A Sequence Of Matters. Pt.1?

       I closed the leathery cover of my tiny little journal. A breath of fresh air shoots down my throat as I sit up into a straight sitting posture. The way I wrote was a problem. I shouldn't have been so hunched over. But I write better like that. 

I know, I know that's no excuse.

The blanket under me crumples a bit as I slide my body off of the edge of the bed. My socks try gripping onto the floor keeping me stable. As I lift my body weight onto one foot it slides out from under me just a bit, causing me to tumble onto the floor. I rub my spine a bit while I grimace,

     "Lori! Hailey would love it if you could hurry it up and help out!" Jaxon shouts from the stairs that looped into my room. I roll my eyes, still rubbing my spine.

     "Coming!" I gain my strength and stand up from the hard wooden floor.

Before I walked out the front door, I noticed a piece of paper hanging on the refrigerator. I snatched the paper off of the fridge and looked down at it. It was a stupid senior school dance flyer. All seniors were required to go to it. Since it would be the last dance of the year. And the last dance seniors get before they are allowed into clubs.

 

I press the paper against the fridge and click a magnet onto it to set it into place. I stomp out of the kitchen feeling my nerves spike up by a hundred. Before I get to the door Jaxon opens it and opens his mouth to shout at me, but smiles instead when he sees me.

     “Good, now you can help her move in!” He grabs my shoulder and drags me outside. Hailey notices me and smiles.

     “Glad you could come to help Lori, You’re so sweet!” She pinches my cheeks and walks over to the moving van and picks up a larger box. Walking back over to me she smiles and hands me over the large heavy box. I come to help and the first thing they do is make sure I’m too tired to finish. How nice.

The couple of months I plan on staying here are going to be absolutely terrible. And I don’t plan on staying here for long. Once I turn 18 I hope I’ve already found a home and pretty much ready to move into it.

Heck, maybe I’ll be able to move to another state. Anything to get away from Hailey. 

After about thirty minutes of pulling boxes out of the van, Milo walks up the driveway. Smirking at me. My hands were all crabby and everything else was slowly starting to malfunction. I wiped a curl out of my face and huffed out a large breath. Before Milo could get to me I walked a box into the house. When I came back out I thought of the perfect excuse to get away from this torture. How many boxes of makeup can a girl possibly have?

     “Hey, Jax! Milo.” I smile patting Jaxon’s shoulder. Jaxon froze. I hadn’t called him Jax in years. I only used that nickname to get him to do what I wanted him to.

     “Lori.” He answers, slowly. Hailey looks at me skeptically and a worried look crosses over her face. 

     “Milo was going to take me shopping… You don’t mind if I leave right?” I pout. I glance at Milo. He was leaning against his car with a raised eyebrow turned towards me. I snap my fingers startling Jaxon. Milo got the idea and smirked to himself.

     “Are you sure Lori? I thought you wanted to help.” He looks at me solemnly.

     “I do!” I exclaim. He raises an eyebrow at my sudden enthusiasm. “I really do… It’s just I want to hang out with Milo a little too. You know how I can’t say no to anything.” I rub my hand against his back. 

     “Okay… But you’ll help unpack these, right?” He smiles.

     “Of course! Thanks” I kiss his cheek, making him blush a little bit.

     “Don’t be too long!” Jaxon shouts as I walk up to Milo.

When I get to the car I press against him pushing him away from the passenger door. He grins and gets into the car.

     “Okay, El… Where am I taking you?” Milo buckles in and smiles at me.

     “Anywhere but here,” I pause and look out the window. Jaxon and Hailey were hard at work, but that wouldn’t last. “And fast.” I groan.

     “Your wish is my command, princess.” I hit Milo in the shoulder causing him to flinch while turning the key to start the car. He chuckles.

     “Should we go to my house? Or should we pick up Charlie, then go to my house.” Both of the questions included his house. Charlie would feel left out. Then she’d tackle me. Because she knows EVERYTHING about everybody. All-day every day. All night every night.

     “Okay, let's pick up Charlie and head to your house.” He smirks to himself and turns into Charlie's neighborhood. She was standing with her phone in hand and her white purse slung over her shoulder. He already knew this was gonna happen. He must have contacted Charlie while I was in the house. And he knew my answer would include Charlie. Which makes me happy to know that someone knows me so well. They know me so well that they can think fifteen minutes ahead of my brain.

     “Come on Charlie,” Milo says leaning across me. Charlie looks at Milo and hisses, then looks back at her phone typing something... 

     “It’s Chanelle this week.” She continues to stare at her phone.

     “Whatever name changer… Get in.” She rolls her eyes and smiles at me sweetly while brushing her thumb across my cheekbone.

     “Good to see ya, Lori.”

     “Same to you.” I sigh. Charlie- or Chanelle gets into the car and immediately turns on the radio. A pop song blares from the speakers before she connects it to her phone. Milo pulls away from her house and drives towards a stop sign. Chanelle turns on some heavy metal and reaches to lean herself against the two chairs. As we drove in silence, except for the loud screeches of some singer screaming random lyrics. I look out the window trying to ignore Charlie snapping her gum every couple of seconds. 

I should explain who Charlie and Milo are. Charlie is your classic “E-girl” slash “Goth” She wears chains everywhere and her makeup consists of the most shades of black I have ever seen. One time she tried to tell me every shade of black she had. I zoned out after she said normal black. What is even normal black?? Although she’s bubbly and very sweet towards people she knows. So I don’t know exactly what stereotype she fits in. 

Milo is that one f-boy friend in a group. He’s flirty and normally wears ripped skinny jeans, with a giant hoodie. He’s a giant snob and he really shouldn’t be trusted. But I don’t know, I guess I do trust him. We’ve known each other since we were tiny little kids. I was five almost six when I met him, and he was six. I trust him more than I trust Charlie. Milo is a “highschool jock” He plays almost every sport. And normally has all the girls. Well except now. He normally dumps them right before a school dance. He always saves a spot for me and Charlie. It’s funny to see the reactions of girls being told he’s going to a stupid dance with his friends. Which consists of two girls and sometimes a guy. He has male friends at times. But they never work out.

“Ya know, I should braid your hair, Lori. You’d look so fetch with braids.” Charlie twirls a curl around her finger. 

     “I thought you said ‘fetch’ was lame.” I glare at her and slowly pull my curl out of her grasp.

     “Yeah, Lori, that was last week. Now fetch is so~ fetch” She giggles and snaps her gum. Milo loses his calm.

     “Could you not snap your stupid gum in my ear.” He kept his eyes on the road but at times you could see him glancing into the overhead mirror to glare at her.

     “Sorry, Mi-Mi” Charlie coos. And snaps her gum again. She laughs and slumps down into her seat. The loud metal slowly faded out. Leaving a two-second window of silence. Snap. 

Never mind.

There's never complete silence if Charlie isn’t on her phone.

By the time we got to Milo’s house, We had merged into Nirvana. Which was a HUGE upgrade from the terrifying screeches. I was humming the rest of Smells Like Teenage Spirit as we got out of the car. At this point, Charlie stared at her phone as we entered the house. The twins ran up to Milo and hugged his ankles.

      “I just got into the house, you kids.” He grunts and tries to take off his shoes. His foster mom came around the corner, holding a large blunt. She took a long drag of it while she stared us down. After she drew her breath out she finally said something.

     “Bringing two hoes into the house? Didn’t know you were that bad.” The ugly woman laughs, and scans me and Charlie, “And they’re so pretty.” She chuckles and walks away. She just called me a hoe. I grabbed my shoe and got ready to throw it at her head. Maybe it would topple off her body and leave her looking more like a stick than ever. Milo grabs my waist and my wrist,

     “She’s not worth it.” He whispers into my ear. Before he could get to Charlie she shouted at the ugly woman.

     “Your clock is ticking. Don’t make me shove that cigar down your throat and end that damn time right now!” She shouts. Milo groans and lets go of me. I threw the shoe making it hit the woman square in the forehead. “Tick Tock b***h!” Charlie finishes. As a finale, she flips the woman off. Hate seeped out of the woman's every being. She glared at both Charlie and I before turning around in surrender.

      “That was unexpected… I thought your nose was stuck on your phone.” Milo laughs and grabs both the kids by their shoulders and throws them onto the couch. They screamed in the air. Once they landed they had started to giggle like crazy.

      “That b***h had thrown my last straw down and stomped on it. She deserved my every being.” She answers and looks back at her vibrating phone.

      “All I know is, that was the most satisfying thing I’ve done all week.” I chuckle and head up the stairs following Milo.

He connects his Xbox to the wall. Unplugging his Nintendo switch. Charlie jumps onto the bed and clicks her phone back on. Milo holds out two games in front of me, Minecraft and COD. I wasn’t feeling like shooting people so I chose Minecraft. Milo sat down next to me. I grab a controller and connect to my player. LittleLoriBumbz, I made that stupid user name when I was about 7 years old. Although I don’t want to change it. Reminds me of my life back then. It was quiet and happy. Almost like now, but it’s no longer as quiet or happy. I guess that’s just what happens when people get older.

The Minecraft screen loaded as he opened a world. 

“I haven’t touched this world in forever… I used to suck at the building.” Milo laughs while the screen is still loaded.

“You’re not the only one who sucked at building.” Once the game started I immediately clicked onto my diamond sword and killed Milo with two large swipes.

“What was the point of that!” He growls and tosses a pillow at my head. I giggled once the pillow made contact with my head. 

“Still a sore loser.” I laugh, Toppling over. Once he spawns back into the game, he rushes away from me to find the old builds. Once I calm down a bit I follow him towards a large abnormal building. It was the worst house I have ever seen. It was made of hay and it barely had any windows. 

Why did Milo think hay was cool to use?

“Oh, man… This brings back memories.” Milo grimaces.

“Ya, Milo hay is for horses. No your house.” I grasp his shoulder jokingly. And he glares at me. 

“Yes, I know dear. You don’t have to tell me for the second time.” He smiles. I had forgotten I had told him exactly that years and years ago.

“I forgot I even said that.” I blush and stare at my knees. When I hear a small hiss I pick my head up and stare at the screen. Before I could do anything the creeper exploded. Causing me to die. “YOU B***H!” I scream and punch Milo in the shoulder.

***

Charlie stared at her phone. Milo and I had been playing Mario Kart. And now I’m sitting here watching Milo switch to Human Fall Flat. Before he could put the disk in the twins popped in and tackled me and Milo. Once Milo hit the ground and was being tackled I pulled the other kid off me and threw her onto Charlie. She screamed as she attacked her which made me smile. Poor thing.

“Alright, that’s enough, Sarah.” Milo finally says and tosses her onto the bed. She landed on a bunch of pillows giggling. “You too Sasha.” He grunts as he pulls Sasha off of Charlie. Charlie's hair was all ruffled and looked like she had been electrocuted. She stares at me blankly then shakes her head fiercely. Making her hair fall into a normal place.

“That damn kid… She was about to pull off my eyelashes. I saw it in her eyes.” Charlie groans. “And these things cost 50 dollars.” She frowns and turns her phone back on. I smile at her and turn back to Milo. He was tickling Sarah while Sasha begged for him to do her next. It was so cute how he acted around them, how he acted around his friends too. He doesn’t act like this around anyone else. Just us. 

Milo grew tired and held the kids down with his legs. Two children under both legs. They continued to giggle as he pulled them both toward his thighs and looped one leg underneath both of their stomachs. He squeezed them hard making the girls wheeze. Once he let go of the hold the girls caught their breaths and giggled again.

“Python! Python!” They both chanted. I remembered when my dad used to do Python for me. I still remember trying to breathe again after. He used to squeeze so hard.

Milo grabs my waist and lets go of the kids. They look confused as I get dragged into the same place they were in.

“Milo! NO” I scream, he laughs and then squeezes hard. He squeezed all the air out of my lungs. I smiled and a hurricane of hysteria escaped my mouth. He let go of the hold and I caught my breath still in hysteria. I laughed and tears fell down my cheeks. I let my body relax, and as I do he squeezes again really hard, harder than before then let’s go. I continued to laugh. The girls jumped onto his legs making the weight double. Even still I laugh. Although I feel the air falling away from me.

“You guys are crazy.” Charlie laughs. Her face was still stuck on her phone. Before she knew it she was dragged beneath his leg too. She pleads but doesn’t get an acceptance. He squeezes us both. And just as I did she began to laugh.