Blooming Passion •• Ryan Tedder {1}

Swallowed By Flames

Shawn's P.O.V.

Ryan had knocked Shawn out by slamming his head on the glass tabletop, and Shawn woke up on the floor nearby many hours later, the time a couple of hours after sunrise. His head was pounding like the hooves of a million running stallions.

Shawn looked around the dimly-lit room and was surprised at the sight for a moment. Shawn and Ramona's shirts were on the floor in front of the couch, and beside it was a broken lamp, the bulb having been shattered across the floor as the lampshade was thrown a few feet away. Then Shawn looked over and saw the glass of the tabletop. It had about a hundred cracks in one spot, where Shawn's head had been hit. There were specks of dark red as well.

Cursing under his breath because he had to get a new one, Shawn got up and touched the right side of his head, right around his hairline and ear. As soon as he wiped a bit off, he knew the scratchy feeling was all dried blood and the smell of metal reached his nostrils.

The anger hadn't reached him yet, but it would coarse through his veins soon. Shawn went upstairs, not bothering with the mess, and looked in the mirror in his bathroom. The entire right side of his head was covered in dried blood, and there was a painful two inch sized cut just above his ear.

"That asshole." Shawn muttered, thinking of Ryan. But he shoved his anger down, using what force he could to do so. Not now. He thought to himself.

Then he took the next half hour to take a hot shower, mostly just to get the blood off of his head. Then, after dressing himself in clean clothes, he decided to try covering the cut by moving his hair over, but after that failed, he just slipped on a baseball hat and called it fine.

He walked out into the hallway calmly, seeing that the time was around 9:45, but then the rage started back up again as he passed Ramona's office. This time, he didn't fight it.

Shawn stepped in there. He looked around, seeing the desk with papers on top of it, and Ramona's guitar leaning against the wall several feet over. There wasn't much else in the room, Ramona was never able to get anything else to decorate it.

Though, that didn't matter. Feeling his fury build, Shawn stepped over the threshold of the doorway and went up to the desk. He looked down at the papers, seeing both Ramona's handwriting and someone else's. It didn't take a fool to know who it belonged to.

With this thought, Shawn scowled and threw the papers and other things off of the desk, using his arms to swipe them over and make them fall to the carpeted floor. Then he saw the picture of him taped over the desk. Shawn snatched it up with anger and grabbed his red lighter out of his pocket, flicking it on and lighting the picture. He threw the burning paper into the bin, watching as Ryan's smiling face became distorted among the flames before disappearing into almost nothing.

Then Shawn saw the flames catch on the other papers in the trash bin, and he looked over at the papers, Ramona's songs, on the floor and got another idea.

Shawn grabbed them in his arms and one by one, he crumpled them up and threw them in the flaming trash bin, sitting in Ramona's swivel chair as he watched the flames devour the thin paper. Soon, they just became a pile of dust, some black pieces of paper among it and the last embers dying down as all of the paper had taken to the blaze. Now nothing was left of what Ramona and Ryan had worked on.

Shawn got up and headed for the door, but then he caught sight of her guitar as well. No, the anger, the adrenaline in him was too much. Besides, she got rid of him once, and the second, she left him for some no-good songwriter. So he would destroy anything she took joy in.

Quickly, Shawn grabbed the guitar and went downstairs into the destroyed living room. Then he headed outside to get his tools from his car. He briefly remembered that he had to return his work uniform to Ricky, but focused on what he was to do. He grabbed the hammer from his bag of tools, then he headed back onto the front porch.