Melt Your Headaches, Call It Home

I was sitting in the living room putting my information into the new phone Alice had picked up for me, thinking the damage in the apartment didn’t seem to be as bad as I had originally thought.

Soon, however, it occurred to me that I took I a very long shower since it was very hard to not get my cast wet and wash my hair. In the hallway there were a bunch of garbage bags full of broken stuff, which must have been strewn across the floor, lucky most of it was just dishes and picture frames, instead of anything we really cared about.

"Somebody save me!" I heard Alice's muffled voice from her room.

Spencer ran to help her; I knew she was probably stuck under a pile of clothes since I’ve had to save her from that fate occasionally.

I heard giggling, Brendon, coming from inside my room. What has he gotten into?

As I tried to quietly wheel myself closer to my room I could see Jon sitting on my bed taping some of the books we had (that were worth salvaging) back together. He was looking across the room.

"You are such an idiot." Jon said laughing and shaking his head so that his hair flopped in his eyes.

"Dude," said Brendon's voice, "Aren't you curious?"

I had wheeled myself so that I could see my entire room; Brendon was bent over my dresser rummaging around in one of the drawers. Jon saw me and started grinning.

"Brendon," he said, "You're going to regret doing that."

"Whoa! Look at these... Why on earth would I regret -" Brendon turned around, holding one of my pretty Victoria's Secret bras to his chest, my teal lacy one to be exact. He stopped speaking as he saw me and the expression on his face was priceless.

First his face turned sheet white and then slowly reddened, he finally looked sheepish and quickly put it back. "I was just looking..." he mumbled.

Jon and I were laughing; he was exactly like a little kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Luckily, I don't embarrass about things like that, growing up I mainly hung out with my brother and his friends. I learned very quickly that I could not be squeamish about something as stupid as underwear, although I have to admit describing what 34D meant was on the weird side, especially since most of them were five years older than me.

"I honestly don't care, B-don," I said, "You must not get much..."

He looked up indignantly, "I have too!"

Jon interrupted, "That one time where the dancers came in the dressing room doesn't count."

"I wasn't talking about that," Brendon muttered.

But I was pleading over him, "Oh my god. Please don't be broken!"

I wheeled over to my prized possession, the antique upright piano that barely fit into my room.

There was junk all over it, since Jon and Brendon had just gotten to this room, I frantically cleared away all of the junk. There were deep scratches all along it, like they were etched with a knife. My hand was shaking as I opened the key covering. Half of the keys were missing. From what I could see the top of the piano had been smashed in. I pressed a few of the remaining keys; just the sound of clunking met my ears. They ruined it.

I dropped my hand and looked up at the ceiling blinking back tears.

"Brendon!! Guess what!" came Spencer's voice from the door way.

I turned and looked at Brendon, who nodded at Jon and followed Spencer out the door.

"Hey, come here," Jon said pulling my wheel chair so I was facing him. "What's the matter? I'm guessing that wasn't just any ordinary piano."

"It wasn't," I replied, trying to wipe away my tears, "starting when I was in 4th grade my grandfather taught me to play, he even bought me a keyboard to practice with when I was at home. The piano was his and my grandma had given it to him as a wedding gift. She died though, a long time ago, and he said that playing it would remind him of her. Then when I was in 7th grade he died and left me the piano in his will. I didn't play for a long time after that, but when I was 16 I took it up again, and have been playing ever since,” I continued rambling, “My parents made me buy it from them when I moved out, it took me two years to save all that money, and I was going to buy a car. They were going to put it a garage sale, and I couldn't let them do that. But now it's broken anyway."

Jon nodded, "It reminds you of him."

"Yeah," I answered, knowing he understood that, "and it's my outlet for everything."

"I know what you mean," He looked down at the tape at his hands and started wadding it up.

There was a comfortable silence before I said, "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For that, I dunno, for everything! You have been a really good friend for the past couple days; I mean we don't even really know each other. I mean, you're cleaning up my apartment; you have to be a great guy. So just, thanks." I smiled at him; I meant everything I was saying.

He smiled back and scratched his head, "You know the thing is -"

I never found out what the thing was because at that moment Alice shrieked, "OLIVER!"

I gasped, "My baby!" I wheeled myself towards her room as fast as I could.

"Your baby?" Brendon asked, emerging from the bathroom. He pushed me the extra two feet and I was in Alice's room.

She was holding a wriggling fluffy orange tabby that had clearly just been dragged from somewhere unwillingly. She brought him over, quickly before he scratched her, and dumped him on my lap. When he saw who I was he mewed hello and proceeded to rub his face all over me, clearly ecstatic to have me back.

"You're such a good boy Oliver." I cooed and stroked him. He didn’t look hurt or anything, luckily he was smart enough to hide when whoever was trashing the place came in. The only thing out of the ordinary with him seemed to be that he was determined not to let me out of his sight for the next couple hours, I don’t blame him, he’s been alone and terrified for the past four days.

"He was in the mattress cover, I have no idea how he got there," Alice told me.

"Why hello." Jon had walked up next to me and kneeled down. He was currently scratching Oliver beneath the chin, who was purring like crazy; glad to have any sort of attention.

"So you like cats?" I asked Jon.

"Yeah I have two back home, Dylan and Clover," he replied, still intent on giving some love to Oliver.

"I have COFFEE!" sang a voice from the living room, I put Oliver down and Alice rolled me out. Coffee sounded glorious to all of us.

Ryan was standing by the door with a coffee tray perched precariously on his cast, steadied by the other arm, handing drinks to Brendon and Spencer.

"Ok," said Ryan taking a deep breath, reading off a list, "Alice, I have your 5 shot venti, 2/5th decaf, ristretto shot, 1 pump Vanilla, 1 pump Hazelnut, breve, 1 sugar in the raw, with whip, caramel drizzle on top, 4 pump mocha."

"Did you get it extra hot?" she asked jokingly. His eyes widened, "I'm just kidding."

I gave him a sympathetic look, getting coffee for Alice was the worst.

He sighed. "Jon, your black coffee." Turning to me he said, "I didn't know what to get you, so I just guessed and got you a white chocolate mocha, with no added sugar so it’s not as sweet."

"Really? That's my favorite!" I exclaimed.

"Wow, lucky guess," he smiled.

"Ahem, asked Alice, ahem" Brendon coughed.

I laughed as Ryan turned slightly pink.

"Come on!" said Ryan, punching Brendon with his good hand, "I was supposed to look amazing."

"Oh don't worry, you're already pretty fantastic, Mr. Ross," I said smiling.

Brendon and Spencer started cooing, but I ignored them as I answered my phone without bothering to check the caller I.D.

"Hello?" I said, motioning at everyone to shut up.

Only heavy breathing was on the other line.

"Hello?" I asked more worriedly. This caught everyone's attention.

Only more breathing answered me.