Dead Apples

7- Small Talks

When I finish my sketch of Dex, I tape it to my bedroom wall. That's not as weird as it seems though because my bedroom wall is covered in drawings that I've done and little blurbs of words that I've written, just to get my thoughts out of my head and onto paper which I then put on my wall. I put it in a small corner hidden mostly by my desk so that if Sage comes over, she won't notice it.

She's rarely ever in my room anyway though because I don't like bringing her here. My dad is just hard to deal with and I don't like her seeing him so we mostly hang out at her house.

Just as I'm finishing that, I hear Zero start barking out in the living room which he doesn't do often. I also don't want him to wake my dad up so I hurry out to the front room to see what he's barking about. With his nose pressed against the front window to push past the curtain, he continues barking out toward the front yard.

"Zee, be quiet," I tell the dog but he doesn't listen to me because he never really does listen to me. Especially when he's riled up. My dad is passed out on the couch but there's a bottle of whiskey beside him so I don't think he's going to be waking up anytime soon.

When I get closer to the window, I peek through the curtain and see a bunch of guys standing in my yard with cans of spray paint.

"Oh my god," I say in shock as I hurry to the living room closet and grab the baseball bat that we have stored there from when Robby used to play baseball. It was a long time ago but we never clean that closet out.

By the time that I've fished out the baseball bat, I get to the door and open it and they all start sprinting away from the yard. I step outside with the baseball bat, prepared to scare any stragglers away but all of them have fled and I'm not going to chase them down.

Out in the yard, I turn toward the house to see that the teenage assholes had used the spray paint to write 'RobbyTheRobber' in big red letters on the front of our white garage door. That's just great.

I go back inside and put the baseball bat near the door just in case somebody tries that again but for now, I'll have to get it off of the garage. My dad would have a fit if he saw it, maybe call the police or something but they wouldn't be able to do anything and it would just cause more trouble than it's worth.

Based on the amount of whiskey still left in the bottle, I have a few hours before he wakes up so I have some time. I grab a few rags, a bucket of water, and some acetone nail polish remover to mix with the water to get the paint off of the garage.

Zero is still worked up but I just pet him a few times and leave him inside because I don't want him getting into the chemicals that I'm using to clean the garage. I start on the first R and I start scrubbing. Luckily, it hasn't had a lot of time to dry so it's coming off easier than I thought that it would but not very easy at all.

I had already gone to work today so I'm pretty tired and I really don't want to deal with this but I know that I don't really have a choice. My father has been through a lot too and I can't ask him to deal with this too.

I've got the R and the O of Robby's name basically gone when Zero starts barking again from inside of the house. Fearing that those teenagers are coming back, I start to head for the house to grab the baseball bat but then I hear footsteps behind me.

"Need a hand?" And when I turn around to see who it is, I nearly choke on my own tongue when I see that it's Dex. What the fuck.

"Um. Sure," I don't know what else to say so he puts his hand in the bucket and grabs another one of the rags and just starts scrubbing off the last R in 'robber'. I'm suddenly aware of the fact that I'm only wearing jeans and a tank top and my arms are all out and about. I had taken off my work shirt when I got home, not thinking much of it but now I'm very much aware. My arms feel flabbier all of the sudden.