Runaways > > Mikey Clifford

\\Chapter 3\\

The next morning, I awoke to see Michael already up eating a Twinkie.
I sat up and he looked at me and chuckled.
"Morning, sleepyhead," he said with a grin on his face.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
"Your bedhead," he said, and I took my phone out and looked at my reflection in the camera, and started laughing too because my hair was sticking up everywhere, and I also had a few twigs in my tangles.
"I look feral," I said.
"Mmm," he hummed.
I regretted forgetting my hairbrush at home.
I sniffed.
And my deodorant.
"How 'bout we just go back to my place later today?" I asked. "Tonight?"
"Yeah, I had a rock somewhere on my back all night and I couldn't get it," he said with a laugh, rubbing his back over his shoulder.
How did this even happen?
Like, this doesn't make sense.
If I was watching this happen in a movie I would just turn the channel and chuckle at the stupidity of such an idea.
But this is real.
There's a boy here I met at a park in the middle of the night after I ran away, and he happened to be running away too, and we casually talk about our problems and leave them be after we cover the basics, found somewhere to sleep, and slept.
Wow.
"I'm hungry," I said.
I dug through my bag until I found a bag of cool ranch Doritos and ate them up, washing them down with a coke.
"We should go drop our stuff off at your place and go somewhere, cause it's boring as hell here," he said.
I chuckled. "Yeah, good idea," I said, standing up.
We walked for awhile, retracing our steps in silence, about a half hour from the park, before he decided to speak up.
"So... What kind of music do you listen to?" he asked, obviously getting annoyed by the silence, as was I.
"Um, I like the Arctic Monkeys, Nirvana, Greenday, My Chemical Romance..." I trailed off.
I'd rather be in awkward silence, to be honest.
This is way more awkward.
"Me too," he said, and we were back in silence until we were on my street, nearly an hour later.
"Turn right here," I said. "See that really small one with the blue shutters?"
"Oh, it's nice," he said with a small smile.
"Mmm," I hummed.
We walked through my driveway and up to my front door. I opened the door, as it's never locked. My parents were passed out on the couch, my dad clutching an empty vodka bottle, my mom holding a cigarette butt.
"Um... Ignore them," I said, as I lead him to the stairs.
"S'fine," he said. "Used to that sort of stuff."
We walked up to my room and dropped our stuff down.
"My parents went somewhere for the weekend," he said. "Overheard them. That's why I chose to leave last night, they were gone so they couldn't... Stop me. We could go stay there tonight, yeah?"
"Yeah," I said. "Sounds good."
I grabbed a piece of paper from my nightstand and a blue pen.
I wrote:

Dear Mother and Father,
My friend Michael and I will be back tomorrow. See you then.
Hugs and kisses,
Mars Elizabeth Dexter

I ripped off a piece of duct tape with pizza on it and stuck it to the top.
"Why are you being so formal in it?" he asked.
"Because I'm sticking it to my dad's forehead," I replied, chuckling.
"Makes sense," he said, also laughing, as we walked downstairs. I stuck the note to my dad's forehead, him shifting slightly and snoring quite obnoxiously. We went back upstairs.
"Wait out here," I told Michael when we got to the hallway. "Gotta change."
"Aw, man, I wanted to watch," he said cheekily with a giggle.
"Nah," I said.
I went inside and shut the door behind me. I went to my closet and pulled out my skinniest jeans and my best nirvana shirt, with my slouchiest beanie, putting all of them on.
I'm totally not trying to impress Michael, what are you talking about?
I put on deodorant because damn, I smell, and sprayed a whole bunch of perfume, and also pulled all the twigs out of my hair and brushed it out, spraying perfume in it, too. I need a shower.
I shoved my hair brush, deodorant, and perfume into my bag, along with a set of pjs and an outfit for tomorrow.

There's something about Michael.
I feel like I can talk to him.
I don't feel awkward around him.
I don't understand why, but I feel like I could tell him anything.
But I just frickin' met him yesterday.
Remember that, Mars.
Stop goin' boy crazy and GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF.
I opened the door and stepped out after all my preparations.
"Hey, you look so fresh and so clean, clean," he said, then started laughing at his own stupidity. I had to laugh too.
"Okay, c'mon," I said, as we walked back into the living room and out the front door.
"So, where you live?" I asked.
"Just over here," he said, pointing in a direction across the road and down a street.
That is the bad side of the neighborhood, I live kind of on the verge of it already.
We were only walking for about five minutes when we got to his house, and now in the light I realized how pale he is, which isn't very normal for living in Australia.
But I'm pretty pale myself, so I can't really be a hypocrite.
His house looks pretty identical to mine, a one- story, run-down place, but his garage is on the other side and his shutters are yellow.
"No one's here, I don't have any brothers or sisters," he said, and he pulled out a key from his bag and unlocked the door.
He lead me through the living room, which was scattered with ashtrays (some of which were spilled), and to his room, which is the same place my room would be. He opened the door to reveal a really messy room; Unmade bed, empty pizza boxes, coke cans.
"Um... Mind the mess," he said, blushing.
"S'fine," I said.
"I'll clean up," he said. "Step outside and count to 100 then come back in."
I laughed and stepped outside and started a stopwatch on my phone.
It didn't feel like that long but the time passed faster than I had thought. I heard shuffling and things dropping from inside, and once my stopwatch hit a hundred, I opened the door really fast, and I thought I opened the wrong door because the room looked unrecognizable.
His bed was made, his pizza boxes were stacked neatly in the corner, and the coke cans were gone, probably in his trash can.
"Well damn," I said.
He sat down on his bed and pat the seat beside him for me to sit down.
I came over and sat down, kind of awkwardly.
"Um, not sure where you wanna sleep.. I mean my bed is big enough, but..." He trailed off.
I started laughing because he blushed a little. "That sounds okay, s'long as you don't try any funny business."
He blushed even more, prominent in his pale face, making me laugh even harder, and when I looked down, I was laughing harder than I should've been.
This bitch is still wearing his galaxy leggings.
"Do you... Need to change?" I said, still laughing.
"Uh," he said, looking down at what he was wearing. "Yeah."
I stood up and walked into the hallway, closing the door behind me.
After he changed, he called for me to come back in and I opened the door and sat down beside him again, as he was sat down already.
He put on a pair of baggy jeans and a baggy Greenday shirt.
"You look comfortable," I said.
"Yeah, not going anywhere, right?" he replied. "Want the wifi password?" he said.
"Yup," I said.
He listed off a bunch of numbers, which I proceeded to type into my phone on the wifi network he said was his.
"Thanks, fam," I said.
"Mmm," he hummed.
I didn't even use the Internet, though. But I figured I may need it later.
Now that my eyes weren't distracted by the mess, I realized he had several posters of my favorite bands.
I started looking at all of them.
Then, as I was admiring Kurt Cobain's beauty, rain had come out of nowhere and make me jump at how abruptly it came. It was really loud.
Michael looked at me when I jumped and started laughing.
"Wanna play a board game?" he asked.
"Sure," I said. "Which one?"
"Know how to play chess?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. "My grandma taught me."
"Nice. I have a glass set my grandpa gave me. Wanna play?" he asked.
"Sure," I said. "If you wanna get your ass kicked."
He pulled a box from under his bed and we set up the game.
It took only about five moves from each of us, and I had him in check.
My rook kept chasing his king until his knight fucking took it.
Dammit.
A few more moves and he put me in check with his queen, but I took it with my other rook, which put him in check. but my rook was right beside his king, and he took it, but my queen was diagonal from where his king now was, and I took it.
"Bitch, I told you," I said.
"Wanna play again?" he asked.
I looked out at the rain before turning back to him and saying, "Yup."
He grabbed a small box from under his bed and handed it to me, also pulling out a radio.
"Pick one," he said.
They were CDs. He had ALL of my favorite bands, and I picked the Greenday one.
He nodded, taking it from me and putting it in the radio after plugging it in.
We played a total of eleven times, the score ended up being 7:4, me winning. We went through all his CDs, and put on the Greenday one again.
By that time it was about eight at night, and we were both tired.
Sleeping on the ground in the middle of the woods isn't a very great night's sleep.
We got up onto his bed, which I think is a queen. But it didn't feel awkward. And I could tell he didn't feel awkward either; He was acting like I wasn't even there.
We left the music on, and the the last thing I remember was a guitar rift and a sleeping Michael rolling over and unconsciously snuggling up next to me, swinging an arm around my shoulder, and I didn't feel awkward.
•
So.
Much.
Non-awkwardness.
The hell.
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~~ari_the_punkmaster