Where did you go wrong?

I never fucked up.

He was such a decent young man. It's terrible how drugs can destroy someone.

They did not destroy me. They saved me. In a wicked sort of way.

You're killing yourself, slowly and painfully.

And since when do you care about me?

You could've had a future Gerard.

No. I would've ended up on the streets anyways.

Gerard.

Yes?

Gerard?

Yeah?

"Gerard!" my younger brother, Mikey, yelled. I blinked and looked at him. His hazel eyes, which were very similar to mine, looked concerned. "You were daydreaming again. We're almost there."

"Almost where?" I asked. I knew exactly where he was driving us to: a small town called Bantam, Conneticut, but I needed some amusement, so I decided to mess around with him.

"You don't remember?!" he shouted. He pressed hard on the brakes, making the car tilt forward in the process. His eyes were wide with worry, and I tried my hardest not to laugh at his white-rimmed glasses, which were halfway down his nose.

"Calm down, Michael. I'm messing with you" I said, and he frowned.

"Don't do that Gerard! It's not funny!"

He started up the car again, and drove past a small memorial on the side of the road. It wasn't much of a memorial, just a bunch of unlit, melted candles and dirty teddybears. There was also a picture of a pretty woman and a guy, who I suspected was her husband. A small boy stood by them.

"Where's Toro?" I wondered out loud. "Did we leave him at the gas station again?"

Mikey chuckled and fixed his glasses with his left hand. "He's asleep in the backseat. I really don't think we'll forget him anywhere anymore. I'll know he's missing if I don't hear him snoring. And anyways, we won't have to stop anymore, we're really close..."

As usual, I tuned out what Mikey was saying, and focused on something else. The little memorial on the side of the road really bugged me. I wanted to know what happened to that family. Were they all dead? Maybe they had gone to Heaven together. Or Hell.

"Aren't you excited about moving away from Belleville, Gerard? I am. It's gonna-"

"No" I said flatly, cutting him off. He seemed a bit hurt about my rudeness, but I honestly did not give a shit.

"Could you at least pretend to be? For me?" he asked.

"Oh, alright. I'm so happy to be moving away from the town I grew up in. In fact, I'm fucking ecstatic about it. And you know what the best part is? My little brother has to take care of me because everyone thinks I'm an irresponsible dick who's life depends on crack!" I said, in the most sarcastic tone possible.

"Gerard, stop. You brought this on yourself. If you would've stayed in rehab like mom and dad told you, we wouldn't be in this mess. And I hope you lose the attitude because I'm not gonna spend the next few years of my life living with a prick."

"Shut the fuck up, Mikey" I murmured under my breath. He sighed and decided to ignore me for the rest of the ride.

We arrived in the small shit hole-I mean, town-a few hours later. Instead of going straight to the house we bought, we went to the small sheriff's office to have a small talk about my addiction and the teens in town. The sheriff's name was Mr. Davis, but he was known as Davis by everyone. I could tell he was aged by the small patches of white hair around his head and the wrinkles on his forehead from years of frowning. He stared me down like a hawk as soon as I stepped into his office. I felt like I was back in high school and entering the principal's office. Or a lost soul entering the devil's den.

"Listen here young man" he said, and gestured at me to sit in the chair in front of his desk. I sat down as quickly as possible, and got ready for a long lecture about morals and not doing cocaine.

"I'll go straight to the point. We have nice kids in this town. Nice young men and ladies who have a bright future. Your brother was honest and informed me about your...habits."

I grimaced at the word 'habits'. He made it sound like I was committing a sin.

"I do not want you to spread that to our young ones. I do not want you to talk to them, or even look at them. They don't–"

"I'm not gonna rape them" I spat. Davis closed his mouth and pursed his lips for a second, and then continued talking.

"They don't need someone to ruin their futures for them. Now, I told your brother that I don't want that stuff in town, and if I find any of it in your possession, I will kick you right out. Understand?"

"Yes, officer Davis" I said, emphasizing each syllable so that I sounded like a robot. This seemed to piss him off a little, so he frowned and waved me away. I smirked, stood up and walked outside, where a very frantic Mikey awaited me.

"What did he say? Were you nice? Can we stay? Did he kick us out? I swear Gerard, you better not fuck this up for us!"

"Relax, Mikers. He just talked about teens and drugs and basically me being a bad influence on them. Can we just go home now?" I said, awaiting his response.

"Fine. Let's go" he said, and I climbed into the passenger's seat in our car.

The house was really close to Davis's office, which made me a bit uncomfortable. I didn't want him to show up at midnight or something and look through my stuff...and find my stash. I wasn't supposed to have any crack with me, not just because of what he told me, but because Mikey had made it very clear that if I brought any with me, he would make sure I would spend the rest of my life in this town.

The place we were staying at was large. Not exactly huge, but definitely bigger than any other house I had ever seen. "House" wasn't even the proper way to describe it. It was more like a small mansion. The front of this "mansion" was pretty beat up. The white paint on the exterior walls was chipping, the grass was different shades of yellow and overgrown, the trees surrounding the house drooped down like wilted flowers, and the front door would probably fall off if a small breeze hit it. What caught my eye was the white, rusted fence on the right side of the mansion. There was a small path behind it that led into a huge forest, which I guessed was the backyard. I liked the idea of having an immense backyard. It made me feel like I had some freedom in this prison called my life.

Mikey walked up to the front door and unlocked it. He pushed it open, and it squeaked lightly as he did so. I waited for him to walk in, but he just stuck his head inside, looked around, and slammed the door shut. I gave him a questioning look and proceeded to reopen the door, but he slapped my hand away before I could twist the doorknob.
"Ow! What the hell Mikey!" I yelled.

"I forgot to tell you something" he explained, and I had a feeling I was not gonna like what he was about to say.

"This was the only available house they had. No one has lived here in years. I don't know what happened to the last resident, but I got it for a really low price. When I first bought it though, several people told me that this house hasn't been used...or cleaned...in a long time."

I gulped. "How bad is it?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you choked on the amount of dust inside."

"It can't be that bad."

"See for yourself."

Mikey stepped away from the door and gave me that geeky smile of his. I rolled my eyes and opened the door. The first thing that hit me was the overwhelming smell of moisture and decomposition. I wasn't sure what was decomposing in there and I definitely did not want to find out, but I held my breath and stepped inside anyways. After counting four dead rats, eight dead crickets and too many cockroaches running around, my lungs were about to explode. I exhaled and inhaled, which was a very bad decision. Mikey was right; I choked on the large amount of dust in that house. I felt small particles of dusty air fill up my lungs, causing me to have a coughing fit. Almost instantly, I ran back outside, stepping over the dead rats and insects in my path.

"We're living in THERE?!" I yelled, with a horrified look on my face that made Mikey and Ray giggle.

"It'll be nicer once it's clean" Ray explained.

"We have to clean it?!" I shouted, which made my brother and my best friend laugh even harder.

"Do you wanna live in there in the condition that its in?" Mikey asked.

"Fuck no."

"Then I suggest you go buy some brooms and dusters from the grocery store and help us clean" he responded. I gave him a death stare and he chuckled, but I did not understand how he found any of this amusing. I wasn't complaining though, Mikey rarely laughed or even smiled, and I wasn't gonna be the one to ruin the moment. Instead, I walked back to our car, climbed onto the passenger's seat, and locked the door. I closed my eyes, and tried to pretend this was all a bad dream. That I was back in Belleville, in my room, not doing drugs and living my lonely life.

Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. God loves me. Life is good.

Notes

Uahkdlfljsglkajfklj sdfh hold up sorry about this my battery is dying and I can't finish this right now. Please stand by while we work out some technical issues.

It's fixed now and I'm sososo sorry about that.
Anyways, thanks for reading,subscribing and all that.