Darling, I Just Can't Go On

"Hey dad?" I asked quietly as I walked into the kitchen, finding him sitting at the kitchen table with a cold beer in his hand and a tired look on his face.

"What Andi?" He sighed, not even looking up at me as he took a swig of his drink.

"I was wondering if you'd maybe let Alex come over on Halloween?" I mumbled, ringing my hands together as my eyes wandered around the room.

"Yeah sure whatever," He said with a wave of the hand.

~~

I was about to head upstairs when I heard a knocking at the door making me change my direction. Jogging over to the door, I pulled it open and was greeted by the sight of Alex in a pair a grey sweats and a plain black zip up with a Nightmare Before Christmas shirt on underneath.

"Let the movies begin!" He said with a small fist pump.

I just laughed and rolled my eyes at him, giving a small wave to signal him to follow me.

"I was just about to go get the movies from my room," I explained as we walked up the stairs, turning to the left to go into my room.

He went and sprawled himself out on my bed as I went to my closet, opening the door and beginning my search for the small bow with my Halloween movies packed away in it. I stood up on the tips of my toes as I grabbed a smallish looking box, almost tripping when I tried to flatten my feet out.

"You okay?" Alex asked when he heard me stumble, getting off the bed to come over and help me.

"Yeah yeah I'm fine," I mumbled as I pulled the lid off the box, revealing something other than movies. "Shit..."

I walked back out into the main room and sank down onto the floor with my legs crossed as I started pulling things from the box.

"Whose camera is that?" He asked as he sat down beside me, picking up on of the pictures I had taken out. "This is really good."

The one in his hands was one that showed three thick trees placed at different points in an expanse of extrememly green grass, pinks and oranges mixed together in a sunset far back on the horizon, the colors peaking out over a think cluster of trees that were out a focus.

I blushed at his words of praise, although he didn't know that the pictures were all mine.

"Thanks," I mumbled as I shuffled through a few more stacks of pictures that had begun to attract dust from the long storage in my closet.

"Wait, you took all of these?" He asked, moving to grab a stack of pictures that I had just put down. "You're an amazing photographer Andi."

"It's been so long since I've seen this stuff," I sighed, thinking back all of the times I spent with my camera around my neck, taking pictures of anything I could.

"Why'd you give it up?" He questioned as I started to put the pictures back. "And can I keep this one?"

I looked down to the picture in his hand, smiling at the memory it held.

It was a sunny day, but the sun had started to makes it's trip down the west, tinging the sky a million shades of beautiful colors. I had been at a park, just sitting in the grass while trying to get the perfect shot of the dandie lions that covered the hill I was on. I happened to look over to my left, finding a lone boy on a park bench with an old acoustic guitar placed on his lap, gently sturmming a few notes.

Without a second thought, I snapped a shot of it, pulling the camera away from my face to see how it had turned out. The boy was silhouetted perfectly, the neck of his guitar barely visable through the breaks in the bench he was perched on. The colors of the sky were swirled together with the puffy clouds that still floated in the sky.

"Yeah, keep it." I said, still smiling as I thought back to the day. "And I just got distracted with other things. My mom had just left and I was just too broken to do anything. I guess I let my one true passion slip away."

"I think you should start up again," Alex said as he took one of my hands to pull me up.

I just shurgged as I set the box on my nightstand, knowing I would want to look through them again later.

"Let's try and find those movies," I sighed befor giving a small laugh at how Alex was looking around the inside of my closet with a clueless expression.

Moving to stand next to him, I looked around too for a few minutes before an orange box caught my eye.

"There it is," I said pointing up to it, the box barely visable behind the various things of clutter up on my shelves.

Alex reached up and grabbed it, almost knocking everything down off of the shelf, making me giggle as I took it from his hands.

We made our way back down the stairs and into the living room, me catching a small glimpse of my dad in his office when we past it. I gave a small sigh at how he had been acting recently, but shook the thought away knowing that I had Alex around.

"Alright," I started to say as I spread the movies out across the coffee table. "You pick a movie, and then come help me get food."

He gave me a mock salute as I left the room, me returning the gesture before entering the kitchen. Going to the pantry, I pulled out a small box with bags of popcorn. Thinking, I decided that we'd end up making all three so I kept the box out.

With one of the bags popping away in the microwave, I moved to the fridge, pulling out a few cans of Mountain Dew just as Alex walked in.]

"I hope these are okay," I said referring to the cans I set down on the counter. "It's the only pop I really drink."

"Yeah that's fine," He said walking over to stand next to me, pulling a yellowish box out of the pocket in his sweats. "I brought something for the popcorn."

"Milk Duds?" I questioned while rasing my eyebrow slightly.

"Have you ever mized a box of these in with your popcorn?" He asked, wide eyed and excited. "It's the most salty, chocolatey sweet thing you'll ever eat."

I rolled my eyes at him as the microwave beeped to signal that the popcorn was done. Getting a large Halloween themed bowl out of a cupboard, I poured the entire bag, giving a small laugh when Alex dumped his entire box of candy into the bowl right after.

"You have to do it when it's hot so that the chocolate will melt!" He defened himself as he grabbed the cans of pop, following me back into the living room.

"Halloween, what an appropriate start to the night." I commented when i saw the movie case that was on top of the small pile he had made up.

I put the movie in the DVD player and pressed play, sitting back against the couch with the popcorn bowl perched on my lap while Alex wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I shifted into his side a bit more as the movie started, grabbing a small handful of popcorn to shove into my mouth.

"Holy shit the Milk Duds make this so much better," I mumbled making the brown haired boy smirk down at me.

"Don't doubt my knowledge of snacks," He joked with a small scoff before getting a small handful himself.

I could already tell it was going to be a fun night, more fun then any of my past Halloween movie marathons.