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"– 'nd here's where I, uh," Charlie sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, sighed, then dropped both hands at his sides, "This is where I slept, I guess. Where I hang out. Used to hang out."
There was a thickness in the air. Or maybe it was just his lungs that were puffed up, irritated by the decades of dust still lingering about, even after his uncle had come around and renovated the space. Things had barely been moved around, Charlie noticed; all except for an added twin and a space to hold his Uncle Jack's stuff.
Junk, more like it. Lawyer junk, video junk, photography junk– all useless junk tainting Charlie's own useful junk, his own valuable stuffs, his own room. His space.
Charlie fixed his eyes somewhere else.
"My mom, she, uh," Charlie laughed, playing with his thumbs while he watched his Neighbor sniffing around the space, "My mom always told me, you know, that I had way too much stuff. Like, way too much, so she'd do this... I guess it was a game, or... something like that. We'd go through everything 'nd if there was more than three of it, then I had to toss it... you know?"
"Yeah," his Neighbor said.
"Yeah," Charlie copied.
Some part of him felt warm at the acknowledgement; comforted. Heard.
"So, I don't know, I guess I'm kind of surprised she actually kept all of the stuff instead of, you know, throwing it all out. But I guess, knowing her..." Charlie looked around again, laughed again, and his eyes landed on a labeled box of collectables stuffed under the corner of his bedframe, "I don't know, maybe I shouldn't have been that surprised."
"That she kept everything?"
"Yeah," Charlie said. "And... you know..."
Again, he looked around and his Neighbor's head turned along with him.
"I don't know," Charlie finally said, scratched his jaw, his cheek, then neck where his hand stayed. "Like, just that she didn't move any of it, either, I guess. It's all... it's basically the way I left it."
"Oh." His Neighbor turned to him.
Charlie, still scratching, swallowed and went to find something else to look at.
"Well," his Neighbor started while Charlie went rummaging through the junk all stuffed beneath his bedframe, beneath the mattress and pillows, "I feel like, maybe she knew you probably wanted to keep all of it. Or maybe she just didn't want to get rid of anything 'cause she loves you."
Charlie swallowed again.
"Yeah," he replied, his voice quieter. "I don't know. I guess."
Deep inside, right where the pit of every sour feeling he swallowed sat, Charliedidn't need to guess. He knew. Everyone knew.
"She..."
The word came out like a bark. Harsh, yappy, and forced. Charlie tried clearing his throat before trying again.
"She called me," Charlie mentioned.
"Before she died?"
His fingers went still in the box, his palms going lip against the edge. The word only worsened the pit. Made it heavier, made the air thicker, but it was the ease in which it came from the guy that seemed to soften the blow. The casualness, despite the hurt, was softer than any other comfort.
"Yeah, before she... before she died," Charlie said. "I didn't answer it though."
Charlie filed through cards, through wrinkled images and descriptions of creatures and sometimes a lost baseballer or two.
The boxes were unorganized, he knew, but what good was it to start now?
"Is there a voicemail?"
"Yeah," Charlie said, "She always leaves one, dude."
"Did you listen to it?"
"No." Charlie laughed at the thought.
"Well," his Neighbor paused, "Did you want to?"
Charlie laughed again.
He went quiet, swallowed, and shrugged.
"I don't know," he said.
There came a deep, empty silence, and Charlie took it as a chance to clear his throat before working his way through the box of cards again. Only, he couldn't. Rather, he didn't get a chance to.
"I can listen to it."
His hands went still at the edge of the box and though he wanted to, desperately wanted to turn around, he didn't.
"What?"
"I can listen to it for you, the voicemail, if you don't want to." His Neighbor was close, hovering over his shoulder, but the hairs on Charlie's skin never stood up.
"Why would I want that?" Charlie gave a humorless laugh.
"So you can know what she said," his Neighbor told him.
Charlie's eyes went to his hands, to his thumbs which ran over the edges of the box again and again and again while his brain worked away. His heart, too, and that itty bitty spark of soul he had inside.
He and his guilty conscience were at a standstill. But the only real difference between the two was one thing. Charlie's conscience needed to know, and Charlie himself wasn't sure he would survive knowing. Not after everything.
"Yeah."
Charlie stood up on his knees before fishing his phone out from his pocket, practically shoving it into the hands of his Neighbor before the guy could say a word. Once it was out of his hands, Charlie sat back and watched at his feet, staring at the phone in his Neighbor's hands.
He twitched at the sound of the ringer, but his Neighbor turned away quickly enough and held it close enough to his ear that the voice on the other end stayed muffled.
Minutes came and went.
In his mind, it was hours, but the way his Neighbor swayed on his feet while he listened kept Charlie from losing track. A metronome. A little place of stability.
He swallowed at the sound of the beep. The end of it. His Neighbor brought the phone away from his ear, held it out, and Charlie kept his hands on his lap. Stiff.
"What'd she..." Charlie gestured, nodded his head towards the phone, avoiding making eye contact with the picture on the screen.
"What'd she say?"
"Uh," his Neighbor took a breath and Charlie held his own, "She... was watching Sound of Music, and she was talking about how she missed you, 'cause you loved that movie– and then she was asking if you still remembered watching it, and..."
"That's it?"
"No," his Neighbor said and laughed, something that should've hurt but didn't. Instead, it was warm. "Well, yeah, but no."
Charlie finally took the phone.
"She said she loves you," Charlie's Neighbor told him. "And she said she can't wait to see you, and then she started... I don't know, she started singing, and that was kind of it."
"Really?" Charlie stared at it, at her picture on the screen, at her smile and her eyes. Cradled it in his hands for a minute.
Then laughed.
"Yeah," his Neighbor said. "But it was sweet."
Charlie swallowed.
"Yeah. I know."