Keep the Change, You Filthy Animal

Chapter 1

Hi everyone it is me, yay :) Um ... just thought I'd introduce myself to make this a bit more welcoming idk

erm my name is Teo and I am a girl (yes it's a girl name get over it <3) And I'm co-writing this with my friend Emily (also a girl name) (wait I already mentioned Emily...) and we hope you like it n stuff... yay

 

Alex. 

- 

I opened my eyes slowly, groggily. As usual, my first thought was dedicated to blankness. I couldn't remember anything. Not even my name. Not that I cared. 

And then the speeding train of crappy memories came hitting me in the face again and I could do nothing but take it like a man. Even though sometimes I just felt like curling up in a ball and crying like a bratty little girl. 

One step at a time, I managed to crawl out of bed and make my way to the kitchen - about three feet to the left due to the pathetic smallness of what I called, without any pride, 'my apartment' - where I found Rian sitting on the counter drinking OJ right out of the bottle. 

At the sight of me, he almost choked and had to spit the contents of his mouth back in the container. Well, no more OJ for me. 

"Jeez, Alex! You could at least put on a towel or something!" I looked down in confusion before understanding what he meant. 

"Oops, I'll get to that," I muttered without any form of interest. Behind me, in the closet-sized bedroom, on the fridge-sized bed, lay a girl. I couldn't remember what her name was. Cristy or Crissy or something. She was a hottie-came with all that the term implied. Lots of curves and stuff. All the right ingredients. 

She was nothing but another word on the grocery list. Milk, eggs, prostitute... It was routine, and like everything else, it was boring as hell. 

"So, how about the gig last night?" Rian asked, visibly disturbed by my everlasting nakedness. 

Ah, the gigs. It might have been some form of amusement if we didn't suck so bad. If of the three goddamn bands I was in, ONE would have actually had some kind of talent buried beneath the booze and the tattoos. But no such luck for fuckheads like me who flipped the finger at God every night before going to bed-and by night I mean four in the morning. 

"It was fine," was all I said to answer my roommate's question. He nodded and let it go. He was used to that answer. He was used to my filthy presence. I actually felt bad for him sometimes; having to put up with me every single day of his life must have been... atrocious. Atrocious, one of the few big words I had memorised during my sad existence. I had a few others in stock up there-dreadful, excruciating, horrific... All of the essential. 

Sometimes - rarely - I wondered what life would've been like if I hadn't run away. Or dropped out of school. And the next second I started laughing internally at myself and wondering where the hell I got such controversial ideas from. Me? School? 

But still. 

Jack. 

- 

"Jack," my mother said seriously in her thick Lebanese accent. "You will never do this again. Ever." I tried not to roll my eyes. Ugh, my parents were BEYOND strict.