Disclaimer: Same
A/n: Hello my dears! Thank you for all of the reviews! I'm very shocked at the outcome of this story. I never expected to get this much feedback. Any way, here's chapter nineteen. There is a possibility that this part of the story is going to be done somewhat soon, but I'm not very sure. Once again, I am sorry for the delay of updates. So any how, read on and review please. :D
Why Did Destiny Choose This?
Chapter 19
This cruse of love, this burden of sadness,
I sat on the carpeted floor, and watched as Lily scanned page after page after page of each scrapbook. Each page being a different color than the last. The colors consisted of neon pinks, greens, yellows, blues, and oranges. The sound of the thick paper scraping against the front of her shirt sounded like thin sheets of parchment ripping. Her left arm was placed under the book, causing the weight of the book to be put onto her skin. Slowly, I noticed that an imprint of the twined cover had been put into her arm. Her other hand was turning the pages every thirty seconds or so.
After a while, the sadness started to wear away. It's weird; how sad memories that can make you almost break down into sobs, can just suddenly turn into happy thoughts. The kind of happy thoughts where you can just suddenly burst into fits of laughter, especially when it's dead quiet, and even the slightest movement could be heard.
After about my twentieth hysterical laughing fit, Lily raised one eyebrow and looked at me with a half concerned look on her face; the other half showed fear that I had cracked and gone insane.
"Are you okay?" she asked while turning a page in the High School Memories book. I nodded with a gigantic grin stuck onto my face.
"Yea." I chuckled. "Fine; why?" I asked, still partially laughing. Lily raised her other eyebrow to meet with the one that was already atop. She shut the book with a thud, causing a small breeze of air to go in my direction, making my hair flutter off my shoulders onto my back.
In a sudden second, I began to burst into another giggling frenzy. This time, I fell onto my side and hit my shoulder onto a flattened cardboard box, denting it slightly. Lily waited until I was finished laughing before she spoke.
"For one, you just laughed because I shut a book; and two, you looked so…your mood changed really quickly, in about a split second." She said before putting the book back onto the floor. "You sure you're not insane? Should I check you into an asylum?" She asked half serious, and half jokingly. I chuckled while nodding.
"Yea, I don't think I might need that kind of help just yet." I said with a large grin on my face. After a quick laugh from the both of us, there was a silence. It wasn't an awkward silence or anything; it was just that neither of us said a word.
Before long, the silence was broken with the sound of the front door to my house opening and shutting. It was a possible sign that my father had came back from wherever he had gone to in the past few hours.
"Bud?" My dad yelled in almost a shout, proving that my assumptions were correct.
"Yea daddy?" I yelled in response. I tilted my head in a way that allowed me to yell towards the door to my bedroom, and still focus my attention on Lily at the same time. It took a few seconds to get an answer, and in that time I could hear the sound of his cowboy boots stepping up the stairs, thud after thud. Several moments after that, I saw that he had opened my door enough to only poke in his head.
"I see ya haven't done anythin' since I last left ya." He said while wandering his eyes over the rows of flattened boxes. Once he saw Lily, he tilted his head in a way that wasn't a nod, yet it was at the same time, sort of like a greeting.
"Hey Mr. Stewart." Lily said in her usual chipper tone with a smile on her face.
"Well, I got some bubble wrap if that helps at all." He announced as he stepped into the room with two large, cylinder rolls of the translucent material; several strands of tape stuck the end of the wrap to the actual roll. I smile a weak grin.
"Thanks daddy." I replied, and got up to take the wrap from my dad. He nodded again as yet another response before gesturing his hand as a way of saying 'Carry on with whatever you were doing' and he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Lily looked at my arms which carried the roll of bubble wrap. I raised an eyebrow.
"What?" I asked questioningly.
"You… have…bubble …wrap…" She said in a tone which said 'Drop the roll… now.' I nodded and handed her the two rolls of wrap. A purely large smile spread across her face.
"It's like hours of bubble popping fun!" She screamed excitedly as she began poking frantically at the little air bubbles. I rolled my eyes. Typical Lily. I reached my hands over, and snatched the wrap as soon as I dropped it down. In that instant, her smile disappeared into a childish pout.
"For goodness sake, Lily! You're twenty four and you still think popping bubble wrap is fun!" I exclaimed while dropping the rolls of wrap onto the floor, causing several pops to be heard as some bubbles deflated. She raised her eyebrows in a way which said 'You're being a hypocrite.' I crossed my arms after seeing this expression and put on an amused face, waiting for an explanation.
"Say whatever you want; you know it's fun. Don't think that I don't know you Miley." Lily said with her arms crossed. I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips together tightly. Lily mimicked me, almost as if we were still in middle school, and this was just another one of Mr. Corelli's mirror exercises. I narrowed my eyes even more to the point where I was squinting at her. I could see that she was still mirroring me. After a second, I started laughing again. This time, Lily's giggle followed.
"We're so stupid." I chuckled while plopping onto the floor. Without realizing it before I saw now that the 'floor' I had fell onto wasn't the floor at all, but another cardboard box; which was now dented. Lily continued laughing until she was doubled over. I pouted. "It's not that funny." I said in a kiddish tone. Lily was still laughing when she nodded as an answer to my question.
"Yes...it…is…" She said in between gasping laughs. I sighed and got up enough to pull the flat and dented cardboard box from the floor. I sat back down and with a small swing, I hit Lily on the side of the head with the cardboard. "It's… still… funny." She chuckled. I threw the box aside and sat onto the floor (I made sure it wasn't a box) and crossed my arms and legs waiting for her to finish.
After a while, her laughing subsided into small breaths and giggles. I shook my head.
"And you think I have issues." I said in an unbelieving tone.
"You do." Lily snapped. I dropped my jaw.
"That's not very nice." I said while quivering my lower lip. Lily snickered.
"That's not gona work on me, and you know it. There's no point in trying." She said while shaking her head. I shook my lip even more and dipped my head into my arms pretending to cry. I had to admit that it didn't sound very convincing, but it was better than some previous attempts. I felt my hair fall over my shoulders and drape over my head; almost like a curtain. "Come on Miley; both you can I know that you're faking it." I pretended to cry more with hiccupped sobs.
"I-I'm not f-faking i-it!" I stuttered with 'cries'. I could hear Lily shuffling in the background, but I didn't know what she was doing. I lifted my head slightly so that my hair still covered my face so if she was looking at me, she wouldn't be able to see my face. Instead of waiting for me to finish, she had continued to skim through the various scrapbooks. My fake sobs turned into words.
"Hey, you're supposed to believe me!" I yelled. Lily looked up from the high school book, and titled her head to one side.
"Miley dear, the most gullible person in the world wouldn't believe you." she said half sympathetically and half serious. I pouted.
"You're mean." I whined while placing my arms onto my knees.
"I'm telling you the truth." Lily said, still scanning the book.
"The truth could damage my emotional welfare." I said while slowly getting up from the ground.
"You mean damaged like your ability to pretend to cry?" Lily asked with a smile on her face. I tilted my eyebrows inward and pouted my lips like a little kid in the grocery store when they weren't allowed to get their favorite cereal or candy and their mother or father continued to ignore their begs.
"That wasn't very nice…" I whined. Lily shrugged and smirked.
There was silence other than the sound of Lily turning page after page. Sometimes a smile would appear onto her face and fade just as quickly as it came. Some time later when Lily had finally finished through all of the scrapbooks and placed them onto the floor in chronological order, the past being closer to the bottom of the pile, she hunched her back, and rested her elbows onto her knees, which were followed with her head resting on top of the palms of her hands. Her eyes looked blankly at me.
I had my legs folded in a criss-crossed way with my right arm resting limply on the right knee, and my left elbow resting in the way Lily had both of her hands.
"I think we're getting side tracked." I whispered.
"I think so too." Lily whispered back.
"I think we should really start packing something." I spoke softly. Lily nodded, which caused her hand to move with her head.
"One question though: Why are we whispering?" Lily asked lightly.
"I don't know…" I replied in a regular tone. Lily smiled and laughed. I simply shrugged and began to take the tape that connected the end of the bubble wrap to the rest of the roll, off.
"So these are definitely going with you?" Lily asked pointing to the mass of books resting next too her feet. I glanced over and stared at the pile. These books that have almost ever memory and inside joke of my adolescence; why wouldn't I take them?
"Definitely."I answered and nodded and held out my arms for Lily to give me one book at a time so I could load them into the one box that was already unflattened.
Before putting the books directly in the box, I cut out large pieces of bubble wrap too line the cardboard so that they wouldn't get damaged in any way. As book after book was being placed into the box, I felt that I was packing up all of my past, and shipping it off, and in a sense it kind of was what I was doing.
After every book was inside the box, there was still enough room to put some other small miscellaneous objects in. I glanced around my room in hopes of finding some other items to put in.
For a few seconds, my eyes were simply wandering around the room with nothing in particular catching my sight, but soon, I found myself looking at myself in a reflection in a spot of glass. When I looked past my reflection, I could see the picture that stood behind the glass.
The picture that rested in the picture frame behind the glass was a picture taken many years ago; perhaps when I was either five or six. It was one of those Christmas pictures; the ones that your parents made you take. It was when I still lived back in Tennessee. My parents were resting on their knees in their "Christmas Pj's" as my dad liked to call them, and right underneath was Jackson and I, sitting on the floor. The Christmas tree was the background; decorations clearly visible and somewhat tattered and mismatched only because Jackson and I were the ones to decorate it.
As I stared at the family picture, a small grin crept onto my face and I was somewhat mixed into a feel of emotions. There was a feeling of happiness because I remembered how excited everyone got on Christmas morning back then and now too. It was like the best day of the year not only because it was Christmas and because we got presents, but because no matter what, it was almost mandatory to wear a smile on your face and be peppy all day.
Then there was a slight sadness or maybe a longing feeling for the past because the picture reminded me so much of the happiness I was leaving behind, and how much I would miss being with my family on a daily basis. Who says I can't come back for Christmas? I'll call too, so it won't seem so bad.
I nodded at my thoughts and continued staring at the picture, trying to find what other emotions were hidden in the depths of the frame. I examined every little detail in the picture from the smallest decoration on the tree, to the star that was placed on top, to the kinds of slippers that my father was wearing.
"Miley?" Lily asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.
"Yea?" I asked her as I turned my head causing some of my hair to swing around and hit the side of my face and then return to its normal position over my shoulder.
"You were kinda spaced out for about ten minutes." Lily answered.
"Oh yea; sorry." I apologized.
"It's okay, really. Nothing you should have to apologize over." Lily said while chuckling. I nodded. "So, you taking that too?" Lily as asked pointing to the picture I still held in my hands. I looked down and ran my thumbs over the smooth dark wooden frame and the sleek glass that separated me from the picture. I nodded.
"Yea." I replied softly. Lily nodded in agreement. I reached over to grab some more bubble wrap, and cut it with a pair of scissors that were lying nearby and cut a piece large enough to wrap around the picture various times. If anything, breaking the frame or picture was the thing I least wanted to happen at the moment.
When I had secured the bubble wrap in place with a small piece of tape, I placed it carefully into the box with the scrapbooks like a mother would place her young baby into its cradle after it had fallen asleep gracefully in her arms. Wow, I'm pathetic.
I chuckled lightly at my actions before returning my glace to the room where more pictures and memories lay before me. Before long, the box had been filled with pictures and small photo albums, and another one had to be unflattened for me to use. Once again, I lined the box with bubble wrap to prevent and damage of the various frames and photographs.
Picture after picture, I looked at anything and everything that the colors and pixels contained. Then I would look at the photo as a whole to try and memorize the moment in which the picture was taken in. For some reason, something about this whole picture packing thing seemed sad. It wasn't due to the reminiscing of the past, but more of sad as in pathetic because I was taking so much time and precautions, packing such little things. It made me think of how much more work I truly had to do, and how much faster I had to get things done…
A/n: Okay then! So that was chapter nineteen. I hoped it was a little more "happy" than others since I've had several requests for chapters that are less gloomy. It was pretty much just another filler, but any how, please review because I'd really like to know if people are still reading this. :D
p.s. Anyone know that Mitchel Musso is in NY? How awesome is that? Too bad it's too far from…well… here.