Wasted

Autumn rang the doorbell to Frank's house. She smiled to herself, remembering the memories spent in this house growing up. Both she and Frank's parents were divorced. Even though she wasn't legally related to Linda anymore she still considered her aunt and the closest family she had.

The door opened and Frank stood there with a wide grin.

"Come on, I wanna show you something!" He grabbed her arm and dragged her upstairs into his room.

Autumn looked around the room and raised an eyebrow, "Wow, you cleaned."

Frank ignored her comment and grabbed his guitar. "It’s a little melody for a new song."

She nodded for him to go on and sat on his desk chair.

Frank started strumming his guitar and a soft melody started playing. Autumn smiled to herself and started drumming her hands on her thigh to the beat.

"You like it?" Frank asked with a sheepish smile.

"That was fucking perfect Frank. What's the song?"

He grinned, "Early Sunsets over Monroeville. Gerard and Ray wrote the lyrics, it’s about Dawn of The Dead."

Autumn smiled, "Wow. Sounds rad."

Linda interrupted with a soft knock on the doorway. "Not even here for a minute and you already steal her away from me Frank."

Autumn laughed as Frank rolled his eyes and she went over to hug Linda. "Hi Aunt Linda."

"Hello sweetie," she kissed both of her cheeks, "how have you been?"

Autumn shrugged her shoulders with a small smile, "Alright. How about you? Still living with this monster." She gestured over to Frank.

He scoffed and began strumming away again.

Linda laughed. "I pray every night he finds a decent woman to move in with."

"Hey!" Frank exclaimed.

Autumn waved him off and walked downstairs with Linda to the kitchen. She served all three of them coffee and sweet bread.

"Frank told me you quit teaching regularly..." Linda told Autumn with a raise of her eyebrow.
Autumn nodded, "I realized teaching isn't for me. Now I've got more time on my hands to write."

"Have you worked on anything?"
Autumn bit her lip, "Just a few rough pieces. Nothing too major."

She didn't know what was up with her. Usually she could write easily and fluently but lately she was blocked off. Her words weren't coming out right and she couldn't feel any of it.

Linda smiled and patted her knee, "That's good to hear."

-
After coffee with Linda and Frank, Autumn ended up heading to her favorite grocery store in Bellville. She needed to pick up a few things.

She smiled as she walked inside and saw that nothing had changed. She remembered running down these aisles with her dad and the times he would speed down the aisles with her inside the shopping cart. She hadn’t seen her dad in a while and only shared a few brief phone calls but she missed him and decided she’d visit him soon.

Just as she turned the corner to the snack aisle she caught a glimpse of the girl she had met last night and wondered what the hell Stacy was doing in Bellville. Her eyes widened when she realized Stacy was turning around; Autumn quickly turned the cart around but Stacy caught her just in time.

“Autumn?”

Autumn grimaced with her back turned and cursed under her breath. She turned back to Stacy and put on a small smile and pretended to be caught by surprise.

“Oh! Stacy, what are you doing here?”

Stacy grinned and pulled her cart up next to Autumn. “I just came shopping with Gerard.” Autumn’s stomach dropped and her mouth slightly popped open.

“You live in Bellville too?” Autumn asked, her voice wavered a bit but she swallowed thickly.

“No, I slept at Gerard’s last night. We were both kind of too drunk to say goodbye.” She giggled and rolled her eyes playfully.

Autumn bit her lips to keep from shouting out her emotions and calling both Stacy and Gerard all the names under the sun. “So where is the lover boy?” Autumn asked.

Gerard strolled down the aisle heading towards Stacy but his eyes stopped on Autumn and his blood went cold. He stopped dead in his tracks and wanted to turn and run the other way but her eyes looked up and stopped on his.

He knew she was angry, he could see her eyebrows knit tightly together and the small frown on her pouty lips. He swallowed thickly, wondering how he would explain this all to her.

“Look who shops here too,” Stacy broke their silent stare off and smiled over at Gerard.

Gerard couldn’t find any words to say right away, he walked up next to Stacy and pathetically waved at Autumn.

Autumn sent him a curt nod and sent a fake smile Stacy’s way. She wanted to wring his neck and throw him over the empire state building but she wasn’t going to let him know that in front of his lover.

“I should get going now, it was swell seeing you both.” The sarcasm and venom dripping in her voice was drop dead obvious as she spoke and walked away.