College or Cribs

Chapter 1
Home

Chapter Description: Meet Chris's loved ones.

Chapter 1- Home

Getting home for the summer, Chris did not quite get the overwhelmingy warm welcome he had expected. It’s not that he was shunned, but they weren’t rolling out the red carpet for him either. Chris wasn’t terribly surprised, but was a little disappointed as he had built up a slightly elaborate scene in his head during the long drive back from the university.

It was getting late when Chris pulled up to his house. The driveway was clear, and an open garage showed Dad’s car to be missing. No surprise there, really; Chris’s father was the head of the ER department at the local hospital. His work and sleep schedule was often erratic to say the least.

Chris could tell that the lights were on, and that Roxanne, his step-mother, was home. This was indicated by her signature red mini-van aka. "The Mom Mobile" that she drove her children, Chris’s half sisters around in. Barring some end-of-school slumber party, the girls would be home too.

As Chris walked into the big two-story house, his senses came alive with the remembered nostlgia of his childhood. The laundry room, which was next to the garage, smelled always of clean smelling detergent. The room hummed and buzzed as the washer and dryer did their work; never able to truly rest as the entire family was constantly putting them to use. Chris wasted no time unpacking his suitcase filled with dirty clothes and dumping it into the laundry basket to be washed later.

He walked from the laundry room and cautiously poked his head out into the main living room of the house, as if expecting to be ambushed. "Hello?", Chris called out, "I’m home." Chris braced himself. The last few times he had been home, his little sisters had practically tackled him. Tonight, the girls barely looked up from what they were doing.

"Heeeeeey." They lazily sang out in unison without making eye contact.

"Welcome back," the older of his too sisters, Samantha, added on. If Chris’s memory was correct, Samantha had just finished 5th grade. Like her mother, Sammy had a track star’s build and blonde hair. Since puberty hadn’t quite set in yet though, (thank God for that, nothing makes you feel older than the thought of your baby sisters actually growing up), Sammy was still very much a bean pole.

The house was more or less designed as a large common area with closed off bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs and along the periphery. All that separated most of the main rooms were large arcways that likely did a better job of symbolising that you were in another area of the house than actually separating the rooms off. Thus, from the family room, Chris could clearly see that Sammy was sitting at the dinner table, reading a book while listening to (if instagram could be trusted) One Direction on her iPod.

Brianna on the other hand, was plopped on the couch, her tongue poking out a bit as she was engrossed in a Mario game for the Wii. Like Chris and their father, Bri’s hair was less blonde and more of a dark chestnut. In the right light, it might even pass for black. Unlike her sister, Bri had yet to lose her baby fat, but didn’t seem too concerned one way or the other.

In fact, just by looking at them, or seeing them behave, you might not know they were related. Sammy was becoming a bit of a girly girl, and had begun to beg her mother to take her shopping for some real makeup; while Bri was becoming both a Tomboy and a bit of an oddball. Chris couln’t think of the last time Bri was in a dress, and even though she’d be going into fourth grade this fall, she still had the habbit of shouting gibberish in squeaky voices for no other reason than it amused her.

She had obviously not grown out of this, yet, as she started to berate a group of green turtles on the video screen. "Stooopid toota foota boo boo caca!" she whooped and half yelled as her Mario jumped on their backs.

"Brianna," a tired voice called out, "would you please stop yelling at the T.V. screen? Mommy is starting to get a headache." Roxanne, walked in. "Oh, hey Chris," she said pleasantly, "you’re here a little earlier than I expected. I figured you wouldn’t have arrived till late when everyone was asleep."

"Yeah," Chris said, stretching a little, "I guess I burned rubber getting here. Dad at work?"

"Yeah," Roxanne yawned as she ran a hand through her curly blonde locks, "he’ll be back late tonight and should be up and about by lunch. We just finished dinner, but there’s plenty in the fridge, help yourself." she gestured over to the kitchen area. "Sorry I’m so tired," she added, "I just haven’t been sleeping well lately." Chris nodded knowinglyl and walked over to the fridge.

At age 40, Roxanne Cole was a trophy wife that hadn’t yet lost all of her sheen. Chris’s father married her about a year after Cole’s mother’s death. It was a little soon for Chris, but he wanted his dad to be happy. The birth of Samantha "Sammy" Cole relatively soon after lead Chris to believe that maybe Dad had forgotten how to use a condom, which led to wedding bells.

Still, Roxanne was a pretty cool person, and a decent step-mom to Chris. She had never played the "you can call me mom if you want" card, which is good since it would have blown up in her face. Instead, she had just been another adult, and a friendly one at that. As he had gotten older, she had treated him more and more as an equal and as a friend; especially since he had gone off to college.

Still, Chris always felt a little tense around Roxanne; not out of resentment, but out of guilt. Let’s just say that Christopher and his father had similar taste in women. Combine that with his emerging fetish growing up and the fact that Roxanne wasn’t his real mother- thus making the idea seem less gross- gave Chris more than a bit of an Oedipal complex.

It got a lot easier as he entered high school and girls his own age started becoming attractive. Sherry alone counted for more old socks being defiled than he could count. It also didn’t hurt that the girls were growing up, and so the sounds of Roxanne’s coos and baby-talk had stopped ringing in Chris’s ears; though for some reason Roxanne had never fully made the transition from calling herself "Mommy" to just "Mom".

But that didn’t change the fact that Chris’s first few remembered wet dreams were basically memories of Roxanne mothering his then baby sisters, only with the girls completely edited out and him taking their place. Pink nurseries would become blue, add in some half-remembered motherese replacing all instances of names with his own, and BAM! Instant wet dream.

Chris made himself a sandwhich and sat down at the dinner table, munching on ham and cheese while Samantha continued reading her book. He was polite enough to ask what she was reading, but didn’t really see the appeal. It was something about a bunch of cats that lived in the forest and talked to their ancestors while fighting other cats or something. Silly stuff. Then again, when he was Sammy’s age, he read a book series about kids who turned into animals to fight off a secret alien invasion. So who was he to judge.

After giving him a ramshackle description of the book, Sammy went back to listening to boy bands on her iPod and happily ignored him. God, she was turning into such a tween. Chris chuckled to himself as he felt sorry for what Roxanne was likely to endure in the coming years.

Brianna, perhaps uncharacteristically invited Chris to play the Mario game with her. This newest version had a co-op mode where Mario and Luigi could be on the screen at the same time. Unfortunately, characters could also pick each other up and throw on another. Bri seemed to enjoy picking up Chris’s Luigi and throwing him off a cliff rather than play the game as intended. Worse yet, Chris couldn’t figure out how to retaliate and Bri just laughed at his cries of "No fair!" and "Stop!"

"Oh, you like laughing, do ya?" Chris finally said as he set his controller down. He flashed an evil smile that Tom reserved for Jerry, and in his most over the top delivery he shouted, "WELL WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?!" He then proceeded to pin his youngest sister down to the couch and tickle her as she squirmed. Her cries for help from her older sister went unheeded. Sammy had faced the tickle monster’s wrath one time too many times and her developing tween coolness wouldn’t allow her to debase herself, besides.

Finally, Roxanne’s headache broke the laughing massacre up, and Chris relented. Then with a shit eating grin that Jerry reserved for Tom, Bri held up the Wii remote and asked "Wanna play some more?" Chris only shook his head. Bri always has been a button pusher, even knowing she’ll be on the losing end.

Chris walked by the hot pink room that was Sammy’s, and the almost neon green room that was Bri’s, before going up the stairs to his own room. "Oh, just so you know," Roxanne called after him, "I cleaned out the attic a few weeks ago, and I found some of your old toys. I didn’t know if you wanted to keep them for old time’s sake, or what so I just put them up in your room."

"Kay!" Chris called down as he continued climbing the stairs into his old room. With the exception of being much tidier, it was exactly as he had left it; a veritable time capsule of his high school years. Posters of bands that were now defunct were on the walls, his bed was in the corner, and his trophy case with various awards that he had earned since grade school adorned the far wall.

Most importantly though, undisturbed, was his old desktop. He turned it on, and signed on to google mail instantly. Just as planned, and promised, Sherry was there waiting for him. He messaged her.

Colev4.0: I’m home

SunnySher: Yay! Me too!

Colev4.0: How long you been home?

SunnySher: Couple hours. But just got on.

SunnySher: Figured I’d beat ya.

Colev4.0: Well you did.

Colev4.0: How were your finals?

SunnySher: Good enough. You?

Colev4.0: Brutal. But done with.

SunnySher: Good.

Cole4.0: Wanna go out tonight?

SunnySher: Can’t.

SunnySher: Mom and dad want to spend some quality time.

Cole4.0: Oh

SunnySher: Tomorrow?

Cole4.0: Sure! What time?

SunnySher: How about 6:00?

Cole4.0: Deal.

SunnySher: BTW. Tried to call you today. Charge your damn phone! :)

Cole4.0: Have to unpack it first. Might have left it at school.

SunnySher: :(

Cole4.0: Don’t worry, we’ll see each other enough that we won’t need phones.

SunnySher: Promise?

Cole4.0: Promise. See you tomorrow?

SunnySher: Promise.

Cole4.0: Ok then. I’ll pick you up at 6:00. I’m gonna go to bed, now.

Cole4.0: Feeling sheepy

Cole4.0 *sleepy

SunnySher: Ok. Night, babe! Love you!

Cole4.0: Love you too!

His date set up for tomorrow, and feeling genuinely tired from all the driving, Chris logged off and walked over to his bed. Sure enough, an old friend was besides his pillow, waiting for him. Wubby, his stuffed teddy bear, sat up looking at him, plaintively, as if to say "You’re back, please love me." Chris hadn’t seen the old brown bear in years, and had assumed him lost to the ravages of time. He picked the bear up and turned it over in his hands.

It had the same well worn stitching, the same fluff stufing on the inside that didn’t quite puff anymore, and the same off-colored stains where the poor thing had been dropped in the mud more than a few times. Wubby was just as Chris had always remembered him. Chris had had Wubby since as far back as he could remembered.

Wubby had originally been a gift from his mother that he had stubbornly clung too after she had died. Even after he had gotten over his mother’s death, Wubby retained a place of prominence in Chris’s room for years. Even Chris’s friends didn’t give him guff about keeping a stuffed animal well into high school. They understood the sentimental value; and it’s not like Chris had taken to carrying it around everywhere like Linus and his blanket. But somehow, the poor thing just seemed to vanish one day while Chris was at school, and Chris had long ago given up looking for it. This was indeed a welcome surprise.

One thing did stand out about Wubby, though; his eyes. Chris could have sworn that they were ordinary black bead eyes, but now looking at them they seemed difference. The left eye was a bright red, and the right eye was an equally bright blue. It was like Wubby’s eyes had been replaced with those old fashioned 3-D glasses from the 1950’s. They seemed to glitter a bit too, almost like gems. Still, it wasn’t nearly enough to throw the bear’s identity into qustion. This was Wubby alright.

Chris looked to the left, and right conspiratorially, as if there might be hidden cameras in his old room. He locked the door, just in case. He stripped his clothes off and threw back the sheets to his bed before climbing in. Just because he wasn’t going to be in diapers for the next couple of months, doesn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy and relax while doing other babyish things. With that thought, he cuddled his old friend, Wubby the bear, under one arm, while popping a thumb in his mouth with the other. He sucked on his thumb idly as unconsciousness claimed him.