Blue Alert - 8

"James"

-x-

IF someone told me that living on your own was easy, I would call them a liar. It wasn’t easy, especially not if you had to take care of all these papers about your dead mother and the house and all this other crap. After moving into my new apartment, it was hardly twenty-four hours before I had to go make another trip. I didn’t go to the police this time, but the family lawyer. Or rather, my mother’s. Either way, I found out he was trying to get in contact with me and perhaps it was only by some miracle we met on the street.

I had a rude awakening. All of a sudden all these responsibilities were pushed down on my shoulders and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. There was so much to sign, so much to take care... holy crap, if I knew it would be this bad, I’d be more pissed at whoever murdered my mom. Bad humor, that.

Anyway, now I was pressed with a lot of things to do, a lot of stuff to take care of, and the lawyer had to walk me through it all. There was a lot of information I didn’t really understand, and probably would never understand. I wished there was someone else who could deal with this, but my relatives were useless. And being the age that I was, technically I could handle it all myself. No one had any obligation to hold my hand. Which they didn’t. Except for the lawyer, but he was just doing his job.

At least he was sympathetic to some extent about my situation. He walked me through some of the paperwork until we had to take a break. We decided to part ways for the time being, and pick up again the next day. Since I didn’t have a working phone yet, and who knew where the hell my cell phone went after that night, he gave me his number and left me to to decide what time we would meet up again.

Between our next meeting and when we separated, I tried to get in touch with some other companies I knew my mother and I were involved with. I couldn’t pay off the bills, but at least I could tell them what was going on. It was a very busy day. Very busy. And sleeping long through the night did little to alleviate me from the fatigue.

It felt like I was running marathons in my sleep. As if sleeping was actually going more harm than good. Which was ridiculous, of course. But I just never seemed to recover the next morning. I guess my dreams were a little too active? Either way, I was a stick in the mud.

Eventually I started work, and thankfully the restaurant didn’t have a uniform, so I could get some money. After explaining my situation, the owner was kind enough to help me out with my salary. This didn’t mean I got paid more, I just got my check more often than others.

Somewhere mixed in all that, I met up with the lawyer again and we churned out more paperwork. I also hunted down the cellphone company and got myself a replacement phone. God, it was all tedious work. Back and forth, back and forth, I had to sign this, contact this person, go over here, sign that, check up on this, get that, go here... there was just no end! And don’t even get my started about school. I had to play hooky all this time. Thankfully I was so close to the end of the term that it didn’t really matter if I was absent, but records-wise, it didn’t look good.

I had a grace period of so many days to take care of family matters, but I think most administrators designed that around the idea that if a loved one died, there was always someone to pick up the slack and take care of the student. I was probably a rare case where that wasn’t really possible. Well, I might not be an honor student, but at least I wasn’t dead fucking last.

Besides, I didn’t have time for school. Not anymore. With all this stuff going on that I had to take care of, there just was no way I could handle it all and live semi-comfortably. Speaking of, between dealing with paperwork, working, and keeping myself sane, I got in touch with Allen and got the OK to finally visit my house.

Allen didn’t give me any promising news about how the investigation was going, so they had no choice but to let me in on the scene, even if it did tamper with possible evidence. I called up Connor to help me out with packing up my things to move it out, and helping me clean up the house. I sure as hell didn’t know what to do with it, but lawyer dude said it was best to just pack things up, figure out what I wanted to do with my mom’s belongings, and be prepared to sell the house. I wasn’t comfortable living there anymore, and I couldn’t pay for its bills, so I had to get rid of it. He said he would help me out and get my squared away with this whole business.

I wasn’t sure if he still wanted to be paid for all this, or if this sort of thing was predetermined. Either way, it helped a lot and I wasn’t going to ignore the hospitality when it was staring me in the face like this.

On the day I was set to pack up my things from the house, I met Connor in front of my house. “Hey,” I greeted him when he parked in the driveway.

Connor gave me a long look. “Jesus Christ, James. You look like shit.”

“Way to be blunt, man.” I rubbed at the corner of my eye, feeling it twitch a little. “But I don’t blame you. I feel like shit too.”

“Have you not been sleeping or what? I mean, are you still...?” He trailed off, wearing an awkward expression. I suspected he was trying to tread delicately around the subject of my mom’s murder.

I just shook my head and sighed, looking over my shoulder at the house. It felt weird, standing there, knowing that I wasn’t going to come back. “I have, but... I guess I haven’t been doing so well. It’s like sleep seems useless.”

“But you’re doing okay, right? I haven’t seen you at school. Everyone knows what happened. Katelyn, Harley and them are worried.” Connor wore a concerned expression on his face, brows furrowed. I knew he was worried too, even if he didn’t say it out loud.

I led the way into the house, making my way to my room. “There’s a lot to take care of. I wish I could just go to school and continue on with my life like normal, but there’s no one around to do any of this. And you know how my relatives are. Besides, they’re thousands of miles away. I have to do it myself.” I walked into my room and looked around. It was just like I left it that night. Maybe there were a few small changes here and there, but I didn’t really notice.

“That sucks. I wish I could help you out more.”

I gave a crooked smile. “This is enough. But if I really need anything else, I’ll let you know. Just help me get some of this packed up for now, okay?” I gestured at the boxes I had dragged in earlier. I had to go get some from the store. Others, I found digging around the garage; mostly plastic. There were also some large trash bags for whatever else I needed.

Connor nodded and helped me start taking things down. The easiest was my clothes, which we rolled up and shoved as many into a bag as possible. I wanted to save the boxes for more fragile things. We cleared out my closet and drawers in a few hours, and dragged the bags to his car. Connor said he would help me take it back to my apartment since there was no way I could get it there on my own without a vehicle.

Well, actually, I did have my mother’s car, but I wasn’t too inclined to take it just yet. I dunno, it felt weird. Maybe I was just being stupid. Either way, we piled the bags into his car before going back and clearing out more of my room. We took everything off the walls and shelves one by one, and carefully packed them into the boxes. Connor humored me by telling me what was going on at school and with our friends.

Apparently there was another breakup-makeup between Dom and Syrin. And Harley got in trouble for smoking behind the gym and was serving detention for three days. Everyone else was the same as ever, though they asked about me often. At least now Connor had something to tell them.

“Maybe whenever you’re done with all this stuff we can hang out again,” Connor suggested.

I shrugged. “I’d like to, but I don’t know when I’ll be done. Hell, school seems like paradise right now.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

“It’s not your fault. I just...” I sighed. “I’ll give you a call. If I need a break from all this shit, or if I’m ever ‘done,’ I’ll give you a call. We can get everyone together and hang out.”

Connor smiled at me. “I’ll hold you to that.”

After clearing out most of my room, we took a break and had something to eat. I didn’t trust whatever was in the fridge -- most of which I threw away out of precaution -- so we had something delivered to the door. The local deli delivered these awesome sandwiches meals so we got some of that and ate. Afterward, we started working on other parts of the house, like stuff from the kitchen and the bathrooms. I needed something to eat off of and things to wash with so we packed up enough to supply my apartment.

Even if it did kinda weird me out a little that I would be using this stuff again, I didn’t have the luxury to get rid of anything that I could still use. I was on my own, and paying for all this stuff from scratch was impossible. So I packed up all the necessities and piled them into Connor’s car.

Eventually we tired ourselves out, so we stopped, locked up, and drove to my apartment. We hadn’t so much as touched my mother’s room or other parts of the house yet, but I wasn’t disappointed. I wasn’t ready to go there yet. Connor helped me drag everything up to my floor, being the first house guest in my new home. Climbing stairs were cumbersome, so we used the elevator. Still, it wasn’t an easy task to haul box after box, bag after bag of stuff.

I held the door open for Connor as he tried to push one of the larger loads inside. I helped him push it into the main living area before going back to the elevator to get one of the other boxes. It was the last one, thankfully. Carrying it back inside, I pressed the button to ride the way back up. I was just getting on when someone called out to hold it open.

I blocked the doors with my foot and waited for the person to slip inside. It was just then I came face to face with Allen. He wasn’t in uniform, so at first I didn’t recognize him, but after I got a good look at him, I could tell it was him. He seemed just as surprised to see me with the way he stared at me.

“James Young?”

“Uh, yeah? Hi,” I returned awkwardly. “Do you... What are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“Oh.” That made sense.

“And you?”

“I, uh, live here too.” When Allen raised his brows at me, I shrugged. “I wasn’t comfortable staying at home, and I didn’t want to be at Mike’s place all the time so I came here instead. I didn’t know that you lived here too.”

His gaze flickered to the elevator panel and reached over to press the floor number he was on. I glanced over and saw he was just one floor above me. I was surprised we never ran into each other before now. But then again, our schedules were probably as different as night and day.

When I saw him look down at the box I was carrying, I said, “Stuff from the house. It cuts some of my costs down.”

Allen just nodded in return, saying nothing.

The rest of the ride up was quiet. When the doors opened, I got off, bidding him farewell before heading down the hall. It was kinda awkward figuring out that I lived in the same building as the cop who was helping out with the case on my mom. Of course, he wasn’t really in charge of it anymore since it was put aside for other people to take care of. Out of his jurisdiction, or something like that. Still, it was weird, knowing I was going to be living so close to a cop, especially one who was familiar with me and my situation.

Shaking my head, I entered my apartment and joined Connor in getting everything set up. I had no food so after unpacking the essentials and putting them wherever they needed to go, like dishes in the cupboard, shampoo and razor in the bathroom, towels and other stuff in the closet, we ordered food. This time we had pizza, and bought me an extra box for leftovers.

Until I got into the habit of making my food everyday and buying it too, the pizza would suffice. Maybe. Hopefully. Well, that was the idea, anyway.

Sometime after eating and just relaxing, Connor went home. He made me promise to call him again when I needed more help moving things, or if I just wanted to hang out. He said he would tell the others that I was doing okay.

That night, I crashed harder than ever before. I was so exhausted, I couldn’t stand to stay up any longer. I still had no bed, but I piled the blankets and a pillow and made a nest on the floor. It was like this I spent the night, and it was like this I woke up the next morning, feeling a little better than before.

I spent the next day unpacking and putting more things away. I hung my clothes up and set out some of my other stuff. Most of it I still kept inside their boxes since I had nowhere to put them. I had work later, so I didn’t get too involved with what I was doing. I took the bus to the restaurant and greeted the owner when I entered.

I was lucky. Really I was. Thanks to the fact that it was a family own restaurant, and a small one at that, there were no strict regulations. Of course I had to be clean and neat, but other than that, and wearing an apron, I didn’t have to worry about uniforms or any of that other stuff. I was in the front, too, so there wasn’t really a need for me to be fancy. Just presentable.

During my shift break, I was able to grab a free meal and eat in the back. Another perk of management: free food from time to time. Or discounted.

“Hey, James?”

I looked up to see Martin. He was one of the older workers who had been there a while. He seemed like an okay guy, though he was a little weird. I wasn’t completely comfortable with him, but then again I often wasn’t comfortable with a lot of people older than me. I smiled at him anyway, just to be friendly. “Yeah? What’s up?”

“Mind I join you?”

I shook my head. “Go ahead.”

Martin ate with me during our break. He talked with me a bit about all sorts of random stuff. He even showed me some of the apps on his phone. And some of the less socially acceptable stuff too. Like I said, he was an okay guy, but a little weird. I had no problem with people having private things on his phone, but the content was a little, uh, not my taste. Hey, whatever got him up.

When break was over, I was kinda glad to take a step back from him and resume working. The hours slugged on by, and I was pressed to keep up with the pace of the work, but it was good. It was productive. It was an explainable sort of tired that didn’t confuse me.

When I went home, there was reason to my fatigue. Tangible reason. I showered and wrapped myself in blankets with relish. I had honest hope and belief that when I woke up the next day, I would be refreshed. So, without worry, I dozed off, looking forward to the next day.