More Than This

11 - Matt

Song of the chapter - Interstate Lovesong by Stone Temple Pilots

My room was a fucking mess. It was Friday morning and a day off of school. I was laying on my bed, not really feeling it. Honestly I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed most days, but today I could actually follow through with being a lazy ass and sleeping in.

After I left school Monday at lunch, having been confronted by Amber and still pissed that Pete had to take our problems to blows, I went home and locked myself in my room. The only good thing that had happened to me all week was finding out that my dad was leaving again. Thank God he had that project managers job with a huge company. He was going to be in Virginia for at least three months, hopefully longer. By the time he got back I might even be moved out to college.

A guy can dream.

I kept my distance from everyone since then. Staying out of my dad's way was pretty easy. He didn't want to see me any more than I wanted to see him. Avoidance was the best way to deal with it. But it was tougher at school. I couldn't just blow off the rest of the year and ditch. I still needed to keep up some of the image I had spent years building. One bad relationship and an asshole for a best friend shouldn't destroy all of that.

It wasn't too hard to avoid Amber. I only had one class with her and that was first period. She was always on time, actually she was usually the first one in her seat. And she loved to sit up front. So I just waited until the bell rang and then snuck in to the back row. As soon as the class was over, I jumped up and got out of there as quick as I could. We never even made eye contact. Amber had no desire to look my way. If anything, she seemed really damn happy, happier than she'd been with me anyway. I guess telling me off in front of everyone gave her the feels. Shit.

The guys were the hardest to avoid. I couldn't do it physically because we shared a locker room everyday. I still sat there at lunch, too, trying to keep the damn image up. So I avoided conversation, I avoided them socially. I'm sure there was some raging party the night before, but I made sure to stay out of those topics and successfully avoided being forced to go.

Fuck everything. I couldn't wait to get out of this hell hole and start over.

Still laying in bed, I rubbed my face with my hands, groaning and stretching with morning sleepiness. I had no energy lately, that day off was no exception. Video games didn't take much effort, so I decided it would be a good way to waste time. I reluctantly got out of bed and pulled some athletic shorts over my boxers, then kicked all the dirty clothes into one pile. That's about the extent of my cleaning  skills. Who gave a rip.

I sat in my gaming chair and fired up the X box. Killing some zombies sounded pretty good to me. Every kill felt kind of good. That was pretty sick, but at least it was just a game. Eventually I'd get hungry and need to wander out to find food. My dad had left early that morning so the house was pretty quiet. Which was a nice change after a month of fighting. At least one part of my life had settled down for a while.

After about an hour of playing, I heard a knock at my door. My brother liked to jump in on a game whenever I was in a good enough mood to let him, he must have heard me playing and wanted to see if today he'd get lucky. And since my dad was gone, and I'd been awake long enough to get over my morning mood, I thought I'd let him in. The guy on the other side of the door, however, was not who I expected.

"What are you doing here?" I asked as Pete stood in my hallway with his hands in his pockets.

"I figured it was time we talked about it." He said.

"I don't even know what it is" I replied with finger quotes around "it".

He just nodded his head, "Yeah, I know. That's why I'm here. Jeff kind of talked me into it, but he's right, man. I need to talk to you."