Prompt: You go to your best friends house and find a skeleton in your closet. Is it a real skeleton, or a proverbial one? If it is real, whose skeleton is it and why is it in their closet? If it is proverbial, then what is their secret?
Jenson and Kevin have been friends since the third grade. There isn’t anything they keep from each other, or so Kevin thought. It all changed one night in October when Jenson invited him over to his house for dinner.
It should have been like any other dinner they’d spent together. But this time was different. On this night, Jenson was busy cooking spaghetti when his phone rang. As he answered it, he asked Kevin to take over. He began stirring the spaghetti sauce until it splattered all over his shirt, slightly burning his skin underneath.
He turned the stove down and tried to find Jenson, but he was nowhere around. He knew where his friend’s bedroom was though, so he headed up the stairs and into his friend’s room to change. His friend was at least a size bigger than he was, but a baggy shirt would be better than what he had on.
Kevin had been in his friend’s bedroom briefly, but never for long. Jenson had always said there wasn’t much to see, and he kept the door closed most of the time. Still, his friend was nowhere to be found, and Kevin needed to change shirts. He cracked the door open slightly and slipped into the room. It was dark, so he fumbled around on the wall with his hand until he found the light switch. He turned the light on, and looked around. His friend’s room was bare, with just a dresser, bed and a closet door. There was one lamp on the dresser, and the bed was made over with a blue quilt.
Kevin crossed to the dresser and pulled open a drawer. It was full of old baseball cards. He quickly closed it and grabbed another one. There were five drawers total, and in each one, he found junk but no clothes. He sighed and made his way to the closet. He needed to hurry up before Jenson found him missing from the stove. Besides, he didn’t want their dinner to burn.
Kevin yanked open the closet door. There were a few clothes hanging up, but not much and the closet was nothing like the bedroom had been. It was messy, with shoes and clothing scattered across the floor. Everything hanging up was either a suit jacket or pants. He sighed and began moving things around on the floor. There had to be a shirt he could borrow somewhere in here!
Near the back of the closet, he finally found a pile of t-shirts. It looked like they’d been folded, but now they were just tossed into a pile. He grabbed one off the top, and then stepped back to close the closet door when he saw it. He froze as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the closet, and he tried to make sure he was seeing it right. He was. There was no denying it.
There, in the back corner of the closet, was a skeleton. Not a fake skeleton like the kind you see at Halloween, but a real Skeleton. Kevin started to scream, then put his hand over his mouth. His heart raced as Kevin tried to figure out what to do next. He’d known Jenson a long time, and he’d always felt safe with his friend, but now he knew why he didn’t want him in his room. What else was he trying to hide?
My A-muse-ing Life 