Forever Alone - 1. Chapter 1

There’s a famous quote that goes something like “You are born into this world alone, and you will die alone.” I never believed this quote was true because I wasn’t born alone, for you see I have a twin sister. Her name is Julie and as children growing up in a small town near Portland we did everything together. She was my best friend in the whole world and nothing could tear us apart, that is until we turned eighteen. When we were growing up my parents always said that as soon as we turn eighteen we were out of the house. It was at this time that my sister and I went our separate ways. Julie went off to college in another state and lived on campus, whereas I moved into a single bedroom apartment a few blocks down the road from my parents.

While in high school I took a part-time job at the local department store and managed to save up some money, more than enough for first and last months’ rent. I was never interested in school and spent most of my time writing in my journal capturing my thoughts and dreams. I knew as soon as I finished high school that I would go off on my own and explore the world creating many experiences that I could write about.

It’s been a year since Julie and I graduated high school and I’ve been working full-time at the department store trying to save up enough money to start my adventure. The pay was very good as Peter, the store owner, gave me a substantial raise when I agreed to work full-time. I was always very loyal at work, was never late, and made sure to treat all of our customers with respect. He appreciated this since good help was hard to find in a small town and we always needed two people in the store at all times. One person to help customers and work the cash register, while the other stocked shelves and dealt with deliveries from suppliers. Peter was getting older and I guess all my talk of exploring the world has influenced him quite a bit. He wanted to spend more time away from the store so he could take vacations in exotic places and spend more time with his grand kids.

It was last week when Peter decided it was time to hire another full-time worker and he already had someone in mind. When he told me his plans and that the new employee was starting today after lunch I was shocked and wasn’t prepared for this. Peter then surprised me by saying he was promoting me to Assistant Manager with a five dollar an hour pay raise and he would look for me to run the store while he took some much needed time off. This came as a pleasant surprise and I was jumping for joy as the extra money will allow me to reach my goal of travelling the earth sooner. I asked Peter to tell me more about the new employee he hired. He told me he was a young fellow he knew from church and was very similar to me. We were both the same age, nineteen years old, both very shy and didn’t like to step outside our comfort zones, and we looked a lot alike since we both had brown hair and brown eyes. It sounded like we had a lot in common and will get along very well, other than the fact he went to church and I didn’t. The rest of the morning flew by as I stared off into space day dreaming about getting closer to my dream of travelling the world. As I went deeper into thought I couldn’t help to think about the second part of the quote, the part where you will die alone. I always believed this to be true and knew that when I die, I will die alone. That is until I saw my new co-worker walk in the front door.