembered holding Ambers hand and walking side by side with her to the Cafeteria to await the three rings of death, as we liked to call it back then, that signaled the beginning of our drudge through the school day.

              As we made it in a few of our friends had greeted us and to them we had seemed as if we were just as normal and happy go lucky as ever, and quite honestly I had thought that as well. To me it had been everything I’d figured a relationship was supposed to be. I got with the girl I had really wanted since I was young, she was fun, and even liked what I liked. I had truly had a great time with it up to that point, but I couldn’t help but feel something was a little off. Though before I could really get into it I had my train of thought interrupted by our friend James.

              “I can see you both tying the knot I can just feel it.” James declared. His claim had intrigued me, but rather than ask why I decided to stroke my own ego. “Did you need to state something so obvious. Of course we’ve got such a good relationship I’m in it.” I said proudly. Though the statement got praise from our friends the increasingly heavy squeezing from Amber made her feelings on the matter rather clear.

              The bell was about to ring and it was rather clear that Amber was urging to leave, but one our friends were far too involved in us to simply let us go. “We need to commemorate this day.” I had raised an eyebrow to this claim. “For what exactly?” “You both are so great together that it would be a crime not to get a picture of ya.” I was used to getting praise about our relationship by our friends, but not to this degree at all. I wasted no time at all pulling out my phone and handing it straight to them. “Say cheese.” The smile that stretched across my face was one of the truest smiles I’d had in awhile, but from the small glance I had gotten

              As the bell rang we walked out the same way we came in, but as soon as we left sight of our friends Amber’s had practically disappeared. She actually began to distance herself from me rather quickly. I tried to follow after her, but the crowd of students that poured in immediately after made her impossible to find. I decided that I’d have a better chance in-between classes after all I knew her schedule pretty well at the time.

              As the bell to my first class rang I searched all around and couldn’t find her anywhere, but my first guess was that I had just missed her and that it would all be fine. I just decided that I would find her next class. I told myself that, however, I couldn’t help, but scratch my head at the fact that I’d never missed her before, so what was different this time.

              Once the next bell had rang I left my class immediately this time no hesitation whatsoever, but still couldn’t find Amber. At that point I began to get a bit concerned. Now I knew that it wasn’t that important, but I decided to skip my next class to find her. As I looked around the gym, cafeteria, garden, etc. I couldn’t find her anywhere. The only place I hadn’t checked was a place we had jokingly discussed heading to for a while, the roof.

I rushed up the stairs and found her sitting next to the entrance a little confused and concerned. “What’s going on? Have you been up here the whole time? I was looking everywhere for you.” The look in her eyes had become a little bit hopeful. “You were worried about me?” She asked. “Of course I was. If I didn’t find you by the end of the day everyone was gonna think we had some kinda fight.” Amber’s hopeful eyes quickly turned to frustration. She attempted to storm off again, but this time I grabbed her hand intending to stop her so we could talk instead of having her disappear on me again. What I didn’t expect, however, was to be met with a could hand quickly slapping me across the face.

I was stunned for a moment, and before I could say anything Amber had left me alone on the roof. Though I should have attempted to go after her I was still feeling utterly stunned by the way the whole thing went down. It was pretty safe to assume that I was effectively single at that point. All I had left to do was start reflecting on my actions at that point, but no matter what I couldn’t really figure out exactly what had gone wrong, but the more I think about it it should’ve been obvious even at that point.

As I snapped back to the present I had figured out exactly what I needed to do. It only felt right to make up with Amber. Believe it or not after that day me and Amber didn’t speak again. I don’t know if it was due to a grudge she still had on me at that time or if I was just too scared to find out if she had one.  I knew that I was going to be getting a clean slate, but it didn’t feel right to me to do that without settling all that I could there first. At that moment I immediately messaged Amber telling her congrats on the graduation. She took a couple hours to respond, but we did end up having a decent conversation.

After we had talked for about an hour on messenger I decided to ask if she’d be willing to meet up in a couple days before I left, but she had mentioned that her last day would be in just 1. So with that in mind I decided to meet her that day and I was going to formally apologize…. that was the plan at least. Now I fully expected her to reject the request to meet up, but surprisingly she was pretty willing to meet with me after all this time.

              With everything going as well as it did I started to have a bit of optimism that this apology could become a second chance for the relationship we left behind back then. Maybe after being forgiven we could have a nice and long talk about our future, but in actuality that was just me being far too optimistic for my own good, and I figured this out rather soon. Once I knocked on her door a rather tall guy was at the door. I was pretty confused why he would answer, but I had just assumed it was a brother of hers or something. He gave me a look of confusion of his own. “You look lost do you need help or something?” He said. “No, I’m actually looking for Amber.” “Ohhhh, she told me you were coming. Hey honey he’s here.” He said. My mind was going a mile per minute at this point who was this guy.

Before I could even dare to ask Amber had came to the door, and she reached out to hug me. I didn’t dare not accept it, but before I could even go all the way in for a hug I had noticed a ring on her finger. I can tell she noticed because she started explaining before I even asked. “Oh yes, I forgot to tell you yesterday this is my fiancé, Bryce.” She said. Bryce reached out his hand as an offer of respect. “Nice to meet you.” Though I had a twinge of hesitation I reached out my hand and gave a firm grip. Though I truly didn’t want to know I couldn’t help but ask. “How did you two meet?” I asked. They both let out a short chuckle. “We’re actually high school sweethearts.”

At that moment I had felt like I had had my face broken into small pieces, but I should’ve known that it would lead to this. To break the tension Amber decided to ask a question. “So, what brings you out here anyway?” Due to the sudden shock I had almost forgotten what I came out to say, but at that point was it even worth saying. I had saw their happy and smiling faces and just looked back at the joy that I had felt when It was me on the other side of this situation. I had truly known what my friends had really felt like when seeing us together.

At that moment I decided that my words meant very little at this time, so I felt it best to remove myself from the situation as quickly as possible. “Oh, my fault. I just wanted to wish you congratulations in person.” I said with a fake smile. Amber was skeptical of my response you could see it straight on her face, but she played along despite that. “Well I can’t thank you enough for going out of your way to do that. You shouldn’t have.” I gave her one final hug and made my exit strategy. “Well I’ve still got a ton of packing to do for school, so hopefully I’ll see you both around.”

As I began the slow trod back to the place I’d come to know as home I had begun to feel that maybe some things are better left in the past.