Give me Envy, Give me Malice, Give me Attention

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When the day finally came to a close I walked to my car. I was spending the weekend at Brendon’s house. My parents were journalists and they traveled to exotic places. They were headed to Colorado this time. Not so exotic but still cool. They didn’t like it when I stayed at home all by myself for too long. It wasn’t that they didn’t trust me; they just didn’t want me to get lonely. So they shipped me off to the Urie’s whenever they had to travel, which was a lot. I didn’t mind though, I liked spending time with Brendon. Usually Ryan came over too so I had my two best friends with me the whole weekend. What more could I want?

When I got home there was a note next to a fifty dollar bill on the kitchen table.

Dear Aspen,
Sorry we never got to say goodbye! We didn’t think we’d have to leave as early as we did. Have fun with the Uries this weekend! We left you some money in case you wanted to do something fun with your friends. Please, please, please get your homework done. I know Brendon and Ryan are very distracting but grades come first. We love you and we will see you on Monday.
Love,
Mom and Dad

I picked up the fifty dollar bill and sighed. I knew I should be happy. A weekend away from my parents! What every teenager in America wants. But mine were always gone. I wished they would just… stay here for a little bit. They haven’t been home for a whole month in years. I wondered if I was the reason they left so often.

That’s stupid, I scolded myself. Of course not. It was their job, they didn’t have a say in it. I took the note and shoved it in my pocket. I jogged upstairs and grabbed my bag. I checked if had packed everything I needed the night before. Everything was there so I put the money in my wallet and took the note and put it in my box where I kept all of their notes. I knew it was stupid to keep them but I felt like I had to.

I kicked the box under my bead, grabbed my bag, locked up the house, got in the car and left.

I had grown so used to that routine I could have done it with my eyes closed.

I drove the familiar streets to Brendon’s house. He lived about five minutes away. I pulled into his driveway and parked. Then I grabbed my bag and brought it inside. I let myself in as I usually did.

“Lucy I’m home!” I called.

“Ricky!” Brendon shrieked as he ran towards me and threw his arms around me. We had been using this greeting for years now.

“You can let go now.”

“No I don’t think I can.”

“I think you should.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Brendon let go.”

“Aspen no.”

“Uuugggghhhhhh,” I groaned.

“Brendon let go of the poor girl! She’ll never come back!” Mrs. Urie called from the kitchen.

“Of course she will. She can’t resist me!”

“Oh yeah that’s definitely it,” I said with an eye roll and somehow I got out of his crazy embrace.

“Next time it won’t be that easy.” Brendon said with a suggestive wink.

I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t think I like what you’re implying.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Brendon said with a completely straight face.

“Uh huh,” I laughed and I walked towards the stairs and Brendon followed. When we got to his room I dumped my bag on the floor and plopped down on his bed. “Wait a second, where’s Sammie?” Sammie was Brendon’s dog. She was the cutest German Sheppard in the world. No exceptions.

“She’s getting new toys from the pet store. She is spoiled rotten I tell you, rotten!”

I gasped. “Don’t say that about my child!”

Brendon rolled his eyes and sat down next to me. “Ryan will be happy when he gets here. Sammie won’t jump all over him.”

“Poor Ryan just can’t take Sammie’s friendliness.”

“What a spoil sport,” Brendon smirked as Ryan walked in his bedroom.

“Who’s a spoil sport?” Ryan asked.

“You,” Brendon and I said simultaneously.

“Why!?”

“Because you don’t like Sammie and I find that unacceptable,” I said with a playful glare.

“I don’t hate Sammie! She just jumps all over me and makes me fall all over the place whenever I come over! If she didn’t jump or lick as much then I’d think she was great,” Ryan grumbled and sat down on Brendon’s beanbag chair.

“Whatever,” Brendon mumbled and added ‘dog hater’ in between a cough.

“I am not a-” Ryan said but then I interrupted him.

“We know Ryan, its okay,” I laughed and he just grumbled under his breath and went silent.

“I rented us a movie yesterday,” I said after a few minutes of comfortable silence. Life was never awkward with us. We knew each other too well to be bothered by our quirks.

“Awesome! What is it?” Brendon asked me eagerly.

“Stephen King’s Rose Red,” I said with a proud smile on my face. It was one of the only Stephen King movies we hadn’t seen. We always said we had to rent t hat one next, but we always ended up watching a new film that just came out on DVD.

“Aspen you are officially my hero,” Brendon said giving me a lame high five.

“I know,” I said in a phony overconfident tone. Truth be told I didn’t have a lot of confidence. Now I wasn’t one of those girls who complained about how fat I was or how I hated my life or how ugly I am. I knew I was skinny. That didn’t mean I had the confidence to show it all off. I hated it when girls hinted for complements. I think I got that from Brendon, actually.

“We should watch it tonight before the party tomorrow,” Ryan said.

“I can’t believe we’re actually going to one of these things,” I laughed. A mutual friend of ours, Brian, threw crazy parties almost every weekend. Lately he’d been throwing theme parties. Not only were people getting hilariously drunk, but they were doing it in a weird outfit. Brendon, Ryan and I had decided that we had to see this.

“I’m disappointed in the theme, though. They could have at least tried to think of something more original than purple,” Ryan complained and I agreed with him. Apparently last week they had mix and match which would have been great, but my parents didn’t go out of town that weekend.

“Purple could be fun though. Imagine purple food,” Brendon said with wide childish eyes.

“It’s called grapes,” Ryan said with a laugh and I joined in.

“Yeah but I mean like real purple food. Like purple chips and purple drinks and purple-”

“Brendon do you really think they’re going to have all that at a house party?” I asked, amused.

“Well no, but let’s be hypothetical. Wouldn’t that be the coolest thing?”

“Sometimes I wonder about you Bren,” Ryan said as he shook his head. I giggled.

“Don’t be jealous,” Brendon said as he got up and walked to the door shaking his hips. “I know you wish you were as smart as me.”

“Yes that’s definitely the case. You caught us,” I said feigning innocence. Ryan nodded his small head with me which made his bangs fall in his eyes.

“You guys always team up on me and it’s totally unfair! Come on, let’s watch the damn movie!” Brendon grumbled and marched out of his room. Ryan and I exchanged a humorous glance and followed him downstairs.

When Ryan and I got to the last step the front door opened and in walked Mr. Urie and a very happy, very hyper Sammie.

“Shit,” I heard Ryan mumble under his breath right before Sammie nearly knocked me down to get to Ryan.

Sammie absolutely loved Ryan. And Ryan was petrified.

Sammie jumped on Ryan and showered his face with sloppy wet kisses. I still didn’t have my balance from the adorable dog knocking into me so Brendon lunged at Sammie pulling her off Ryan.

“Bad dog, Sammie! Bad girl! No jump!” Brendon scolded with a hint of a laugh in his eye. I avoided making eye contact with him in order to hold back my laughter. Ryan was whimpering as Sammie was making attempts to lunge at him.

“Aw come here Sammie. Come to Aspen,” I cooed. Sammie’s ears perked up and she jumped to her next victim.

I was good with dogs. I liked them and I knew how to handle them. I worked at a pound not too far from here. That was where the Urie’s got Sammie.

Sammie jumped up on me and I scooted back and ran my hands through her beautiful brown coat.

“You need to man up, boy,” Mr. Urie said to Ryan, giving him an odd look. Ryan didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded his head as Brendon helped him up. Mr. Urie always gave Ryan a hard time.

Mrs. Urie’s slender frame emerged from the kitchen. She had a coffee cup in her hand that she was drying with a dish towel.

“Did you bring dinner, Sweetie?”

“Yeah it’s in the car. I’ll get it in a second,” Mr. Urie said and he gave his wife a peck on the cheek and walked back out the door.

“I see Sammie had her way with you again, Ryan. I am so sorry,” Mrs. Urie said, genuinely. She wasn’t as hard on Ryan as Mr. Urie was.

“It’s okay,” Ryan squeaked. “I’m used to it.”

“How have you been Aspen?”

“I’ve been okay. My schedule is pretty relaxed so I don’t have too much homework,” I answered.

“Brendon is the same way. He’s starting to apply to colleges,” Mrs. Urie said with a proud smile. That threw me for a minute. It wasn’t that Brendon wasn’t smart. He is, although he doesn’t show it. It was that Brendon and I never talked about college seriously. We joked around about going to the same school and owning an apartment together but we never actually talked.

“That’s great! Where’s he applying?”

“He wants to get into the University of California,” Mrs. Urie said looking at Brendon. He gave her a weak smile and looked down at his shoes. “Where do you want to go sweetie?”

“I applied to a lot of colleges actually, some in California, some in New York, some in Chicago. I want to have options,” I said. I noticed that Brendon was unusually quiet.

“Good for you, sweetie,” Mrs. Urie said as Mr. Urie walked through the door. He carried two boxes of Pizza. Brendon and Ryan’s eyes lit up and they both grabbed the boxes and walked toward the kitchen. I rolled my eyes at their boyish behavior and followed. They each had already made their way through half a piece of pizza.

“Save some for the rest of us!” I laughed and grabbed our plates.

“Let’s go watch movies!” Brendon yelled. We went downstairs into the basement.

We had decided it was too early to put in the Stephen King, so we watched random movies until it was dark enough.

About halfway through Rose Red Brendon had his arm around me. It wasn’t weird. It was just Brendon. But then we heard Ryan snore.

“Oh I am so going to kick his ass for falling asleep during this. It’s fucking Stephen King!” Brendon said in an outraged voice.

“Let him sleep,” I whispered.

He looked at me and smiled. I could feel his breath on my face, and usually that would have grossed me out. But it was nice. Our faces inched closer and closer. I closed my eyes and parted my dry lips and then it happened.

My best friend since 7th grade kissed me. And I kissed back.