Christin

 

Alphonso and his 60,000 fashion magazines, along with my stuff were jammed into my Nissan Sentra and we were off.

We drove 16 hours to Washington State. The journey from California to Washington was a somber one. We stopped and saw Mt. Shasta and a few beaches on the way. But in the back of my mind, I kept doubting my decision to leave. I almost turned my car around a few times. I wanted to go back. I wanted to see Freddie. I just wanted so much that my mind was overwhelmed with thoughts of the future and of my past.

As we arrived in Federal Way, a suburb of Seattle, a place that we randomly chose, there was no going back. I was onto a new adventure and a new chapter in my life. Once in Federal Way, we found this cute 3rd story apartment overlooking the Puget Sound. Apartment B303.Little did I know at that time how this apartment and the people in it were going to influence my life forever. But we will get to that later.

Once we moved in, everything was very quiet and uneventful. Alphonso could be seen any given day watching endless episodes of “Sex and the City”. Things were mundane for the first few months and then it changed.

I woke up one morning to people sleeping in my living room. I thought I was seeing things as it was very early in the morning. I wasn’t. I figured they were friends of Alphonso’s and left for work thinking they would be gone when I got home. They weren’t. So that evening I pulled Alphonso aside and asked “What are these people doing here”. He responded in his normal nonchalant way “They need a place to stay”. I agreed, however I didn’t think it was going to be for an extended amount of time, maybe just a day or two. I was wrong.

So technically, this is how Jen and I met. Jen was sleeping in my living room one morning. First impression: She had big hair and looked Indian (not native American). The other person sleeping in my living room turned out to be Pat. He had the bluest eyes I had ever seen. That in itself should have been a red flag for all of us. But you will have to stay tuned for that story.

Oddly enough, Jen, Alphonso and I became close friends. We were different in a lot of ways but we did have some similarities. First of all, we are all Cancers. Jen and I actually share a birthday. We all were far away from our families. Most importantly, I feel like we all were a little (or a lot) lost.

So there we were, an interesting threesome. Jen with the big hair, “interesting” fashion sense and somewhat reserved personality (until she got a few drinks in her), Alphonso with the perfect eyebrows, his art pad and a sarcastic sense of humor, and me. I was barely 21, didn’t know much about anything, extremely naïve and was desperately trying to figure out who I was.

Three different people who found themselves in that apartment. Apartment B303.