Chapter four of The Wallows (My WIP)

Chapter 3:https://blog.spacehey.com/entry?id=1343472

“You broke his nose?” I ask, sitting on Shawn’s bean bag chair and throwing cheese balls into my mouth.

It’s the morning after now. We’re burning that CD for Tyler. The list he gave us is all over the place, a bunch of songs by some band called My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, All American Rejects, emo shit like that.

“Yeah, I think he took something before we got there. He was surprisingly easy to fuck up.” He clicks something on Limewire. “Have you ever heard of this band before?”
“Which one?” I wipe my cheese dust covered fingers on the bean bag.

“The romance one.”

“I think I saw one of their music videos on MTV. They were in a school or something.” I dig an old cigarette pack out from a hole in the blue bean bag. Shawn hides packs everywhere, under his mattress with some cash, in the vents. Everywhere. Hell, I don’t know how he thinks of some of his hiding spots. 

Shawn’s room is littered with Dr. Pepper cans cigarette butts. His bed is pushed into the corner, burns decorate his blue bed sheets. I hear him cough as he continues to scroll through Limewire. The walls are the same wood paneling that's in every trailer. He’s put up family photos and pictures of his exes (with the faces scribbled out.) Luckily he has a small fan, so it’s not sweltering hot. I lean back and stare at the ceiling as I smoke. 

“How’s Gloria?” I ask.

“She’s fine. Busy, but fine. She’s been going on lots of dates recently.” He shifts and I hear him grunt in frustration.

“Good for her. Do you know who she’s with?”

“Why would I know?” He clicks something and goes “aha”

I look at him and scrunch up my face. “Cause she’s your aunt. How do you not know? She’s a windbag.”

“Just because she talks doesn’t mean I listen.”

I roll my eyes and blow my smoke up into the air. It swirls around in the air, adding to the room’s cigarette stench. My thoughts drift to Keith. Where is he? Part of me hopes he’s okay, the other part tells me I shouldn’t. We live in a nowhere town, what cult would want to be here? He probably just ran away, but that dumb, nagging part of my brain won’t let it go. I need to stop thinking. I sit up and rub my forehead.

“I’m going on a walk.” I wheeze, coughing slightly.

“Yeah, later, Lace.” Shawn says absently.

I walk out of the trailer and regret it. It feels hotter than ever today, and I start to sweat almost immediately. The sun beats down on me. I pull a hair tie off my wrist and put my cherry-colored hair up. I look over at the Tims’ trailer. The kids are running around playing in the sprinklers, wrestling, little kid stuff. I look at the steps, half expecting to see Keith sitting there, reading some science fiction book. To see his messy brown hair sticking up at weird places, to see him chewing his fingernails, to see him wearing one of Stan’s band shirts that's much too big for him. Instead, I see the steps empty and I scold myself for thinking they wouldn’t be. I keep walking until I reach the fence. I sit against the old boards that just keep getting re-painted yellow instead of replaced. I’m surprised it’s not falling because of my weight against it.

I close my eyes and try to think of something else, like that time last summer where Shawn and I were at the lake with his girlfriend at the time. He had thrown her into the water as a joke and you can guess how she reacted. It was pretty fun watching her rip him a new one. She threw his pack of Marlboro Reds into the lake.

“Now you can’t have your cigarettes or me!” She shouted. They broke up after that. We should go back to that lake sometime, maybe without one of his girlfriends.

Thanks for reading!!! It's another short one! 0.o