Everything He's Not

Chapter three

To anyone still keeping up with this story, all I have to say is four things:

Get ready for Cash (;

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I wake up and realize two things.

1. The music has finally stopped.

2. The apartment smells like it is on fire.

 Jerking from the bed, I sling the covers off of me and run toward the kitchen, not even bothering to put shorts on. If the apartment was about to go down in flames, I was going to be seriously pissed.

For one, I have everything I own currently chilling in the living room. Secondly, I already paid three months rent for this shitty place and I was not about to lose nine hundred dollars to a fire.

Then we really will be living on the curb like Laya said.

Squinting, I bound through the bright living room, my number one worry the smell drafting from the kitchen.

Seriously, where the hell was Laya?

Since the apartment didn’t come with a fire extinguisher, I sure in hell hope she brought salt along when she packed food. Because salt is what you put on fires, right? Or was it baking soda?

Either way, I would take baking salt for all I cared. I skid into the kitchen, my mind still on backing salt, when I freeze at the scene before me.

    Gone are the images of a blazing fire taking down the apartment. In it’s place is Laya standing in the kitchen in striped shorts and  a hoodie.

In her hand is a smoking pan and from the curses currently spurting from her mouth, I can guess that whatever is currently burning in her pan is long gone from being edible.

    Shaking my head, I lean against the counter and let out a tense breath. This I can deal with. At least now I know for a fact that being a firefighter is totally not in my future.

I mean come on, baking salt?!

“What the hell is burning?” I ask, eying the pan.

Laya jumps at my voice and jerks around, her eyes wide. She looks down at the pan as if she just noticed it was smoking and shakes her head at the clouds of light grey streaming to the ceiling.

    “I was going to make breakfast but it turns out  either the stove cooks faster than I anticipated or the dust caught on fire and hurried my cooking process.”

She slings the pan into the sink and turns on the water, making the sound of something sizzling  mix with the burnt smell.

“That, or the eggs I was cooking committed suicide so that they didn’t have to look at this apartment for one more minute. I can almost understand that.” I roll my eyes and reach for the bag of bread she must of took out and take out two slices.

    “About that,” I start, looking through the bag for the jar of strawberry jelly. “I was thinking we could head to the store and get some things to brighten this place up.Mom gave me six hundred dollars for emergencies and I think a hundred of it can go toward fixing up and cleaning this place.”

I find the jelly, get a spoon, and start to spread it out on my bread. Laya leans her hips against the counter, her eyes flicking from her still smoking pan to me.

    “One hundred dollars? Think of the eggs Sydney! There is no way that amount is going to fix what happened to this place. I mean the people who use to live here thought fruit and vegetables were good decorating choices. Who thinks that?!”