I am the Skeleton in the Closet

Answers

Days flew by and before I knew it the first year of college was over. I passed with flying colors. I actually was inducted into the honors college at the end of the last semester. I would go up to Brian's house about every week at one point. Since he was in the middle of transferring plants he was still on unemployment. He stayed on that pay for a few months until he started up work again at the new plant. It was kind of perfect because that meant he had a bunch of time off to move into and fix up his sisters old house.

It was a white house with a pointed roof and old wooden deck out front that desperately needed painting. Apparently she had lived in that house with her old boyfriend. Now I never asked much into why she didn't need the house anymore or what all had happened there, but I picked up on bits and pieces. I guess she had a rather abusive relationship with her boyfriend at the time and had had enough. One night she pulled a gun on him and in an act of self defense she shot him. The court didn't see it that way. When he moved into the house it was trashed. I stopped by once while he was cleaning it up and I could hardly find a place to sit. The entire upstairs was walled off with a flimsy blue vinyl wall that was bursting at the seams from what was being held back in the staircase. That was the first thing I noticed when I came in.

"Yeah don't even look up there, you think this is bad..." Brian's eyes bulged and he gaped his mouth in a circle then shook his head a little picking up some debris from the floor around him. "It's bad. I mean you think down here is bad. I can hardly even go up there."

"Seriously? Damn." I looked at him like he was crazy.

"Yeah..." He scoffed. "I've spent about a week just out here trying to get it to look presentable, and I mean, you see it." He shook his head disappearing into another room to set some stuff down.

My eyes wandered around the house. "At least it came with furniture." I tried to look on the bright side a bit. "I mean granted this one is a bit stringy and falling apart, but that one seems ok." I laughed a bit.

"No, that one is covered in cat piss." He informed me. "I actually found a cat here when I moved in." He laughed. "A full cat. We decided to name him Vader cuz he's so black. He's gonna be an outdoor cat. Not neutered or anything, he sprays everywhere to mark his scent. So he's going outside." He explained further. "Plus I don't want him fighting with Sneezy."

"Sneezy?"

"Yeah my cat, I brought him up with me. Should be around here somewhere." He looked around.

Sure enough, as if he heard his name a little kitty head popped out of the blue vinyl wall expectantly. "Oh there he is." I pointed and got up to try and touch him.

"He's gonna run away. Takes a minute to warm up to people." He said as I neared the cat and after a second of deliberations Sneezy turned tail and fled.

"He's cute tho." I complimented his greyish brown coat and the black stripes that ran through it as he disappeared into the mess of the stairs.

The floor was half tiled. The kitchen and what I guess you'd call a dining room was on the tiled part. The family room had something else, it kind of resembled concrete but it was obviously not concrete. It was dark brown wooden flooring and he was trying unsuccessfully to cover it with a big rug. When entering the house you were dumped into the family room and to the right branched off the kitchen. To the far left corner was the staircase to the upstairs and dead ahead was the rest of the house. There were two rooms down the hall next to the only bathroom in the house. At the beginning of the hallway were the stairs to the basement. It was a smaller house so everything was put together rather snugly trying to maximize space.

Brian actually had a motorcycle too. It was a Harley of sorts, I never really bothered to ask what kind, even if I had, I wouldn't have known where to take the conversation. Steven and Dawn would have a heart attack if they found out that I was hanging out with someone who readily owned a motorcycle. I mused checking out the sleek black coated body. It had flames melded into the sides in a copper orange that faded to black at the base.