AREA CODES

one

a/n: another story??? yeah i know,,but i intend to finish everything i have out right now, so fucking bare with me

also comment if you want cause i love hearing from y'all xx

***

It was in the beginning of winter, the temperature in Boston dipping down into single digits, and the heating unit was absolutely destroyed.

Tyler came in the front door with a coffee mug in one hand and a bag of greasy sausage biscuits in the other. His palms and fingers were slightly warm, even against the frigid outdoors and the shit temperature inside of the house, and he exhaled deeply, watching the cloud of his breath crawl up to the ceiling in a fog. His lungs seemed to freeze over like ice rinks when he breathed in, which is why his breaths were shallow and quick while he walked down the street from the gas station. That, and because he wanted something to do.

Kicking the door shut with his foot, he let the slam start waking up the kids so that he wouldn't have to do it all by himself, and walked over to the kitchen, throwing the bag down on the table. It left a puddle of grease seeping out the bottom of the bag, but, at least he got breakfast. All they had in the house was beer and baking soda, though, so he knew he needed to, regardless. Speaking of that, he needed to go shopping after his work shift, today. You can't eat baking soda by itself.

"Why the hell are you knocking shit around?" A voice called down the stairs, disgruntled and heavy. It was Patrick, who was mostly known as Pat, or Patch (depending on the mood the rest of the family was in, at the moment they called his name). He was brilliant (like, mathematician brilliant; astrophysics brilliant) and the only one in the family who got their mother's green eyes. He was also the second oldest, at a senior in high school, at eighteen. "It's early."

"It's not that early," Tyler argued, moving over to the yank the towel off the stove handle, throwing it in the middle of the table. A napkin for the grease monsters he'd picked up. "I've been up for two hours."

"That's a personal choice," someone else said, the voice closer than Patrick's. Ivy. She was moving down the stairs, slowly, clearly exhausted. "God, I don't want to go to school. Can I skip today?"

"Yeah, if you want to flunk and not have any kind of future," Tyler smiled sarcastically at her when she met his gaze. "Sure." Ivy was fifteen, a sophomore, with her hair dyed a strawberry blonde and her face a permanent shield against anything she might encounter. She was the one who asked to get days off school the most. "I'm just joking with you," Tyler continued, winking. "You're fuckin' going."

"What a shock."

"Get over it," Tyler shrugged, a smile on his face while he gathered paper plates up. They didn't have a stack of them, so he was forced to scavenger hunt for them. "Can you get them up, please? We have to be out of here in forty-five minutes."

Tyler was only twenty. He'd been handed the unspoken responsibility of his younger siblings when he was fifteen. When his dad started to only come around once or twice a month, and only to raid the fridge for an alcoholic beverage when everyone else was occupying themselves with school and work and their lives. But, whatever. It didn't matter.

Of course, Ivy didn't do what Tyler asked. He counted on that. So, he bounded up the stairs, beaten up shoes smearing whatever from the streets of Boston, Massachusetts onto the carpets. It didn't make much of a difference, seeing as there was more shit than carpet, anyway. There probably always will be.

"Get the hell up!" Tyler screamed, power-walking through the hallway. First, he hit Pat's room (which, for a fun fact, they had to make. There wasn't enough bedrooms, so they made the fifth one. It was expensive, but their dad wasn't as shitty and poor back then), throwing his hand against the closed door as opposed to shoving it open, just incase he was jacking off. He'd seen it before. "Get the hell up or we're all gonna be late."