Robbers (The 1975//Matty Healy)

Meeting

I finished my coffee and got dressed. Matty said we would walk since it was sort of close. Good thing since I don't have a car. We walked for a little over a half hour, then we finally came across another apartment building. It looked older and smaller than mine, but it was still nice looking. Matty led me up the stairs to the second floor and stopped in front of his door. He turned around to me, he looked nervous.

"Okay I haven't been home in a while so ignore the mess." He opened the door and we walked in. I didn't understand what he meant by 'mess,' the apartment was spotless. "What the hell?"

"Well look who decided to come home finally." A voice came from the other room.

"George?" Matty asked.

"Yeah, you know you left your cell phone here, right? You need to be more careful with it," a tall man with hair kind of like Matty's, except shorter and lighter colored walked in. "You need to talk to us so we know you're- oh hello? Who's this?" He asked, noticing me.

"This is Rose. Rose, this George, one of my friends." Matty said. I shook hands with George.

"Ah, so, where you have been for the past two weeks?" He smirked, his gaze shifting back and forth between me and Matty.

"Yeah yeah, don't start with me. Did you clean the apartment?" Matty asked, obviously trying to change the subject.

"Yes I did, I came by to check up on you to make sure you weren't arrested and it was filthy. I kept coming back for a week and you weren't here. I figured I'd clean up a little bit for you since I knew you wouldn't."

"I clean up after myself!" Matty argued.

"Yeah, right." George laughed "Alright well anyways, I need to go to work. Sorry I couldn't stay long, it was nice meeting you." He waved to me and headed for the door. He handed Matty his cell phone before he walked out the door. "By the way Matty, they called you again." Matty tensed up, almost dropping his phone.

"Did you answer?" he asked.

"No, they left you a message though. Don't make stupid decisions again Matty." There was a moment of silence, but it was soon broken when George opened the door and walked out. We stood in silence for a few more minutes.

"Are you okay, Matty?" I put my hand on his shoulder. He jumped a bit.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." I could tell he was lying, but didn't want to push him. I started to wander around his apartment. He had lots of picture hanging around. There were some of him and George and some with two other guys. There was one hanging that was him when he was younger and he was holding a baby. I looked at that one for a while, Matty looked a little different but not much changed. The baby looked two or three years old.

"That's my brother." Matty whispered in my ear.

"Oh my god!" I shrieked, my hand over my heart.

"Did I scare you?" he chuckled.

"Yes! I didn't know you were there. Holy crap!" I said. Matty just kept laughing at me

"Sorry, love." He laughed.

"So you have a brother?" I asked. "You've never mentioned him before."

"Yeah, I miss him lots. He's still in England." He went over to his couch and sat down.

"Why did you leave?" I asked, joining him on the couch.

"The cops were catching up to me over there, so I decided to come here for a while." He chuckled.

"So you didn't start stealing here?"

"Nope, I started stealing a while ago."

"Why did you start stealing?"

He pointed to the picture frame. "My brother was really ill when he was younger and my family needed money for him. So I started robbing people. At first I just pick pocketed people, but then I met a guy who taught me how to pick locks so I started breaking into houses. After I started that, I couldn't stop it was like an addiction." Half way through his story, he put his arm around me and pulled me closer, I didn't mind. We stayed like that for a while in a comfortable silence.

"Why didn't you stop robbing people?" I asked breaking the silence.

"Like I said, it was like an addiction. I tried to stop, but I couldn't. When I came here I just robbed people like I did before, but after a while a group of... bad people asked for my help with somethings and I got involved in some... bad stuff." He sounded very vague.

"Are these 'bad people' the ones who are calling you?" I didn't want to be nosy, but that's what I ended up being.

"Yeah and they're trying to get me to help them with some bad stuff again."

"You're not going to, are you?"

"I hope not."