"Oh honey, your friend left a bag here from when he came with you and Dervik last time you visited. We didn't know who to ship it to or where so I kept it in the safe in my room." She motioned for me to follow and I did

We walked into her bedroom, near the back of the house, on the first floor. Aunt Lou had a hard time with stairs and Uncle John loved stairs. So, ever since their dog, Bucky, died, they've slept in different beds on different floors. Uncle John's room was warm, crowded, and welcoming. Aunt Lou's had barely anything in it and was very cold, with everything, that she did have, in it's place.

She pulled out an old safe from her walk-in closet, spun the dial and it opened. Inside there were all types of 'valuables' ranging from blankets to boxes of jewelry and rare coins. In the very middle of the large metal safe, was Noah's favorite bag.

"I didn't know if you wanted keep the bag, it's falling apart... If you want to listen to the CDs that are in the bag, there's a portable CD player in my office. Or you can use the main 1930s-themed one in the living room." I nodded and kept staring at the fading wrinkled fabric, "And Gwen... we didn't listen to any of the CDs or look at anything. A couple CDs fell out but we didn't listen to them." She gave me a knowing look and a big hug, "I know how it feels."

"Can we not-" I began looking at her with tears in my eyes

"Let John know? Of course we won't! You know how much he liked Noah. He wanted you two to marry!"

"Yea, or how he said we could have the boat for a night or two and winked at us. As if we would do anything!" I laughed and shook my head, dismissing the thought

"Yes." Aunt Lou laughed, "If we do, he'll break down almost as much as he did with Bucky. May God bless his soul. Now go." She waved me away and I quickly walked to her office. I debated whether or not I should dump everything out on the floor, or if I should take things out individually. Deciding not to give two shits, I dumped it all out on the carpeted floor.

At least two dozen CDs fell all over the floor, several t-shirts, obviously worn, and other mismatched things. A couple of breakable items tumbled out but were wrapped in the t-shirts.

"Shit." I whispered, "Are they broken?" I double checked, no they weren't. Thank god.

One of the more recent CDs, was a mix of several different songs including Bruno Mars's Nothing On You or Katy Perry's The One That Got Away. Noah usually didn't like any of the top twenty pop hits but since I liked them, he dealt with them.

Soon more of his CDs popped up among the T-shirts, including but not limited to Panic! At The Disco, The All-American Rejects, Paramore, Def Leppard, The Corrs, Aerosmith, and David Bowie. Most of the T-shirts had those bands and other old ones on them.

I started shifting through the notebooks, a couple were from school but a few had just a number in each pages margin. I wondered what it could all mean.

"This is pretty impressive. Who knew that you could add and subtract in code?" Someone asked leaning against the desk, near the door

Lola.

"What the-?!? Get out! Give me that!!" I ran over to her and ripped the notebook away from her and threw it near the pile

"Chill." She protested but I kept pushing her to the door

"Get the hell away from my family and my brother! No one wants you here! No one wants to anywhere near here! Leave and go back to your boyfriend!" I slammed the door wishing I could text Noah about how much I detested Lola

But I couldn't.

He was dead.