Sorry it took forever to update! xx

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A photo album of my childhood bares itself to the living room, torn open against my will by Sam. It doesn’t look right in his hands and I try to explain it to him but give up the instant his face loses the light bulb behind it. My mother has no patience for trinkets, so the house is barely a home. A few framed photos of me sit on plain, wood and glass coffee tables. My dad is only in one picture, and that’s because Mum thinks that she and I outshine him and uses it as a reminder of how lucky he was to have us and how stupid he was to throw the family away.

The curtains are drawn in the basement. The two soft leather couches occupied by Sam and myself. The sound of some rotten afternoon TV show where he sleeps with her, she sleeps with him he sleeps with him and they get murdered or married plays and someone always has to leave the triangle in these things because some jackass loves one person a little too much but my attention is elsewhere. Not on anything in particular, just…elsewhere. My eyes track to the pile of books and papers that feel it necessary to taint every room in the house: My suspension homework.

Guilt, then nothing, then a hunger slap, then more nothing.

“It’s freezing in here, do you have heating? Or two pieces of wood for a fire at least?” Sam distracts me from my thought.

“Why would a basement need heating? There’s a blanket on that chair.”

He looks over at it, calculates the amount of effort and gives up.

Instead, he puts the photo album on the ground and lights another joint.

The obvious smell lingers as a tell-all to entrants that the occupants of the room need substance to create substance. Mum left a note on the bench before she headed to the office. I can’t remember what it said.

I get twitchy because Sam keeps looking at me. Not staring – just tiny glances like he’s planning something in his head. I flinch when he stands up to get his blanket and he chuckles at me. His laugh sounds like he can’t catch his breath and his stomach and shoulders pulse in unison. He imitates my flinching which actually looks pretty funny, cracking me up too. He wraps the blanket around himself as he heads towards my couch. I don’t want him to come closer because he reminds me of a ghost.

“Zoe finishes school soon. Poor bitch.” I say, eyeing him off in fear. “Get rid of the blanket.”

He does as I say and passes me the joint. “I’ve got my first tv commercial booked.”

“What for?”

“Kase Jeans. I have to push some guy on a swing, wearing only the jeans.”

“Daddy will be so proud of you, Sammy”

Another round of giggling as Sam tries to sit on the couch next to my thigh but misses and lands on his arse. Slapstick is hilarious to me.

“We should watch the three stooges.” I announce. Sam has pulled himself together and sits on the floor with his back leaning against my couch. I play with his recently dyed hair. Honey and blonde pieces poke through the brown and I want to tell him that this color is better than the last but I don’t. I hold up pieces with one hand and I mimic scissors with two fingers on the other hand and pretend that I am cutting his hair. “We should really fucking watch the three stooges.”

“Are they on?”

“No.”

This time we are hysterical. My body feels like it has been exercising as I gasp for air. My hand wraps my stomach, holding my guts inside my skin.

“We have to watch them” Sam squeals between snickers. “Have to watch them.”

Sam actually starts coughing to cease his laughter. He leans forward as I pound his back hard with my fist. He eventually swats me away.

“You saved my life, man.”

I look at the ceiling.

“You can just…piss right off…or something.”

He scrambles up onto his knees slowly and turns around to face me. He rests his elbows on the couch and takes my hand.

“No…I mean it. I mean I know that I’m having a mega funeral with all the big industry names…like the chicks and the annoying guys will cry and shit but you…you’re like the one who’ll look at my stunning corpse and not freak out, you know? Like you’ll actually…I don’t know…talk and not make it lame or something?”

His eyes and curved eyebrows beg me to answer correctly – Sam does not beg. Usually.

I squeeze his hand. “I won’t make it lame if I outlive you.”

He hoists himself up, leans over me and gently collects my lips with his own. It’s awkward and uncomfortable. As he kisses me another cackling fit hits me and I lose it. He retracts his hand from under my shirt. When did that happen?

“Wha…what is it?”

“We have to watch them”

Round five had me rolling off the couch, and splatting onto both Sam and the coffee table. My head smacks the edge of the wooden table but it doesn’t hurt.

“Let’s go find them then. Lets…fuckin’…let’s go to the video store and find the stooges…let’s go Teddy.”

Sam tries to pry his leg out from underneath my back. I don’t move.

“I have to go to see Fiona tomorrow.”

“The touchy feely counselor bitch? Jesus. School man…I tell ya.”

I stare at the ceiling and I can feel something oozing down my face. Sweat probably. I can feel the tickly sweat departing from my forehead and trickling down past my eyebrow, to my temple and dripping from my ear onto the rug.

“I think she’s sad. There’s something melancholic about her.”

“She deals with rich kids all day. That’s miserable enough. Get off my leg!”

I roll onto my side to aid the getting up process, freeing Sam.

Sweat? Since when was it hot in here?

I touch my forehead as I kneel up and then look at my fingers: red and glistening in the light of the T.V.

“Woah.” Is all that comes out of my mouth.

Urgency kicks in. We both jump up.

“Don’t die Teddy, please don’t die…Oh shit.”

When something bad happens, people often say ‘oh shit’. I notice that they say it in a different way to the usual way people say the word though. They drag out the ‘sh’ part. For dramatic effect? I don’t know. Maybe they feel that it emphasizes the importance of the situation. Could everyone understand the importance of other ares of life as well if we just sound out certain parts of the word? Don’t drrrrrrrink and drrrrive, ssssssssafe sssex, no violencccccce, drugsss kiiiii…

“Ted!” Sam snaps.

“Sam! You blank-faced fool! I was onto some really deep, philosophical shit there. I figured out how to save the world!”

“Oh crap. Sorry man, it’s just that the blood is really going strong…I don’t want all your blood to go.”

“What’s a bit of blood when I can save humanity?”

He ponders this thoroughly. “Touche. How are you saving the world, hero?”

I sort through the file cabinet in my head. Come on! I was onto this a few seconds ago. Seconds. Seconds. The harder I try to remember, the further and further and further away it gets until…

“You know what? I can’t fucking remember.”

The edges of the furniture go fuzzy. The T.v is brighter than before.

“Call Zoe.” I croak. “She’s got her car.”

The ground is shaky like an earthquake. I watch the world collapse in front of me as my knees betray my dependency.

Static.

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Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed this chapter and if it was a little confusing.

So much thanks to my darling reviewers Sychaeus and KnittingKneedle.

Sundown

xx