Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Fret ❯ Chapter 4

Chapter Four

 

The phone rang. Suddenly, Josh was aware that he was awake. Letting it ring, the answering machine took it. He noted that the electricity hadn't been shut off yet.

“Hey Josh, it's me Mel. It's 7:02 and you're not answering your phone. I'm really, really sorry we got on your case and we're really worried something's wrong. Actually, we know something's wrong and are sorry for not being as sympathetic as we could have been. Derek was there earlier today and saw you through the bathroom window. He couldn't wake you up and we couldn't break in, but please call up back. We're about to call the police. This isn't like you Josh, I'm really worried. Please call me back.” She spoke as clearly as she could, but Josh could hear a slight tremble in her voice and a few muffled sniffs. Immediately he felt guilty, and looked at himself in his mirror.

“I look like crap,” he thought silently to himself. While playing the other messages that Mel had left on his machine before, he wandered to his kitchen, as he tried to make himself coffee.

“Hi Josh, it's me, Mel. You didn't come to school the other half of the day after you just left. I'm sort of freaking out so if you could call me, you know the number.”

He tried to fill up the machine with cold water and to his dismay, he realized that the water had been turned off. Instead, he grabbed a bottle out of the cabinet and poured until the water barely reached the fill line.

“Heyya Josh, it's me Mel. You haven't returned my first message and you missed band practice. This is really unlike you. Everyone's really worried. Please call me or the twins ASAP, `kay?”

He started the machine with the intention of a mocha. While it was percolating, he placed some mint extract into the leftover water in the bottle. He then held his head out over the sink, and slowly poured the water over his head, letting the fresh mint feel cover his entire head and neck.

“Josh, pick up your phone. Pick it up now. I know you can hear me. If you don't pick the phone up, we're breaking into your house. I already was over there and I knocked on your door and you didn't answer. You're being really stupid right now. I just want you to know that you're really acting immature.”

He walked over to the cabinet to get a small hand towel, and realized that there was a small white letter on his doorstep. With dread in his heart, he went to retrieve it. When he read the front, his heart simultaneously stopped and raced.

The addresses were in his mother's all-caps formal handwriting, in her preferred violet pen color. Furthermore, the return address was in Canada. He breathed deeply in, opening the letter with a small kitchen knife. The fact that she had not bothered with a salutation but instead started out with “I love you,” scrawled across the top was enough to make his eyes blurry. He cleared his head and attempted to detach his emotion. His second attempt to read the letter turned out better than the first, but his mother's small, cramped writing made it difficult for him to make out anything.

 

I love you.

I hope you're doing fine. I'm sorry I left like I did, but I just felt that the time was right for me to see someplace new. I know that two hundred dollars was probably a little tight, but I have confidence that you were smart about how you used the money and are happy right now. I'm here in Canada with our relatives, such as your aunt/my sister-in-law. They're wonderful people, and I really wish that you would join me. Here's another hundred dollars, and I hope to see you the day after you get this letter.

 

Love forever,

Mom

The oddly neat signature spun his mind around like a top. He sank to his knees and reread it over and over again. What could else could he do but go? He'd been dreaming that his mother would call for him, but he never thought she was actually going to do it. It was as if an angel had heard his innermost thoughts. What point was there in staying in this house anyways? The electricity was going to be shut off in four days, and he had no emotional attachments here. His so-called friends were just tired of having to act as his friends and thought he was immature and irresponsible. It would be better to disappear from their lives and reappear in his mother's.

Depositing the letter carefully on the counter, he switched his computer on and checked the train times online. The next train headed north was at 8:57 pm, and after a few transfers, he would get to a place called Santa Rosa at 11:35 am. Two clicks and he had reserved a ticket worth fifty-six dollars. Josh hurriedly shut off the computer, and jogged to the garage. He pulled out a luggage bag that had seen once too many uses, partnered with a thick cloud of chalky powder.

Then he went to a small, secluded section of the garage. Over a thickly woven rug, a snuffed candle sat in an old guitar case flowing with pictures of his dad. He scooped up the pictures, and carefully slid them all into a plastic baggy. One dropped, and he picked it up. He looked at it, seeing his dad's smiling face kissing his mother. Josh placed the photo in the baggy, then rifled through it again and found another picture. His dad, playing the very Fender that Josh loved so deeply. Unaware that the picture was taken, his dark brown hair fell limply into his sad eyes, as if he knew that the next day he was going to die of a car crash. His left hand was twisted curiously around the neck of the guitar in what looked to be the power chord of A minor. A Moshay pick was barely visible between his thick fingers, brushing the bright strings.

Josh picked the candle up and lighted it with the lighter sitting on a nearby shelf. He watched it burn for a few minutes, then pinched it out and took the guitar case. Bringing it and the dusty luggage back to his room, he placed the Fender and his strap in the case. Into his luggage, he threw in a heavy jacket, every single pair of clean jeans he owned, and about half of his shirts. The entirety of his sock/underwear/tie/beanie/armband drawer was also ceremoniously dumped into the suitcase.

He then dumped all the contents of his backpack onto the floor. Into it, he put Harmony Book for Beginners by Preston Ware Orem, the Koran, the Bible, a book of poetry by Leonard Cohen, and his amp. He snagged a hard Fuyu persimmon, a vivid, orange-red tangerine, five Cliff Bars, and one pack of raw fettuccine noodles.

He slid his arms up a jacket's sleeves, and then retied his tie before slinging the guitar case and backpack over his shoulder and dragging out his luggage. He locked up his house, buried the key in the flowerpot, then set off to the train station with all he thought he needed to start his new life.

He marched to the teller and bought his trip to Santa Rosa. He sat on a newly painted bench that shouted at him to sit on. He rubbed the smooth lacquer with an antsy fervor. The thirty minutes until he started his trip couldn't begin sooner.