Confessions of a Teenage Zombie

I kept quiet, waiting for Ryan to maybe pick up his attitude and talk about what was upsetting him this time. Brent opened the door to his secondary room and poked his head out.

"I don't mean to break up the conversation or anything, but it would be cool if you two could maybe not stand around out there. The washer and dryer are also down here, and my mom is probably gonna be down here with laundry at some point." Brent blinked twice and went back into his lair.

I walked past Ryan into the room and closed the door. Ryan floated in a moment later. He stopped and stood next to Brent. I looked over at the two of them.

"Talk about anything fun?" I inquired. I wanted to know what took them so long to discuss. Whatever they did talk about, it had gotten Ryan to release his body.

"We did, but it's a secret." Brent smiled; he knew I hated being out of the loop, the bastard. I looked at Ryan, who seemed to be just hell-bent on feeling bad about something. He looked at me.

"Is it okay if I stay here for awhile?" he inquired.

"Yeah, you can do whatever. You're an adult," I stated. I smiled. "You know you don't need my permission, right? As long as you keep a low profile, everything's cool. I'm gonna get back home, though. I wanna know if mom and dad made up."

"What?" Ryan looked absolutely confused. Brent arched an eyebrow, as he too, was bamboozled. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders.

"You know that you kind of think of Art and Shane like that. Just a little," I explained. Ryan tried his hardest not to laugh, which meant I was completely correct. Brent rolled his eyes and pulled me into a side hug. "I'll call you later or something. If Ryan comes home crying or hurt or something, your brain is gone."

"I get it. You're a zombie with incredible hunger pains, but you have a heart of gold." I could hear the monotony in his voice. I scoffed and pulled away from Brent. He smiled. "Don't worry; I'll make sure Ryan's fine."

"You better," I growled. Brent rolled his eyes. I turned to Ryan. "So, I guess I'll see you whenever. Have fun."

"Bye Brendon." Ryan smiled. I waved and turned around, opening the door and walking out. I went to the door outside, making sure to leave as quietly as possible.

I passed the house and started walking home. It was kind of weird returning without Ryan; not only did it mean absolutely no one to talk to on the walk back, but it meant he wouldn't be home for me to talk to. I'd grown accustomed to his company at this point; it would be weird not to have him around.

I grabbed my cell phone; it was a little past nine. The day was just going by, and it didn't seem like it. I sighed and put my phone away.

I made it back home ten minutes later. I peered into the living room, seeing Shane still asleep. Man, when he gets upset, the dude can sleep. I walked into the kitchen. I figured that someone had to clean up the mess Ryan made; it's not like he could do it himself, even if he was home.

I grabbed the broom and started sweeping up all the glass I could. I had to admit; as psychotic as Ryan got when he was angry, he sure was good at keeping his mind on whatever he wanted to do. I was really bad at keeping my mind on one thing; I usually ended up getting distracted or thinking of a million different things.

Of course, with how Ryan's father was, he probably had to keep his mind focused.

I kind of wished I could just ask Art to clean up, but that would kind of be a horrible thing to do. The guy had just gotten back from tending to his mother; he was probably really tired. What have I done for the past couple of days? Not much, really. For the most part, I stayed home.

I got the floor mostly cleaned up when my phone went off. I picked it up immediately.

"Brendon here," I greeted. I wanted to sound cool, but realized it probably came off as sounding corny. The only person who really would call me anyway was Brent. Something probably happened with Ryan, like he flipped out and was now crying.

"Um... hi." It was Alex. I assumed he would want absolutely nothing to do with me after yesterday, considering the speed he ran into his house with. He sounded nervous though, like he was unsure if he should even be talking.

"Hey," I replied. I tried not to sound confused; it would just make Alex feel more uncomfortable with himself. "You doing okay?"

"I'm doing fine," Alex stated. There was complete silence. I knew that most likely, he had no idea what to say. He struck me as someone who was completely bad at talking on the phone. "Um, remember when we went to the movies the other day?"

"Yeah. They made really good popcorn." I figured that maybe I could lighten the mood a little. It obviously worked, since it got Alex to chuckle. Although he could have just forced the chuckle so he wouldn't offend me.

"They did. But, you know, I meant after that. The movie, I mean." He sounded like he was extremely uneasy with talking about the subject. I was just going to leave him be with the subject; give him a week or two to think about it, and then I'd attempt to talk to him. "I just wanted to apologize for running away on you. I got nervous."

"No need for apologies. I kind of just stopped thinking and attempted to kiss you; I didn't even think about your feelings," I explained. "I'm also kind of surprised you called at all. I figured that you wouldn't want to hang out anymore. I was gonna give you a few weeks."

"I just... You know what? Can we talk about this face to face?" Alex sighed. "I just don't feel comfortable talking about this on the phone."

"Don't you have school?" I inquired. Hey, I cared about the kid's education. I wanted him to be able to get into whatever college he wanted to.

"I got suspended. I got into a fight with Marshall; it was pretty bad," Alex explained. I almost wanted to ask about it, but I figured we'd just be talking later. "Anyway, we can meet up or something. Maybe at the park? You know, the one with the fountains? Gosh, it had a name."

"Yeah, I know where you're talking about. I just need to finish up cleaning a mess my friend made, and I'll see you." I looked around, noting that there was still the dishwasher and table to clean off. "So, I'll meet you."

"Okay. Bye." Alex hung up, as did I. I couldn't help but squeal a little, I was so giddy. It's like the day was going right. Art was going to try and make up with Shane, I finally learned about Ryan's past, and now I was going to get to talk to Alex? Score!

The day seemed to go from a three to a nine on the Richter scale.