Not Important

Home Or House?

I wake up in a heap on the floor. Looking around, I find I'm in a house. There's settees, a TV, and a fireplace. Well, it could be anyone's house.

I sit up, and the pounding headache starts. Damn. It's even worse than last time. Trying to focus on anything but the headaches, I focus on my surroundings. It looks familiar, really. Not the furniture, but the shape of the room. I walk through to the kitchen, and find that it's quite a mess. Not only is the kitchen's tiles dug up and piled in a corner, but there's no cupboards, fridge or any other things you'd normally find in your every-day kitchen.

Besides that, there's a cup on a part of the counter that is still there. The cup has a chip in it, but besides that, it's alright. It says 'Daddy Cool' on it.

Oh crap.

What the hell happened to my house?!?!?!

There's furniture in the living room, my kitchens a mess, and who knows what else? If Crazy Joe became a billionaire overnight and gave this place a makeover to become his LoveShack, I will kill him.

I check my phone to see no phone calls, no messages, no nothing. Except, there is one message. It's from an unknown.

'Remember:*pm'.
*=9. Wow, how did I forget? Today's the day. The day that I kill my mom. Once and for all. And it's already 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Okay, I have 7 hours left. 6 hours before I have to leave, and I still need to find out what happened here. Okay, what is the possibility that Crazy Joe became rich and made my house into a LoveShack?

I need to find out who did this though. First of all, the mail. I walk to the side in the hall and find that there is no mail pile. There's no mail. There's always mail, even if it's just crap. I haven't been in this house for weeks, so how can there be no mail?

I need to sort this all out, but first, a shower. As I'm going to the stairs, my phone rings. I answer it.
"Hello?", I say.
"Devon, it's James. We need to talk about what happened yesterday at Kerry's", he says.
"There's nothing to talk about. And you aren't involved in any of this", I tell him.

"I am, actually. Mark is my best friend. We're friends. And I intend to find out what's happened", he explains.
"Look. It's all over. I'm out of everyone's life. And I'm busy".
"Busy with what? Recovering from a hangover?".
I stand still, going over his words.
"Did you follow me to the bar?", I ask him.

"No. Because, if I had, you wouldn't have been in there for more than a second before I dragged you back out".
"Do you have a point to this call?", I ask him, growing tired and just wanting to take a damn shower.
"Yes. I want to meet up", he says.

"No can do. I have more to do than get over a hangover today".
"Devon, I know we have had arguments, problems and you're still a pain in my aśs. But, this is important. And I need your help", James says. Then, there's silence. He's waiting for me to answer. He needs my help. He's a friend now, as we cleared up at the hospital.

He needs my help, and I can't just walk away like this. Although it's best for everyone, I think speaking to him about a trivial problem will take my mind off all of the crap that's daring to burst through into my mind and scream at me.

"Fine. Where do you want to meet?".
................

He's already there when I get in. I sit down opposite him, running a hand through my messy hair.
"Wow. What the hell even happened last night?", he asks me.
"Nothing. And we're not here to talk about that", I tell him.

"Right. Okay-", he starts.
"Hello. Would you like to order?", a waitress says, wearing a green apron with a crocodile on it.
"Cappuccino for me and a-", James starts.
"Black coffee".

When she goes away, I look back to James.
"So what's wrong?", I ask him, wanting to get out of here as fast as possible. I can't be dealing with this.
"What's the rush?", he asks me.
I sigh.
"James, I'm not in the mood. Tell me now", I tell him.

"Let's wait until we have our drinks before we talk, okay? You might need it", he says.
I look at the time on my phone, before giving him a slight nod.
"So...how've you been?", he asks me.
"What kind of question is that? It's been a day since I got out and saw you at Kerry's".
"I wasn't there", James points out, frowning.

"Oh. Well, where were you?", I ask him, wanting to fill the silence for some reason, and quite interested to know.
"Just...I was with Kayleigh", he says, running a hand through his hair, and I can see the sleeplessness in his eyes. He looks like he didn't get any sleep whatsoever last night.

Ah. How I feel such sympathy and empathy towards him.
"Oh. How is she?", I ask him.
"She's having a bit of a rough time right now, but she'll be fine", he says, sounding like he's praying that she is, or will be.

The coffee's come and I take a sip of mine, feeling the liquid burn the roof of my mouth and loving how it's a pain I can deal with.
"So...coffees are here. What's the problem?", I ask him.
"It's about Mark", James says.
I take a long hard look at him, before shaking my head.
"We're over. He's not my problem anymore", I say, trying to keep my voice firm and my face straight.

"So if this is just about him and you wanting to get us back together, then I think I'll just leave", I say, standing up and about to leave.
"You love him", he says, a little bit too loud. I halt in my step, feeling my gut wrench inside me as the feelings overtake me. I turn around to face him.
"How do you know that?", I ask him, hands on the table and my eyes glaring into his gentle ones.

Mark and I decided to keep it away from the others for a little while, just until we got used to it.
"It's not hard to see, Devon. When I rang Mark and told him you'd been taken into hospital, he rushed over as fast as he could. He broke the speed limit, almost crashed his car just to get to you.

When he did, he cried by your bed. Mark doesn't cry for just anyone. He loves you", James tells me.

I don't know what to do, what I was going to do, or anything else anymore.
"Please, Devon. You're the most important person to him. He needs you", James says.

Most important person to him.

No, that can't be right. Obviously, his family would be first, or James, Kerry and the others. Not me. I don't even know why he likes me, or why he loves me. I come with way too much baggage and I'm sure there's better things for him to do with his life.

But I can't help clinging to the hope that I am important to him. And that he loves me that much. Maybe he's different to my family. Maybe he won't walk out on me.
I turn around around and walk back down, sitting in my chair again.
"Talk".
.............

I end up at Mark's house, with James. We figured that his parents wouldn't even think about letting us in, so James opens the door with the key that Mark gave him in case of emergencies. James told me about the emergency last year. Mark was depressed. His parents didn't give a shit about him. And they kicked Mark's sister out of the house and out of their lives. They had actually had a restraining order made against her. And as they had the best lawyer, they had no worries of losing.

What happened to Mark was too shocking for me to even think about. I wouldn't have even thought that he would do something like that to himself.

James and I walk into the house, hearing no voices or sounds. It might mean that Mark has already gone back to his past actions and is now holed up in his room, but it does mean that his parents aren't home. In this case, I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

We rush up the stairs and run to the next set of stairs, running up them to the third floor. We turn around the corner and James opens the door. Inside, we see a mess. Clothes everywhere, food everywhere, glass everywhere. Mark is lying on his bed, facing the wall and curled up in a ball. I'm about to walk to him, but James stops me with his arm.

James slowly walks up to him, and sits on the ede of the bed, shaking him gently to wake him.
"Mark. It's me: James", he says.
"James?", he says, really quietly.
"Yeah. I'm here to help", James says, as Mark turns around.
His eyes are bloodshot as if he's rubbed them dry, and he's drenched in sweat.

"James, it's my sister. She's back", Mark says.