Your Nickle Ain't Worth My Dime (A Sleeping with Sirens fan fiction)

Better Luck Next Time

*Mariah's POV* 

~The day after the last show of warped tour~

I put my book down on the coffee table and grabbed my phone as it rang. Face time call from Kellin Quinn. It was getting more normal as time went on, but seeing Kellin's name pop up on my phone still felt like a dream.

I answered. "Hello, Kellin."

"Hiiiiiiiii!" a chorus of voices blasted through the speakers. Jesse, Jack, Justin, and Gabe were all sitting around Kellin, stuffing their mouths with some fast food.

"Hi, all the rest of you! What's going on?"

I didn't really hear what they were saying for two reasons. One: their mouths were all full. Two: I was focused more on the old man in the background with a long, gray beard, a camoflauge hat, and a torn shirt that barely began to cover his beer gut who was waving at me through the camera.

"Um, where are you guys?" I asked.

"We are at a rest stop on the side of some highway somewhere," answered Kellin. "Why?"

"Well, there is some strange man behind you completely eavesdropping on this conversation, and I couldn't think of a restauramt that sold pizza and bagels in the place."

They all turned around slowly, and the man waved to them. Oddly enough, they waved back and he walked away. "He was a nice man," Jack said dreamily.

"Suuuurreee," I said.

Kellin got up, taking his phone with him. "Mariah, I'm scared," he said suddenly serious.

"Of what?" I asked him.

He took a seat at a different table. "To go home and talk to Katelynne."

"Oh."

"Just 'oh'? Not even a 'good luck'?"

"Sorry! Good luck!"

"Thanks. We'll talk to you later, okay?"

I nodded and he hung up. 

**

~Two days later~ 

It was almost 11 o'clock at night. Jamie, Jeydon, and I had just finished Skyping with Damon. It was so much better when all of us were together.

"What now?" Jamie asked.

"We could-" I was interrupted by a knock at the door. "We could answer the door."

"Who would be here this late?" Jeydon asked.

I shrugged, but answered the door anyways. It was almost like deja vu. Kellin Quinn stood outside my house, wiping his eyes and sniffling, like he'd just been crying. "Kellin, what's wrong? What happened?"

He came inside and gave me a weak smile. "Is that how you greet somebody?"

"When they show up at my door in the middle of the night crying, that is how I greet people."

Jamie got up from her spot on the couch and came over to Kellin. "Are you okay?"

He shook his head.

"Do you want to sit down and we can make you food?" I offered, gesturing to the couch.

"You don't have to," he said. "I just came here because I knew I could talk to you."

"And you can. You can stay here tonight too," I said softly. "If you want to. I mean, its really late and you probably just drove like 16 hours to get here and-"

He smiled at me, shutting me up. "Thanks." He fell onto the couch, slouching down and rubbing his eyes.

Jeydon stood up and followed me to the kitchen. "Do you really think this is a good idea?" he asked. I just looked at him. Was he out of his mind? "I mean- all I'm trying to say is that you barely know him."

"You're right," I said, grabbing a plate out of the cupboard. Jeydon let out a sigh of relief. "Kind of," I added. "I don't really know him, but I know that he is upset and came to my house for help. So that's what he's getting."

"You're serious about this?"

"Yes. Now do you want some pizza too or am I just heating some up for Kellin?"

He pulled himself up to sit on the counter next to me. "I guess I'll take one." 

------ 

*Kellin's POV* 

~flashback~

I walked into my house, dropping my keys onto the table. "Honey, I'm home!" I called out.

Copeland came running out of the kitchen with her thin blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail on the top of her head. I picked her up and kissed her cheek. "Hi, honey."

Katelynne came around the corner next. She, however, did not look happy at all to see me. Her arms were crossed against her chest and she was biting her lip to keep from crying.

I took a step closer to her, my free arm open to pull her in, but she stepped back, pushing herself against the wall. "What's the matter, ba-?"

"Don't call me that," she said sternly. "Don't call me anything. Just get all of your things and get out of my house."

I dropped my arm. "You don't mean what I think you me-"

"Yes," she whispered. The shake in her voice, and in her hands as she took Copeland from me, broke my heart.

"I didn't want-"

"Kellin, just go." She turned around, holding my daughter tightly in her arms, and her big baby eyes watched after me as I walked upstairs.

I didn't want to leave, but Katelynne didn't want me here, so I packed all of my things, and drove away. 

~end of flashback~

The plate my pizza had been on was now sitting on the couch next to me. Jamie had fallen asleep on the recliner. Jeydon was sitting on the floor, his back leaning against the couch, and he looked like he could be next.

I was exhausted, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw Katelynne crying and taking Copeland away from me. The TV was playing some reruns of something that I couldn't pay attention to. Next to me, Mariah had her earbuds in blasting Pierce The Veil, and a book open on her lap. It was nearly 3 in the morning, and she didn't look tired at all.

I elbowed her leg lightly. She put her iPod in the pages that she was on, and I felt kind of bad. She couldn't have had more than 100 pages left.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"I need some distraction," I told her.

"Okay." She put her book down on the table in front of her. "How shall I distract you?"

I looked around the room, my eyes landing in the propped open book on the coffee table. "What's that about?"

She smiled and picked the book back up. The front read Until The End by Christopher Pike. "I've read this book three time, including this one. Its my favorite book, and Christopher Pike is my favorite author."

"Then it must be good. Tell me about it."

"I hope you know how much you're getting yourself into by asking me about a book," she warned.

"I guess I will find out."

It was a murder mystery about a girl who was killed at a party, and all of her friends spent the rest of the book, a whole 700 and something pages, finding out the murderer.

"And then its a whole plot twist that nobody expected. Ever. Which is how a lot of Pike's books end," she finished.

"Wow," I yawned.

"I'm sorry," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I bored you."

"No, no," I assured her. "Not at all."

"Then why do you look like you're about to fall asleep?"

"I've just-" I yawned again.

"Had a long day," she finished for me. I nodded. "I get it." She stood up, throwing a blanket to me from across the room. "The couch is all yours."

She woke up Jeydon, telling him to go upstairs. Then she covered Jamie with a blanket and went up after Jeydon.

I fell asleep, dreaming of a high school murder mystery instead of my screwed up life.