“Do you miss it?” Casper asked. I turned my attention away from the TV to look at him. Casper continued to stare at the random time travel show we found as if his question was an afterthought,
“Do I miss what?” I replied. I looked down at the bowl of cheddar popcorn to see it was half empty. I poured some more in.
“Your home. The past, everything, I don’t know,” he said with a sort of forced nonchalance. He turned to stare right at me, his eyes not quite burning with curiosity but hard and glinting like they were when he was serious. I looked at him for a few moments longer before turning away, leaning into the couch, and staring blankly at the TV.
It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about that house. That battered white house that was surrounded by carefully maintained flowers all around the exterior. The window screens were torn from hail and rose thorns. It stood in a field, a lone pantheon of humanity, with the nearest house a mile-long grass path away. My toes curl at the memory of cold grass, soft from how often it was walked over, brushing the soles of my feet. I would stain the carpet when I came home, adding the only color to a dull house, walls painted an unimaginative shade of off-white. Even my room, filled rebelliously with anything I could find, broken ceramic dolls, leaves from the forest, and gifts from my friends, couldn’t escape this fate of white walls.
That perfectly lived in white house, haunted by a living ghost and inhabited by half-alive people. It was quiet and it wasn’t happy. The furniture I recall was just as lifeless. The cool grey of the kitchen, the mahogany side tables, and la-z boys in cream. An once pure white couch tainted off-white with how much I ate there when I wasn’t supposed to. I stare at my cheddar-covered fingers. I press them onto the sofa, leaving cheesy stains.
When was the last time I called my mom?
“More than you’ll ever know.”
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