Only Seventeen

~ 16 ~

*~*~Brian's POV~*~*

I finish my nine-hour shift at the diner and am almost out the door when Deb calls me back. I turn around with a sigh and trudge back to the counter.

"Yes?" I say with a fake smile.

"Have a seat, kiddo."She snaps her gum and wads her apron up before throwing it on the counter. "So, did you find out what that was all about earlier?"

I laugh. "Yeah, I guess you can say that."

"Well."

I shrug."I assume you already know."

"That's probably not a bad assumption." Deb leans closer to me and stares me down. She's the only person who can do that and give me the shivers.

"Deb, you know I can't give him what he wants."

She shakes her head and lets out a low whistle. "Brian, it's not that you can't; it's that you won't." Her tone softens. "He's beating himself up over you. Justin wants to be in your life any way that he can and I think that scares him because he doesn't want to end up like somebody else that we know." Deb nods her head toward the door where Michael stands with a grin on his face. She looks back at me with a smile on her face. "Besides, what would you do with two best friends?"

She doesn't want an answer, which I'm thankful for because I can't give her one. I don't know what I want to do with this newfound knowledge. I need to think about this, figure out what to say, what to do.

"Brian?" Michael nudges me in the arm with his elbow. I slide off the bench with a quick thanks to Deb and exit the diner. "Where we going today?"

"I need to do some thinking, Mikey." I tell him once we are outside amongst the people. He looks at me, confusion written across his baby face. Mikey will be fourteen forever, like Peter Pan.

"But Bri, I thought we were going to hang out. I thought that today was our day. You've been so busy with Penn State and now student teaching; we never see each other anymore." Mikey begins to pout so I step closer and rest my hand on his shoulder.

"Not today, Mikey. Today, I need to think about some things that just happened." He scrunches his face and then seems to accept this answer. I pat his shoulder one last time before turning and walking to where I parked my car.

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I open the front door and the hinges squeak, letting whomever is inside know that they're not alone. The door slams behind me from a gust of wind as I step inside the living room. I toe off my sneaker at the entranceway and toss my jacket onto the back of the teal lazy boy. I hear the scraping of wood against the linoleum floor coming from the kitchen and my back stiffens.

"That you, boy?" A gruff voice calls. I glance at my watch, barely four and my old man's completely sloshed.

"Yeah, Pop." I call back and make my way to the stairs, to my room.

"Not so fast." He yells knowing full well where I'm going. I can see him from where I stand at the foot of the stairs. He's worse than I thought.

"What, Pop?" I ask though I know what he's going to say. It's the usual whenever I come home this early. He's too drunk to know what day it is or to even know that I'm old enough to handle my own life. "I've got places to be."

"Don't bullshit me, boy."He warns as he gets closer to me, pointing a finger in my face. He looks older with gray through his once brown hair. He's the same height as me and can no longer tower over me. "What ya doing home in the middle of the afternoon? I don't want any freeloaders. You lose that fancy job you had?"

"No, Pop." I answer with a slight eye roll. "I finished my shift for today."

Pop scrunches his face and thinks about what I said, tries to read my face to see if I'm lying to him. "You think you're so tough." He mumbles and I watch as he raises his hand, but I stand my ground, don't move an inch. He decides against it, instead he turns and grabs the bottle of whiskey off the counter. I used to be scared of him when he'd get like this and rightly so. He hasn't hit me in awhile, save for when he's extremely pissed off, or extremely drunk, which usually coincide. I've learned to hit back though.

I race up the stairs and to my room where I fall on my bed. I grab the red pack of Marlboros from my bedside table and light one. After the third puff I can feel my muscles relax and my brain unclog. What do I do about Justin?

Isn't that the question of the day?

I usually do my best thinking with alcohol and my dick up an ass, but it's too early to go to Babylon. I'd usually raid the liquor cabinet, but with my old man downstairs I'm not going to risk it.

I can't just sit here.

I finish this cigarette and light another, then finish that and light yet another, and still I have no clue as to what to do or say. Deb's right and Justin's right that I don't need another Michae --one is more than enough, but the thing that I hate to admit is that Justin's already more than Michael could ever be. Mikey and I were friends first and as such could never be lovers, but Justin and I started off different. I glance at my watch; I've been up here for an hour, plenty of time for my old man to pass out. I remove my t-shirt and don a black beater.

"Where you going, boy?" My pop calls from the kitchen when I come down the stairs.

"Out." I answer, grabbing my jacket off the chair. I slip on my shoes and am almost out the door when my Pop comes swaggering into the living room.

"Worthless, piece of shit." My dad mumbles and I realize that he's ready for a fight. "You're never going to amount to nothing."

"You've told me before, Pop." I say attempting to get out the front door unscathed, but as luck would have it he flails his arm and makes contact. His fist lands right below my left eye and I'm sure there'lll be a mark. He sways back and forth and I know that he put all his energy into that one hit, so I guess he made it count. "Thanks." I say before flying out the door and down the steps to my car. The last thing I hear, before starting my car and driving off, is the thud as he hits the floor.

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*~*~Justin's POV~*~*

I slept the day away and now I'm watching infomercials on the television downstairs. The only light on in the house is the lamp next to me. We have expanded digital cable, for only God knows why because nobody is home often enough to watch it, and I've flipped through every channel that we have to no avail. There's nothing worthwhile after midnight, which is why they invented expanded digital cable.

Ironic, isn't it.

I'm not tired, which probably isn't a good thing because I'll most likely end up going to bed at mid-afternoon and wake yet again to watch the endless supply of useless shit being sold to the insomnia-tainted masses.

Normally, this would seem like a good time to go to Babylon, drink a few, and hopefully find my way home. After what happened in the wee hours of this morning, I won't be seeing the inside of Babylon for quite some time.

I won't be able to hang out with Michael, he'll view me as either a threat or a comrade, and I don't want to be seen as either.

There's a rustling outside maybe, a wayward cat, or opossum. I get up to investigate, flip the outside porch light on, and carefully open the front door. That's when I hear it again, a scraping on the screen of the window. The breaking of glass quickly follows.

"Hello?" I call not bothering to hide the shaking in my voice. I've never been good with night noises, especially the ones where the origin is unknown.

"Sunshine." It's a slurred voice, but I know to whom it belongs.

"Brian, didn't you just berate and belittle me this morning, and then you come to me in the same condition." I stand high on my soapbox.

He follows my voice and his shadowy figure steps into the light. His hair is disheveled, his shirt untuct, and jacket half hanging off. The thing that catches my eye, makes my stomach flip, and breath stall in my chest, is the massive bruise beneath is eye. It's an ugly purple and navy. Not more than a few hours old.

"Brian.."

"I'm okay, Sunshine." He answers and I'm not so sure that he is, but I lead him inside my home anyway.

"Did you get in a fight?" I question him as I remove his jacket and toss it on the arm of the sofa. "At Babylon or Woody's?"

He shakes his head no and falls back against the cushions. I untie each shoe and remove them, place them neatly beside the table. "It was just my old man." He gets quiet, I think he's falling asleep, but his eyes are still open.

"Brian, go to sleep." I command in a not-so-harsh voice.

"Justin?"

"Hmmm?" I get up and walk over to the hall closet.

He rolls over, watching me with a glazed look in his eyes. "You can never be like Mikey. I don't know why I said that." He rolls back over and stares at the ceiling.

Sometime, during my moment of surprise Brian passes out, and I cover him up with a throw from the closet.

I grab a seat on the opposite couch, mute the television, and listen to Brian breathe.

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