Bab 2: Apartment 21. Aiden Jenkins. Goodbye.

The ticking in my head continues. Before long, I will have to ready myself to leave behind the life I've had for the past few years in this cramped and ancient one-bedroom apartment. I watch the front door in the hopes that it will open to reveal my sister on the other side, timid in her steps but walking towards me for our last goodbye.

Karlie and Brad have joined Ash and me in the kitchen as we ready the roast chicken and they start on the cranberry and peach pie. One of my mother's family recipes passed down through several generations, or so I was told. By eight o'clock we've finished setting the table and I move to take out the chicken from the oven. It's perfect. Although, I couldn't say the same for the pie.

It is what we are laughing and bickering about as the front door slowly unlocks. The laughter-filled apartment abruptly grows quiet as the door inched inward. And then Krissy is standing in front of me. She doesn't smile, only looks at me a second before lowering her gaze.

"Don't say anything," I tell her. "You're just in time for dinner, the food's just about done."

Krissy doesn't look at me again before she walks away to her room and shuts the door. But I am happy. I breathe out a sigh of relief. She's home. I get to say goodbye before I leave tonight.

I slump down on the futon by the window in the living room. It has doubled as my bed for the past four years. Now it is stripped bare of its sheet and pillows that I've donated to local home-shelters in town. I stare at the coffee stains that have always been perfectly concealed. I don't dare look up—afraid to meet the pitiful eyes of my friends—and only hear the sound of Brad walking across the room to enter Krissy's room. Talk some sense into her. Like he always does.

This is not the first time Krissy has ignored me for days on end. Most of the time, the things she is angry at me for are things that are out of my control. But I know that means nothing to her. And every time it happens, Brad has always come to pick up and put back our messy pieces. Tells her that I didn't mean what I say or that things are not as bad as she makes it seem.

I am grateful for Brad. Without him, I am sure our fights would be much longer than they are, with prolonged arguments that may even end with one or both of us saying something we would later regret.

But even so, I still smile thinking back to the time when Krissy gave me a share of her minuscule salary the first month she started working. How excited she was to be able to afford our first apartment, and no longer did we have to live in our father's old minivan and take showers at the local school's gym showers.

I can longer remember my life with our parents present, before their untimely death. I can no longer remember my life before it was just Krissy and I. Or maybe I've just been too sad to keep the happy memories with me. Maybe I've shut off that part of my childhood where I am merely a child, and not a caretaker and protector working multiple part-time jobs at Dartham Mall.

The city of Darthampton is a small one compared to the capital city, Westington, located an hour's drive away. With a population of twenty-two thousand, Darthampton invests very little in their social and humanitarian initiatives. Thus why no social worker ever approached us to help. Their policy is 'no help asked, no help given.' It's something me and my street friends often say in jest.

"I'm starving! Dinnertime yet?" Brad bursts through Krissy's bedroom door five minutes later, my sister trailing not far behind.

So he's done it again. Said something that has wiped away the bitterness of the last few days between my sister and I. I don't know how he does it, but I'm convinced he's simply a miracle worker.

"Indeed it is," Ash says.

Awkward silence.

"Uhm... Can I start eating now, or—?" Karlie looks back and forth at us, a comically genuine curiosity on her face.

My long-time neighbor and seemingly fated best friend is the most easy-going person I have ever met. Both of us being street kids for the bigger parts of our lives, we've grown dependently attached to each other and, frankly, the stability that our loyalties to each other provide.

Of course—although we went through years of concurrent habit-shaping—there are differences between us. Where I tend to worry over even the most minuscule detail of a difficult situation, Karlie would not even consider it a difficult situation in the first place. Having downplayed every sticky situation we've ever experienced together, I would even bet she'd somehow find humor in being held at gunpoint. Which was why we are such great friends (if you believe in the 'opposites attract' thing).

But somehow, even with her crass and acerbic humor, I still find solace in her presence. And she'll always be the first person I'd call if ever I needed a helping hand in burying a body.

"Let's eat!" I say.

We shuffle to the set dining table and sit down. I look at Ash to my right, who is nervously playing with the utensils in front of him, then at Karlie across the table. She's sifting through her blonde split ends. Brad and Krissy are speaking quietly on the far side of the table, and they don't even look at the food in front of them. No one seems to want to begin. So I do.

When we're halfway through an unpleasantly quiet dinner, Krissy blurts out of nowhere. "You're really going to leave without us talking about this?"

I'm aghast. "I am not even going to respond to what you just said because it's just ridiculous."

"Seriously, Denny?" she retorts, calling me by the nickname our parents used to call me.

"YOU are the one who's been avoiding me this whole time, Kris, not me," I tell her. "So don't tell me I'M just going to leave without talking about it."

"I've been avoiding you because every time I'm trying to bring up that you're leaving, you never want to hear the light of day about it!"

"Pfft—that's not true! Don't be ridiculous."

"Yeah? What about—uhm, I don't know, today!—when I got home just now. That's not you just blatantly avoiding an argument that you know would probably happen?"

"Because I'm tired of arguing, Kris!" I stand up, slamming both my hands on the table in front of me, then move to leave the table.

"Are you kidding me?" Krissy follows, blocking my path from my only escape. "See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Every time we're about to talk about something slightly uncomfortable, you always avoid the subject like it's the plague and sweep everything under the rug like that's—that's going to solve anything!"

She's talking so fast now that her stutter breaks her controlled surface.

"Shut up, Krissy!" I stand close to her, our faces mere inches apart. "Just, shut up!"

Brad comes flush behind her and lays a hand on Krissy's shoulder, pulling her back. "Alright, guys. Cool it, okay?"

But, instead, Krissy whirls on him. "No, you know what? I'm sick and tired of you always taking her side. Fuck off, Brad!"

"Krissy, what the hell?" says Brad. "I'm not taking anyone's side, I'm just—"

"Yeah, well, maybe you should remember who your girlfriend IS now and take my side once in a while, huh?" Krissy snaps. "Or do you still see her as your girlfriend before she dumped you on Valentine's day?"

The room grows utterly silent. I cannot believe what she just brought up. That history between Brad and I happened years ago. Before she's even met him.

"Krissy..." Brad whispers.

"No, I can't deal another second with you always telling me I'm overreacting, or that she didn't mean what she said, or that I'm selfish. I'm tired of this relationship of you always telling me how to feel, Brad."

So he hasn't put the pieces back together, after all. In fact, he's shattered what little pieces are left still whole.

Krissy continues in a whisper, "I'm sorry but I can't—I don't want to deal with us anymore." She turns to me. "Or you."

With that, Krissy exits through the front door and disappears behind the closing door.

Brad is left agape in the same spot where she left him, unmoving. Though the look on his face tells me his heart has just shattered into a million pieces.

Only Ash moves. He walks to approach me and holds my shoulders as if trying to keep me together. And I realize it isn't Brad whose heart has just shattered into a million pieces. It's me.

Despite the warmth of the room, I'm shivering so hard I can no longer feel the Earth beneath my feet.