Burning Moth

Chapter Two, Part One - Bad Company

By now, I was pretty much certain I'd be the death of me.

If Troy's girlfriend didn't figure out about us and do the job herself, then the Dixon's would–or I'd have a really good day and just get hit by a bus. No matter how often I traded the horns for a halo, I was always one wrong move from oblivion–some bad habits I just couldn't kick.

My final class had just wrapped and it was late afternoon, a few hours following my rendezvous with Troy. All I wanted was to get home and get plastered–so Aidan and I could call the police and get it over with. If it had been up to me, we wouldn't have said a word–just kept our heads down and pretended it never happened, tossing and turning at night like everyone else. Yet times like these, Aidan's conscience kept me in check–my little golden reminder that sometimes, yes, the world was bigger than me.

I kept my head down, hands thrust in my jacket pockets as I took the sidewalk in quick strides. Between the dead girl, and being cornered by Finn, I was dangerously close to just putting all of it in a rear-view mirror–forever. If it wasn't for Aidan and his family, I would've chucked the deuces on this town right after graduation and never come back–except maybe to look fabulous at the ten year reunion.

I released my frustration on the orange and gold leaves, kicking them aside with a vengeance. Besides the shitstorms, Aidan was the only constant in my life–everything else in my path usually went to hell.

Much like our apartment.

I knew something was wrong as soon as I walked through the front door. Aidan must've forgotten to lock it that morning, but that was hardly the most upsetting part. Or the scariest. I immediately noticed the coatrack lying on its side, blocking the entrance. "What the hell..." I frowned, tip-toeing my way through a mess of coats and jackets.

Our apartment was a tiny two-bedroom with paper-thin walls that afforded absolutely no privacy. It was also a leaky bucket, a hair trap, and a scary-ass bug paradise. Yet the one thing it was not, was a mess.

When you grew up poor as shit, with no such thing as air conditioning, and second-hand furniture that never ever matched, you learned to appreciate what you did have. For Aidan, being as broke as we were was the absolute pits. For me, this space was my nirvana–and I loved every inch of our shitty little hovel, preserving it the best I could by dusting and vacuuming and washing. And now, all the many months it had taken Aidan and I to transform our shabby apartment into a shabby home... was ruined. Two steps forward, one giant leap back.

Bug-eyed, I followed the path of destruction–photos I had taken, pictures Aidan had drawn–slashed, smashed, and ripped. The pieces marked a bitter trail, from the hallway to the living room–which was struck twice as bad by the tornado of hate.

The furniture was tossed on their side, the cushions gutted and scattered to the four corners. Paper and garbage and junk littered the floor–contents from the beached trash can the intruder had nabbed from the kitchen. The walls and carpet had received the worst of the abuse–splattered with ketchup and mustard, like a child's artwork. All I knew was the stains would never come out, and worse–our grubby landlord would get away with pocketing my half of the security deposit, because the person standing in the center of that mess was probably going to destroy me the same way he had probably destroyed my apartment...