A Time to Grow (Finished Short Story)

A Time to Grow

    A sharp pain struck my neck as I woke up. My eyes blinked away the blurry sleep residue as the sunlight peered in slowly. I craned my neck to stretch out the taut muscles, hoping this action would reduce the aching. But to no avail.
    I rolled to the side, looked at my roommate on the couch, and groaned.
    “Another fucking day,” I muttered.   
    “Hrm?” my roommate, Don, replied. 
    “Nothing,” I said, “just tired, that’s all.” 
  And with that I rolled out of bed, and stretched. Sore muscles are always cured by coffee, at least that is what I believed, so I limped to the coffee pot across the room and poured myself some aromatic Kenyan.
  Lucky for me, I didn’t have class for six more hours, and it was still around 9:00 am, so I grabbed my copy of Brian Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man and plopped on the couch next to Don.   
  Don was a great person to have as a roommate. He loved to just hang out. Neither of us were party animals, in fact, I don’t ever remember going to a single party since I’d known him. He had short brown hair and a stubbly beard. He was always jealous because my beard was almost a foot long and I had dreadlocks. Don and I got along pretty well. We were both religious, different styles, but we were great friends. We both loved comics and weird music and we discussed philosophy from both of those topics, and others, a lot. We were the perfect roommates, except when we argued, but that was rare.   
    I suddenly tasted my stale, coffee tinged, morning breath and decided I would brush that disgusting taste away, and grab a shower while I was at it. Don warned me that the hot water was gone, and I groaned. 
  “Oh well,” I said slightly annoyed.
    Our gracious landlord promised us that the water would be fixed months ago. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Inwardly I detested Don’s inability to sleep later than 7:30 because he always got most of the hot water. But alas, maybe God was just consistently punishing me for being lazy. Who knows?
    The cold water felt surprisingly good. I never would have expected it to feel so refreshing. It woke me up almost instantly and I stood under the ice-water for almost twenty minutes. The last thing I had wanted this morning was a cold shower, but I was surprised to be enjoying it, but then again, a lot of things surprised recently.
    It was about a year ago when I posted an ad on Craigslist looking for roommates. I never expected to get so lucky though. 200 dollars a month, for both of us, which meant 100 dollars a month in payments plus utilities, per person. Not a bad price at all for two broke college students.
    Peter Johnson, our landlord, was a short, old man, with no hair anywhere. And I mean anywhere. Don and I had the fortunate privilege to walk out on him skinny dipping in his hot tub. We then proceeded to pour Comet in our eye sockets. To this day we haven’t told him.
    Peter was a great guy though. He lost his wife to cancer in 1996, and his only son died in the first Gulf War. We had a couple barbecues with him and he told us stories about his life over beers and pipes. He had an enormous pipe collection with tons of flavors of tobacco, all free of charge for me and Don. And Don and I both loved our pipes. Many nights during that first summer Don and me would sit on the rooftop smoking our Peterson’s and looking at the clear night sky, just talking. The tired eyes and achy joints the following mornings were a small price to pay for such incredible times. I wouldn’t trade those nights for the world. Even when Don got pissed off and yelled at me because of whatever I said, I still loved it.
    Last night was one of those nights. We had been discussing what “real music” was and why we both felt like the pop-genre should be banished and illegalized. It ended in us laughing at Justin Bieber and how ridiculous Kanye West was, but the discussions usually started out intelligently...I think.
    I finished brushing my teeth, threw some sweatpants on and made a swan dive back onto the couch. Don laughed as the coffee on the arm of the couch spilled all over my crotch.
    I splashed the residue from the cup in his face, sarcastically cursed him out then went to change into my second pair of clean boxers and pants.
    “We need cup-holders on that couch man,” I said, annoyed, yet entertained at my incredible lack of perception.
    “ Aye, that we do,” Don laughed as he replied, “or you could just learn to put your cups on the end table, six inches to the left of the couch, moron.”
    I grabbed a granola bar, a fresh cup of coffee, and very slowly sat in my seat again. This time I didn’t spill anything. Then I started Y from where I left off.
    About an hour later, Don said he was going to go to the mall to get the new Left for Dead. I was stoked. As much as I was a Sony Playstation geek, XBox had a lot of great zombie games, plus we had both so I didn’t complain.
    While Don was gone, I finished Y and decided I was going to watch some TV. I flipped through some channels when finally I stumbled upon some Tom Baker episodes of Doctor Who on BBC. Surprised it was replaying, I stopped to watch. After all, Doctor Who was my favorite TV show of all time.
    It started to rain outside. Dark clouds gorged themselves on the horizon. Simply beautiful.
I decided to check my email while the TV buzzed away in the background.
Email from professor:
“Students, Class will be canceled today due to unforeseeable car trouble. Please accept my apologies. Read the rest of Chapter 17 for class next week.”
    I smiled.
    Don got home a half an hour later and tossed a bag at me, but he had another one in his hand plus a box of donuts and some coffee from the cafe down the street.
    “What’s this?” I said looking in the bag.
    “That’s L4D....” he replied with that tone that just begged me to follow up.
    “And.....what's that?” I followed, with a sarcastic annoyance.
    “Oh this...just an Original Nintendo with 3 classics,” he said than grinned ear to ear as he told me about the yard-sale he just happened to pass on the way to the mall.
    “Super Mario 1 + Duck Hunt, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid,” he said.
    I shrieked like a five year-old boy who just got a puppy.
    I tossed the Xbox game on the floor, ran to the TV and unplugged the other consoles. I was more excited than the day I got my first guitar.
    Four hours later, after beating Don four times in Duck Hunt and tag teaming in Zelda, we decided we would go out for Chinese to celebrate.
    Don didn't know, but I had been looking for another place to live for a while. Not anything personal against him, I just had this thing about staying in one place for too long. I had been looking into moving to Canada for a few months at least. Canada was beautiful. I loved backpacking and camping, and I had always wanted to live there, at least for a short time. I figured tonight would be a good time to break the news to my best friend. I had a job lined up in Quebec, and was supposed to move into a very cheap apartment, with a friend I had up there, in about three months.
    We went down to our favorite Chinese restaurant The Yellow Dragon and ordered some Lo Mein and Chicken.
    Don and I had exactly the same taste, which was something that made being his roommate so much easier. Buying groceries was as simple as shopping for myself, but paying for two.
    When I broke the news to him, he laughed. He said he knew it would happen eventually and was surprised I lasted this long. He wasn't mad at all, which was a relief to me. I guess he knew me better than I thought he did.
    “Don't worry about it dude, this actually couldn't have come at a better time, because I'm asking Rae to marry me.”
    I was shell-shocked.
    “You gonna say congratulations or what?” he looked at me with a smirk.
    “Uh...congratulations! I just didn't expect that. I know you better than that!” I laughed as I slapped him in the face.
    Rae and Don had been dating for seven years, and I figured it was one of those relationships that would last forever, but never be finalized. Don was scared of commitment like I was and that is why it was such a shock to me.
    “I'm asking her next week. I wanted to ask your blessing,” he winked at me and devoured a mouthful of lo mein with his chopsticks.
    “Of course dude. I love Rae. Not that my opinion matters anyway,” I laughed and took a giant bite of an eggroll.
    “Well, I wanted you to be my best-man, obviously.”
    “Absolument!” I replied excitedly.
    In French.
    For no apparent reason.
    “Good,” he replied, “we all ready planned the wedding a few months ago, I just haven't officially asked her yet, but its in a month.”
    “Wow, really? That's great man...”
    He could tell I was upset by the timing. I didn't want him to move out before I did. In a way I needed Don. He was one of the only guys that could understand me and I was afraid of moving to Canada anyway.
    “Listen man, I know you want me to live with you forever,” then he chuckled, “just kidding, but seriously man, you know I love you, but I have to move on.”
    “No, it's fine man. I was just surprised at the timing that's all. I'm moving to Canada for God's sake.” I laughed nervously as I said the last line.
    I was so scared of moving there. But it was something I had to do. The things I could do while I was there are things I'd dreamed of for years. The thing I was afraid of most was being away from people that I knew loved me. Don in particular. But now he was moving on regardless and that was even scarier to my immature self. If I needed to come back here, I didn't have him to live with anymore. I realize my immaturity was sad, but I had a problem with losing people, and Don was someone I didn't want to lose.
    “Listen,” he said as he poked my face with a chopstick to get me out of my nostalgia, “I'm gonna miss you just as much. I don't want you to move to Canada because I won't have anyone to escape from Rae with, but it's something you gotta do, just like marrying her is something I have to do.”
    “Who are you kidding?” I spurted laughing, “you're not gonna leave your house for two months when you get married.”
    Don laughed and nodded in agreement.
    “Probably true,” he said, “but after that, I'm gonna need someone to go out with to get a beer and talk to about stuff, and you're the only person I could do that with. But when you come back, I'll have lots of time to spend with you dude, you know I would make time for you. Just not as much, I love Rae with all my heart.”
    “I know you will Don, your friendship means the world to me, I will always be here for beer and pipes.” I laughed and took a sip of tea.
    We spent an hour at an arcade next to The Yellow Dragon before we headed home. On the way we stopped to grab some beers for the night. Being a Friday, we had decided to spend the night on the roof with our pipes.
    We got bags of tobacco and our pipes, filled a bucket with ice and beer, and went to the roof.
    The rain had stopped a few hours before, and the clouds dissipated like smoke in the wind. The moon was full that night, and there was not a light on within five miles. The sky lit up like a black sheet with fireflies attached to it. It was one of the most beautiful nights I had ever seen.
    Don and I lit up our pipes, cracked open two beers and clinked bottles. I smiled at my best friend. I knew that no matter what happened in life, I'd always have this amazing guy to look to for advice in everything. Regardless of where either of us were, I knew that he loved me, and I loved him and we would always have each other to lean on when times got tough.   
    Don was my best friend, and I knew that would last forever.

    I'll drink to that.