Eric

I loved living with James. We started sharing an apartment the summer after our senior year. I was getting the boot and James wanted to get as far away from his family as possible. In all the years we lived together he never explained why that was. I knew that his family had money but James never really took advantage of it. Our place was a hole in the wall on the wrong side of town but James loved it. I don't think he left the house for anything but work for the first couple weeks we were in there. I don't know how he did it. We had nicknamed it the cave, it had these ugly brownish green walls and no matter how many lamps we had going, it always seemed like we were in candle light. It was barely big enough to bring more that one or two people over at a time. But it seemed like every night James was inviting a different person over to give them the tour, which pretty much could be done by standing in the middle of the living room/kitchen and turning around in a circle. James loved doing it though; I think that its cause that apartment was the first thing that he had ever got on his own. Everything his entire life had been given to him, but that apartment, that was his freedom. He no longer had to deal with a family that was pushing him to be something he wasn't. He could just sit on the couch and stare at the hole in the entertainment center that should have been filled with a TV and smile to himself. I don't think I've ever enjoyed living with anyone more than I did with James, even though it was only for a few short months before I went to college. James taught me more about being content with what life gives you than I ever thought possible.