And They Were Housemates ✓

Chapter I | Ex-Best Friend

Bexon knew he was damned from the start. He knew that from the moment he had agreed to walk into some cheap ninth circle of Hell itself that it was not going to go well for him. The crisp air hit him in the face like a bitch-slap from some parental figure he had growing up, the night sky and lack of lights made the trip from the car to the unknown house even worse.

"I would rather you slam my hand in the car door again," Bexon groaned out loud, as his soon to be ex-best friend dragged him to one of the biggest parties of the year. He was already regretting telling her: "yes" to going in the first place.

Bexon hated parties, he hated the people—who were usually way too drunk for their good, he hated the smelly air that seemed to coat the area in wonders of unpleasant smells that only shitty college parties could master. He hated the assholes who no matter what would dare each other to do things that ended as well as you'd think when two or more drunk people—who already lacked the average amount of brain cells—would when grouped together.

"Oh come on, Bexon," Erin said, matching his energy. "You owe me and this is my request unless you want me to tell everyone about the thing."

He did not want to hear about the time he accidentally left a raccoon in thinking it was one of the stray cats he was feeding. If it happened at his own house he would have thought nothing of it, but as usual, luck was not on his side and the incident happened while he was at his dad's house and years later he has yet to let it go. Grudges were a family trait in the Venturi family.

"I said that I'd go. Not that I was going to have a good time or be gleeful about it, Erin."

Erin rolled her eyes at him and ignored his comment as she pulled him into the house. Even if he wanted to—which he did—there was no way he would be able to make a run for it. She would find him and drag him back to the party, with minimal effort.

Erin pushed her way into the house and while pulling Bexon by the sleeve of his hoodie in with her. Bexon hated the loud sounds of people yelling over even worse music. Out of the handful of parties he had managed to get dragged to ones like this were always much more annoying.

"I'll get us a drink. What do you want?" Erin asked.

"Cherry soda."

Bexon looked around at the old house. It looked like it had long ago been trashed and used for such occasions or for shelter for anyone passing by who needed it. The walls looked like they used to be some shade of white and had somehow turned to a clay shade of brown. Even if the place was clean it would have still looked like shit.

As he looked around Bexon didn't recognize anyone there, even if it was going to be his last year at the college and most of the people there that weren't plus-ones were in a few of his classes. He never had the urge to socialize with anyone there and if he did, they all acted as if he jumped scared them as soon as he opened his mouth to speak.

Which to be fair happened more times than not.

He still wasn't sure how or why Erin was even friends with him. During his first year, she was in one of his biology classes until she switched career paths the next semester. They sat next to each other and unlike Bexon, Erin took quick notes.

Bexon always had trouble writing quickly, the letters more times than not seemed to go in every direction except the correct one. His dyslexia and overall atrocious handwriting didn't work in his favor either. When he had to take notes by hand it was always much worse, typing helped but there would still be several sentences he had to decode almost.

The thing about his friendship with Erin, however, that surprised him was that they had stayed friends for so long.

Fights rarely happened, but when they did it always worked itself out in a few hours which Bexon never understood how. He knew Erin was nearly just as stubborn as he was. However, the thing Bexon found the most ironic was the fact the first words he said to her were along the lines of: "you look like shit," Erin only agreed, and then before he could react she was telling him he didn't look much better. It was the start of a beautiful and chaotic friendship.