You Are Mine: You Are My Everything

Chapter 14: Doubt

~Emery's POV~

"It's through that door," Joyce says with an amused smile pointing to the door. She is giving me a tour of the house. Colin is accompanying but he has been silent for the most part.

I glance at the bedroom door, there is a sign with Colin's name written on it in big black cursive letters and below that is another sign that says, 'don't bother knocking, just leave me alone.' I glance at the sign and then over at him with a small curious tilt of my head.

"I was trying to be a typical rebellious teen," Colin says with a small shrug.

"And he got it down rather well," Joyce says, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

I can't help but giggle, I can't imagine Colin as a seventeen-year-old, fresh out of Juvie, angry and desperate for someone anyone to care about him. I can imagine just how much he fought Joyce. How hard he fought the ideas of love and acceptance that she had tried to teach him. Ideas that would have been foreign to him.

I push open the door and step into the room. I gaze around curiously. The walls are painted a very dark grey, it's almost black, which makes the room feel very dark, like it's a cave or hideaway. The carpet is lighter grey.

There is a long double bed in one corner which is perfectly made with grey bedding, a football-shaped pillow sits in the middle. There are two nightstands on either side. An alarm clock sits next to a lamp on the far one and on the other sits a fake cactus and a letter board which spells out 'be strong now, because things will get better. It might be stormy now, but it can't rain forever.'

At the end of the bed is a bookshelf where a TV sits, in the cubies below it is books and photos. There is a framed photo of Colin and Joyce at a Blackhawks game and another of them on some beach somewhere. Beside them is one of a little girl, probably about nine, she is smiling brightly. There is a desk next to the bookcases, above it sits a map of the world and a picture of the constellations. A poster is posted on the closet door of some wrestler, and another is taped to the back of the door of the Chicago Bears.

There is a shelf next to the bed which holds nearly two dozen magazines with girls in underwear on the covers. In the last corner is a sandbag hanging from the ceiling and a pair of boxing gloves are placed on the shelf on the wall.

"Wow," I say looking around the room. It's like stepping through into the past. It's like I am invading the seventeen-year-old Colin's privacy. I wonder what is hidden in here. Did he write journals? Maybe an old-school assignment meant for his future self. I just want to search through all of it and get to know the Colin who used to sleep in this room. The one who had so much hurt, the one whose pain was still so fresh.

I step closer to the pictures and lean closer to the girl, after a moment I pick it up and examine her. Finally, it strikes me why she looks familiar, she has Colin's nose and eyes, but the colour of them is different, hers are blue, but the shape is the same. "Is this your sister?" I ask gently glancing over at him.

He is standing in the doorway, leaning against the wall. He nods slowly. "That was her school photo a few months before she died." He murmurs a small frown crossing his face.

My face softens and I turn back to the photo. She looks so happy in it. She probably was. This would have been after the nightmare of her father was gone. Any foster home after that probably felt like a haven. I want to cry as I think about how she died so soon after this was taken. I carefully place the picture back where it had been. I walk over to the football sitting on the desk on a holder. It is covered in signatures. I grab it and read a few.

"Have a great summer," – Brody 65. "Enjoy Stanford," – Will 77. "Don't screw up that hair," – Tyler 43. "What a year," – Silas 12. "Stanford won't know what hit them," – Liam 79. "If you blow off the dance I will kick your ass," – Quinn 35. "What Quinn said. Be normal for one night," – Riley 88. "If you don't go I'll dance with Abby," – Hayden 56. "I can't wait to be away at Stanford with you. Here is to an amazing year and to our future adventures together," – Abby, which is followed by a heart.