Fell In Love In Stages // a matty healy fanfic

She Lays Down

In the car, Matty pauses before turning the key in the ignition, and for a brief moment, my eyes close, struggling to keep my head from nodding off.
"Oh, Jesus", he says and I jerk back upright, my eyes shooting wide open. "First sleepless night?", he asks.
"First ever. I don't understand how you're so alert."
"Practice", he says
His hand still hovering over the keys, he begins to say something, but then stops himself.
"What is it, Healy?" I ask, my eyes still close
"It's nothing. Stupid idea." He says, brushing it off
"I'm open to stupid ideas" I say, yawning halfway through the sentence
"What you need is coffee. But first...", he trails off, fiddling with the car stereo, and then a screeching wave of sound, complete with a screaming, gravelly voice, filled the car from speakers all around us. He turns the volume up to maximum and the windows vibrate so hard I fear they may shatter from the sheer decibel.
"What is this?" I scream, fully awake now
"That's Black Flag" he screams in return, bopping his head to the beat. "This oughta keep you awake!"
He leans forward, reaching for the keys, and then turns over the engine.

Our first stop is a coffee shop and when we get there, he slams the brakes, tossing me into the triangular embrace of the seat belt.
"Soz" he says, "A bit amped up this morning"
"You're gonna be the death of me" I half-joke
"That day is not today", he says with the widest grin. "So. How do you like your coffee?"
"Black, with a dollop of cream; no sugar" I say.
"That's entirely strange"
"Well how do you like yours, then?"
"I like the instant rubbish kind"

We talk about life, and our place here on earth, only pausing to take a sip of our coffee.
"I always feel like I'm not happy. I must be doing something wrong." He says, a little perplexed
"No you're not. You're just going through the human experience."
He takes a moment to mull it over and says, "isn't it just confusing, being a person?"
I nod and take my last sip.
"That was just what I needed" I say, feeling energised.
"Next stop. Buckle up."
"Where are we going?" I ask
In response, he just turned the music back on and slammed the gas pedal.

We made a wheels-screeching turn into a subdivision, with a row of detached houses, separated by trees. We jerked to a halt in his driveway. I recognised the side of the house from the night we went to The Shed. It looked much nicer from the front.
"What are we doing here?"
"Come on" he says, taking my hand and I followed him inside.
A wooden plaque in the entry-way was engraved in cursive with the words Home Is Where The Heart Is. Matty makes it a point to scoff at it before walking towards the staircase. He takes a step and pauses, his right leg restlessly perched on a step higher.
"Mom, dad", he says, "this is my friend Trinity".
His mom emerges from the kitchen wearing a 'hot stove, hot chef' apron over her dressing gown.
"Oh hi dearie, aren't you lovely" she says warmly.
She didn't seem too surprised by my arrival, which made sense: The fact that Matty made me feel special did not necessarily indicate that I was special. Maybe he brought home a different girl every night to take her to his room and feel her up. Nonetheless, I extended my hand, the picture of class, saying, "Hello Mrs. Healy, I'm Trinity Hastings"
"Oh call me Denise." she smiles while taking my hand
"We're going up to my room now" he says, taking another hurried step.
"Of course, but first, Matty dear, If I could have a moment. Trinity, if you'll excuse us" she turns to me, the smile never leaving her face.
She takes him into the kitchen, then leans in and says something softly. I couldn't hear a word she was saying but then I hear Matty say, "No, I don't think I will" with blatant disregard to who was listening. He grabs my hand and we make our way up carpeted stairs to his huge bedroom. A floor to ceiling shelf lined with hardcover books covered the entirety of one side of the wall. Adjacent to it was a glass cabinet stuffed solid with music memorabilia: dozens of trophies, certificates, vinyl records, signed CDs, drum sticks, guitar picks, you name it.
I, however, found myself pulled towards the painting that hung on his door that he called, "Pettibon". It was a colourful spiral, or maybe a multicoloured rose, or a whirlpool. By some trick of the curved lines, my eyes got lost in the painting so that I kept having to refocus on tiny individual pieces of it. It didn't feel like something I was looking at so much as something I was a part of. I felt a sudden urge to grab the painting off the door and running away with it.
I jumped a little when Matty placed his hand on the small of my back.
"Raymond Pettibon. He's most famous for his paintings of surfers, but I like his spirals. He was a punk musician before he became an artist. He was in Black Flag before it was Black Flag."

I sat down on the bed expecting him to join me, but he grabbed his guitar and sat on the floor in front of me.
"So I wrote a song", he says, cutting the tension in the air. "It's about my mom and it's called 'She Lays Down".