FEVERISH [RYDEN] [REPOST]

ON ALCOHOL

"I'm back!" He called, throwing his coat onto the floor of the entryway.

Ryan paused to listen to his own voice echoing through the desolate house.

His home was a graveyard for broken wishes. A failed marriage, hopes, dreams, careers, a steady income.

Love.

Ryan could safely operate under the assumption that George had passed out somewhere.

He didn't call him dad anymore.

The title of his father was a privilege he lost when Ryan turned eleven. See, some people aren't cut out to be parents. Eleven-Year-Old-Ryan made that decision for him.

As he walked into the guest bedroom, (which he would have to be kidding himself to be calling it his own), he heard shuffling coming from a back room.

Ryan locked the door shortly after that.

The room that he stayed in was a beautiful metaphor. It had large, flowered curtains with a certain femininity to them, the one thing that the house lacked. He was pretty sure that his bedroom curtains were the closest thing to a feminine touch the house had left.

There was a tall double bed, that slanted down so far that you'd fall off, which is why he had used several of George's books to prop one side up.

If you sat down on it too hard, they'd shift and go flying.

The bed was adorned with sheets that used to be white, but had since been discolored with all of the uses from the people that 'were just Ryan, his father swore' that slept in the bed. When he was younger, the idea that his own "father" had people who weren't him sleeping in his bed when he was out freaked him out. Like all of the insults he launched, he got used to the sorry fact.

The mirror was stained with broken glass and lies, and, if you leaned too close, you could smell the whiskey that shattered it the first time.

And the second.

And the third.

The only thing worth noting in the room was the shiny door latch that lived on the doorframe, something that Ryan had, at age 14, deemed necessary and acquired and installed himself.

All of the posters on the walls could be taken off at a moments notice, some keeled over from their top-heavy weight already, clinging to the wall like faded wallpaper from owner's before.

He had an amp in the corner that ran on batteries, sitting next to his first guitar. He looked down at his second, and threw it on the bed. The case bounced up a little before coming to a rest.

Ryan yawned.

This was not a tired yawn, it was a yawn-for-the-sake-of-it-yawn, a filter-out-your-feelings-yawn.

A you-aren't-allowed-to-cry-so-do-anything-other-than yawn.

Since Ryan started University, he never came back to visit, only these occasional ones to make sure George wasn't dead in an alley somewhere.

"George?" The gruff voice penetrated the door, calling out the name that didn't belong to the boy on the other side.

The voice sounded on the other side of the wall.

"It's Ryan. Not George"

There was a pause.

"Just making sure I wasn't broken in on. How long are you staying?" He sounded sober. A rare occurrence.

Ryan knew not to trust the sober voice anymore either.

Ryan stared at his reflection in the mirror. There, wrapped in cracks, was his body slumped on the bed. His hair, a bit too long to be considered tasteful, splayed out underneath him. His legs lay awkwardly over his guitar case, his pants too tight for comfort and his shirt too loose for him to straighten.