The Religious & The Damaged (UNDER EDITING)

1

Elias

  I walk into the new apartment I would share with my dad, and I drop the box I held onto the floor as my eyes travel around to take in the new environment.

  It's pretty shitty, but so is the situation. My mom just passed from stage three liver cancer and dad has been pretending that the whole thing never happened, and he never really acknowledged it to begin with.

  I took care of everything and when she passed, I fell into a deep depression and tried to kill myself. He didn't acknowledge that either. Dad hates confrontation. So needless to say, my life was pretty fucking miserable—still is, actually. I mean, we didn't even have a funeral. It wasn't because he didn't love her or she didn't love him, they loved each other dearly, but dad, well, you know. He hates confrontation, his confrontation was alcohol. I can't be too upset with him, I guess. He's hurting, though he has a funny way of showing it.

  "Hey, I got the last boxes. Why don't you go and explore the building?" Dad suggests. I just nod. I walk past him and leave the apartment—the door automatically closes behind me. I look around.

  The walls are this yellow color, that obviously used to be white at some point. The wallpaper is hanging by a thread, and the halls smell of cigarettes and musk—I assume it's coming from the carpet because of the numerous stains of different sorts, burns, and just the look of it is enough to tell me so.

  "What a shit show." I say to myself before heading down the hall and down the assortment of stairs until I'm at the lobby because—as if this place couldn't get any shittier—the elevator is out of order.

  I push open the door, but stop in the doorway. In front of me are two kids that seem about my age—a girl and a boy. They just stare at me, seemingly astonished by my presence.

  I move to the side, just thinking they're waiting for me to move, but they just stand there. What is their problem?

  "..Is something the matter?" I ask. They look at each other before settling their gazes on me again, and the boy speaks.

  "Shit. Sorry." He starts. "We just- You're new to the building?"

  I nod. "Yeah?"

  He looks more surprised than before and a smile tugs at his lips, showing his somewhat stained yellow teeth. "That's insane."

  "Why?"

  "I'm Nick." He says instead, and he holds his hand out in a fist, ready to receive a fist bump.

  I furrow my brows as I hesitantly return the gesture. "Yeah.. I'm Elias." I say, my voice audibly confused and awkward.

  He gestures to the girl, who has been smiling softly this whole time and says, "Kelsey. We live on the third floor. Room 301 and 310." He points appropriately between them as he tells the room numbers. I'm still just as confused as I was 15 seconds ago.

  "Fifth floor. I just moved in with my dad in 503." I reply, and now that greetings are out of the way, I bring back up the awkward encounter from before. "What was the whole freakout about when I said I moved in?"

  Nick laughs. "Oh, right. It's just no one new has moved in since forever, like since I moved in and I've been here my whole life."