Chapter 1 Moving
My parents left me at my new apartment just five minutes ago. Here I am still standing where their car was. I'm in shock. Here I was 18 years old and officially on my own. Every kid's dream right? I'm excited to have freedom but then I have to worry about bills, laundry, making sure I go to school, doing my school work, and cleaning. I want my mom back. I only moved an hour away but that's not the point. I walk up the three flights of stairs to my new home. I stand at the front door for a second and just let it all sink in that this was mine. I paid for this place all on my own. How could I not be proud of myself? I graduated high school, I worked all summer to be able to move out and start college. I am the first out of my siblings to even think of college. My older sister, Kelly, got married right out of high school and they now live ten hours away with five kids. Yes five, four boys and a baby girl. My older brother, Glen, joined the Air Force when he turned 18. And my younger brother Clay is just now getting into high school.
I know I'm only going to a community college right now but why spend twenty grand when I have no idea what I want to do with my life right now. Let's just be happy that I am going to college and getting those stupid core classes out of the way. I walk to my balcony door and open it up to step outside. It is the end of August so it's still pretty warm out at night. I look across the street and two guys in their twenties are staring at me. They were standing on their balcony also drinking beer. "Welcome to the neighborhood!" they yelled.
"Thanks." I yelled back.
"You can come over and party with us if you want? We can keep you company."
Great just what I want, getting hit on by boys. I have been gay since I could remember. I started dating girls when I was in eighth grade. That's when I came out to everyone. My family was not too happy about it but they got used to the idea. We never really had a problem with it as long as I didn't get all lovely dovey with other girls. "I'm alright for now. Thanks though. Maybe later?" I didn't want to start trouble with my neighbors already. You just never know if you need anything. I walked back into my apartment. It was bare. White bare walls, white bare carpet, I had a blue flowery couch with a coffee table sitting in front, and my T.V. sitting in the corner opposite of it. I walked into the bathroom getting ready to take a shower. Then I realized that even after my parents took me to go shopping we forgot to get a shower curtain. Guess I'll go tomorrow. So then I walked to my bedroom. I flip the switch to turn on the light. Nothing happened. So like the idiot I am I kept moving the switch up and down to see if anything would happen. Then I realized that I need to buy a lamp. I'll just add it to the list for tomorrow. And then I fell onto my bed and went asleep.
The next week went by pretty quickly. I kept having to go to the store to buy things that I had forgotten or would call my parents to see if they had whatever I needed and would save it for me when I came home next. I watched a lot of movies since I didn't have cable. I wanted to make sure what I could and couldn't afford. I also got on the internet a lot. It was nice to have free WIFI, I couldn't help that people didn't put a password on their stuff. They were just asking for me to use it. Thank goodness for Facebook though. It helped me realize that I had some friends that I went to school with living in the same town. Hell even a girl I knew who was a few grades ahead of me lived in the same apartment complex. Emily was pretty cool in school, and we got along fine. She joined the Army when she graduated; I think I was a freshman.
And then I found out that my ex was living here. Not here as in the complex but here as in the same town. Guess she got accepted to the college and was going for computer graphics. Megan and I started dating in the eighth grade. We had been friends before we started dating, and we hung out with the same crowd. We were off and on until we got to our senior year. That's when we got serious. I mean we never had sex, and never said I Love You but it was still a very serious relationship. We both have had sex before and came pretty close a couple of times but it just never seemed right. I'm not the type just to say I love you, I have to mean it, and I have to make sure the person feels the same. We had some of the same classes, and she would come over once a week to my house to do homework. My parents loved her and her parents loved me. We even talked about marriage after we got done with college and starting a family. Life was great with her. She would come to my work and visit with me, take me out on dates, like I said before we had all the same friends so hanging out with them was no problem. We went to each other's houses for holidays and spent as much time together as possible. Then in January it changed. One of our friends, Brandon, got into a car accident with a semi right in front of our school. I can recall that day like it just happened. The principal call us seniors to the library to tell us that he passed away. I remember looking and Megan and she just brought down crying. This was her best friend after all. If I couldn't get a hold of her at her house all I had to do was call Brandon's and she was there. Weeks after the funeral she would still come over to my house and cry because she was she would have nightmares about the accident.
Like I said it got different. But we made it though. We went to prom, did senior ditch day, did the senior prank, went to everyone's open house and then we graduated. I would say probably a month after graduation we had a talk about us. We both said that since we have been together since eighth grade that we would break up and still be friends and let us see other people. We didn't want to hold each other up when it came to college experiences. So that's why we are exes. I still care about her and I think I always will.