Let My Heart Rest In Pieces

Let My Heart Rest In Pieces 001

The Move

Envy Moore sat in the back of her dad’s old van as they drove down the partially crowded highway of Newark, New Jersey. It was now around six in the afternoon and the sun was on its way to being completely hidden in the west. It seemed kind of late to be moving into a new town, but that was entirely Josh Moore’s fault. He refused to buy a map, saying he knew exactly where he was going. So far, he had gotten them stuck in three ghettos and once finding himself surrounded by corn stocks.

Envy shook her head at the memory and looked up towards the front of the van to see her father.

“Are we almost there Dad?” she asked.

“About another hour hun,” he replied, looking back at her in the rear view mirror. The teenager nodded her head and went back to staring out the window. Nothing really popped out at her except for the nicely planted trees near the sidewalks.

After that became boring, Envy looked back at her father’s happy face and couldn’t help but smile. Ever since her mother had died, he had played both rolls in her life. He said he didn’t mind being ‘Mr. Mom’, but she knew that he wished his wife was still with them to complete the family.

It was entirely dark now, causing the street lights to turn on, and Josh Moore turned into an empty looking house on the right side of the street.

“Home sweet home. Don’t worry about the boxes; we’ll move everything in tomorrow. All our furniture is inside anyway.”

Envy simply nodded and climbed out of the vehicle, following her father inside.

The house was two stories, the bedrooms and bathrooms up stairs while the kitchen, living room, and washing room were on the first floor. Even though this place was new to her, seeing the comforting furniture she had known all her life made Envy feel more at home.

“Your room is upstairs and to the right. I’m sure you’re tired so head to bed. I’ll follow you in a minute.”

“Okay. Goodnight Dad, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night Envy.”

The girl slowly trudged upstairs and into the plain room that was to be her own. The walls were a dull red, while the floor was a dark wood, probably cherry, that was cold on Envy’s now bare feet.

Not even bothering to change clothes, she jumped right into the unmade bed, and was soon fast asleep.

~~~~~

I awoke to warmth on my face and slowly opened my eyes to adjust them to the light of the early morning sun.

At first, I was pondering why I was in a strange room, different from my own in California. Only a moment passed before I remembered that we had just moved here the day before.

Throwing off the duvet from my body, I walked into the medium sized bathroom connected to my new room, and took a quick shower, just to wash off the dirtiness from the day before. When I walked back into my room with only a towel on, I found a box on my bed marked ‘clothes’. I guess that Dad had put it there while I was in the shower. That or it just magically appeared there. I was going with the former for more logical reasons.

After dressing myself into black jean shorts and a black slim t shirt, I headed down stairs to where I could smell a nice American breakfast being cooked.

“Good morning Dad,” I said with a grin before sitting down at one of the chairs next to the dining table. He turned around real quick to give me a smile before going back to cooking our meal. Or maybe just his meal, but I was hoping he was cooking something for me. If not, I’d just steal his food and blame it on the dog. Crap, never mind, we don’t have a dog.

“There you go,” Dad said, placing a plate in front of me before sitting down in another chair and eating his own breakfast. Guess I didn’t need to blame the non-existent dog after all.

“Are you up for the challenge of moving the boxes into the house and putting everything away?” Dad asked me as he munched on some toast.

“I’d rather leave the box lifting to moving people, but I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

He laughed quietly, nodding his head. “Anything you want to do after that?”

“I’d like to get rid of that ugly red color from my walls.”

“Oh, I have a great idea,” my dad said, almost jumping around in his seat, “Let’s paint the walls white, then take other colors and splatter them all over the wall. How about that?”

I stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was really serious, before I laughed out loud. Dad always did have the weirdest ideas. I agreed with his statement and we continued breakfast, having a conversation here and there. Once our bellies were full, we began the grueling task of moving all the boxes into the house. Even though most of our stuff had already been moved in here, there were many boxes full of our personal belongings and knickknacks.

By the time we finished, it was about noon and everything was in the new house, but only a couple of things were put in their places. Dad and I fell to the couch in unison, letting out a loud sigh.

“Now I wish we had movers, they could have done all the heavy lifting.”

“I suggested it, but you never listen to me.”

My dad pushed me playfully and then got up off the couch.

“Let’s go get that paint so we can get your room done. We’ll save putting everything in place until later.”

“Knowing you, those boxes are going to be there forever and we’ll never really be unpacked.”

Dad spit his tongue out at me before grabbing the van keys and heading out the door. We both climbed into the car, and were soon on our way to the closest home improvement shop.

~~~~~

So, right now, I was standing here in the painting section of the store as my father looked at all the different colors of paint. He had been standing in the same position for about five minutes, and I don’t think he had blinked once yet.

“What are you doing?” I asked after I was fed up of waiting.

“I’m deciding which white to pick. Off white, eggshell white-“

“Does it really matter?” I interrupted, not wanting to hear the list of the thousands of names for one color.

“I guess not…”

“Is there anything that I can help you two with today?”

Both my father and I turned to see a tall man standing there, a half smile on his face. His black hair covered some of his face, but I was able to see his pretty hazel eyes against his pale skin. He had the standard uniform on, and his name tag stated in bold letters that his name was Gerard.

“Thank you son, but I think we’re all good here, just pondering the reason for these names of colors. Master bedroom? This is plainly navy blue.”

I laughed softly against my hand, trying to hide the humor. Gerard smiled and nodded his head in agreement.

“I completely understand where you’re coming from. I think that the people that actually came up with the colors just ran out of words and just used random ones.”

“That would make sense…”

“Well, if you need any assistance, I’ll be wandering around. Have a nice day.”

We bid him goodbye and went back to looking at paints. When we chose our colors, we checked out and walked to the van with plastic bags in our hands.

“That young man was very nice. Seemed very happy to be working there.”

~~~~~

We had gotten home fairly soon, giving us enough time to eat a small lunch and then head up to my room to prepare for the painting process. The first thing we had to accomplish was to cover everything with cloth so that nothing important would be stained. The next was to actually paint the whole room white, the base color.

That took about roughly an hour and a half to complete and longer to actually wait for it to dry. Seeing as we’re not the most patient people in the world, the white wasn’t dry all the way when we started to splatter the other colors on the wall.

“So, this is how it will go. Just dip your hands into the color that you want and aim at the wall. Ready? Go!”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the mess we made, but the two of us somehow managed to not ruin the walls, and it came out pretty decent. Of course, we ourselves couldn’t keep clean, so we looked rainbow-ish.

We were done soon, and were almost completely covered from head to toe in multicolored paint. Dad decided that we should take showers, and I agreed. My dad was out before I was and he was reading this little card with balloons and small writing that I couldn’t read where I was located.

“What’s that?” I asked him, ruffling my hair inside a now damp towel.

“The neighbors wanted us to come over to a little party that they were having. Seems like we came at a perfect time.”

“When is it?” I questioned.

“At 4:30.”

I checked the clock on the wall quickly. “It’s already 4:15 Dad.”

“… Crap.”

He pushed me up the stairs, telling me to do “whatever girls do”, and do it quick. I slipped on a long, orange and yellow stripped shirt with short sleeves and mid thigh black shorts. I just wrapped my hair in a hair tie, threw on some matching makeup, and was downstairs at 4:29.

Dad had put on a brown polo shirt with a little breast pocket with khaki shorts that went a little past his knees. Again, he pushed me out the door and we walked quickly to the house on our left. There were a couple of cars in the drive way, but I’m assuming that some people that lived near had just walked.

We climbed up the three steps and knocked on the door. The person that opened the door was not who I was expecting it to be.