Leaves of Autumn

[5] Leaves of Autumn

            Jordan stared at me for an immeasurable amount of time, his expression’s changing from anger, to hurt, to sad, and back to anger again.  Till finally he turned his back on me and walked off.

            Rolling my eyes I started making my way home when Oliver’s truck came up beside me.

            “Since Jordan now hates your guts, want to come over to my place for a bit?” he asked me through his window.

            I smiled and got into his car.

            Oliver’s grandparents lived in a small old farmer’s house.  His grandfather obviously had some parts of the farm still up and running such as the chook house and the vegetables. 

            We walked up to the house and sitting on the porch was an old border collie. 

            “His name is Billy,” Oliver explained as I looked at the dog.  “He’s 14 years old this year.  He doesn’t have much life left in him.  Poor guy will probably pass away soon.”

            I felt sorry for the dog.

            Oliver walked me through the house till we reached a small bedroom.  He has a single bed and his room was covered in posters of many bands that I actually knew.  There was of course Never Shout Never, there was Paramore, Kisschasy, Flyleaf, Black Veil Brides, Eminem, Simple Plan and many other bands like that.

            “You’ve listened to all of them?” I asked him.

            Oliver nodded.

            “How do you know about them?”

            He hesitated for a moment but then told me.  “When I was younger, dad once took me and Jordan to the city.  I saw life there... I heard music... So when he brought us back here I went to the town computer, waited ages for the slow internet to load and ordered some CD’s to my grandparent’s house.  They gave it to me as a birthday present.  Dad tried burning them when I told him I wanted nothing to do with this town... but I put up a fight.  So instead he decided to kick me out.”

            “Oh Oliver... that’s crap!”

            Oliver shrugged.  “It’s life.”

            “So do you have all their albums?” I asked nodding to the posters.

            He shook his head.

            I grinned and fished around in my bag, pulling out my iPod.  “Enjoy,” I told him as I chucked him my iPod.  He stared at it in fascination but then frowned.

            “I can’t have you sit here whilst I listen to music,” he said to me.

            “Then take it for the night.”

            A grin grew on his face.  “Really?”

            I nodded.  “And tomorrow tell me what bands you liked and I’ll burn you some CD’s from my step-father’s laptop.”

            “Would he be fine with that?”

            “Ah... leave that to me.”

            Oliver didn’t notice me trying to cover up how much sneaking I’d have to do for that in the tone of my voice.  He continued to stare at the iPod and eventually carefully set it down on his bed as if it were something extremely breakable.