Internal Organs

Established in 2016

Xander carried a few items and the box to the door where he unlocked the front door to Ryan's home before waiting for her to catch up. She silently snatched the keys from him as she held the stuffed animal in her arm with a backpack upon her back that she had created 12 years prior. It had a painting of a crow sitting upon a branch with a golden box around it. The bird had a speech bubble above its head that said, "It can't rain all the the time." It was a quote from her favorite movie, The Crow, featuring Brandon Lee in his last film, the film where he was accidently killed. Ryan pushed into her house where she was greeted by the artists and friends she gained. She studied all of them, most of them had drinks in their hands and party hats upon their heads. They were saying things such as, "We missed you," and "Welcome home!". There was easily 30 different people in her home Ryan decided. She also decided that she didn't want anything to do with any of them. None of them were fucked up like she was so they were probably silently judging her thinking, Man. She's so fucking messed up and we work for her?

 Ryan bit her lip, sucking on one of  the piercings on her lip on the right side before she pushed through everyone trying to make her way to room upstairs. There was people on her stairs and she just shoved through them, ignoring everyone who was trying to call to her attention. Down below she could hear the sound of a sob, probably coming from the friend she had since she was 11 years old. The truth was she no longer cared. She was empty and proud of it because she didn't need to be sent to the place she went to. She didn't have to be publically humiliated infront of the people who bought her work but she was. She was humiliated and all she felt was shame and an anger so strong it could make milk sour with her just being by it. She felt sour and she wanted everyone else to feel it too as selfish as it was. She placed her bag down and laid on her bed, clenching what was left of Vince, his stuffed animal sloth and his note.

Forty minutes away in the opposite direction from Vince more inland sat a man on his cellphone talking to a woman in Virginia. He walked around his large apartment, setting up for a stay in date with a teacher that taught within the same school district as he. He picked up his jacket from the couch and folded the blanket on the couch before tucking it in the hidden drawer under one side of his couch. He hung the jacket on the hook before walking back to his huge kitchen, placing the spaghetti in the pot of boiling water. He thought it was romantic enough. He listened to the woman, a friend through mutual friendships with a girl he lost contact with, yell at her daughter to quiet down. "Sorry," she apologized.

"No problem," he said as he pulled the vegetables from the oven.

"Now what did you want me to do for you? I didn't understand your message."

Pulling the wine glasses from his cabinets and grunting to close them he explained, "I was wondering if you could find Kaelee's number or if you knew where she was located now. I lost contact with her Junior year of high school and at graduation I wanted to ask her but she wasn't there."

"Ah..." she mumbled as she gave her youngest a bath, scrubbing shampoo into his hair. "Well I stopped being her friend around sophmore year but I still talk to Alexis and they are apparently living in the same house."

Tristin rose his eyebrow, "As...?"

"Friends," the woman, Lily, chuckled. "Alexis has a husband and a son. They live in a huge duplex. It's two stories and an attic. They own this store... Oh geez... For the life of me I can't remember what its called."

He thought before asking, "Internal Organs?"

"Yes! That's it!"

"Wow... She actually did it."

"Hmm?"

"Nothing. I bet they have a website, huh?"

"Probably the only thing that will pop up."