hømetøwn

• : / twenty nine / : •

Sunlight fell heavy on our shoulders as Brendon and I left the apartment. Cars whooshed down the road. Distant yells crackled in the air. Brendon walked beside me with his shoulders hunched, eyes blazing. His temple was visibly pulsing. I didn't say anything. Better to wait for him to speak first. We meandered down the city sidewalk in silence.

We were halfway to the record shop when he finally lost it.

"I can't believe he just.... invited someone to stay in our apartment without even mentioning it to me!"

I kept my eyes down. His voice ripped through the air with a shocking ferocity. His voice had no limits. It could sink down to the deepest softest words -- sweet nothings that he could drip across my lips to sedate me. And it could shriek up to violent volumes. It could rise high enough inside a person to break them.

"I don't even know the guy! Never seen him in my life! Ryan just met him at some bar and invited him to piss me off."

I didn't say anything. I kept my eyes on my shoes. There was no place for me to give an opinion here. What Ryan did to Brendon, Brendon basically did to Ryan. The only difference was that the first time, I was the problem.

I kicked a pebble. It shot off the sidewalk and clattered into the road.

"And I mean, like, at least I brought back a normal person. God! This Taylor guy --"

"Tyler."

"He looks like some sort of crazy person. What was that black shit all over his neck and hands? And those tattoos. What the hell is wrong with him?"

This definitely wasn't a good time to mention how oddly attractive I had found those tattoos.

"I'm pissed," said Brendon.

"I can tell," I said. And I really could. His teeth were gritted and his eyes flashed like storm signals.

"You're with me on this, right, Lake?"

I let out a slow breath. A car honked behind us.

"I don't feel like it's really my place to say."

His eyebrows furrowed.

"I mean, like, Ryan has just as much reason to be mad as you do," I said. "Because you brought me here without really consulting him. So --"

"No but I did consult him, remember?"

I jabbed the cross walk button. "Uh..."

"I called him, in the car," said Brendon. "Before I brought you, I called him. Remember?"

"Oh yeah," I said, the memory coming into focus. "No, yeah, I had kind of forgotten."

The cross walk light switched. Brendon wound his arm around my waist as we crossed the street. 

Maybe he was right to be mad. After all, Brendon did call Ryan before bringing me...and if I remembered correctly, Ryan had seemed totally fine with it back then. So what was the issue? I knew I wasn't exactly a perfect room mate. Everywhere I went, I left a trail of ashes behind me. My arrival sparked all kinds of new trouble for them. Angie coming back. Connor's threatening messages. Trouble they weren't looking for. Trouble they couldn't afford to deal with. As an up and rising band, trouble was the last thing they wanted right now. They wanted to be practicing. Preparing. Eating, breathing, and sweating their music. I was a distraction. A deadly flaming distraction that could burn them to the ground.