105Erg! Warning: Extremely short and cruddy, corny, and cheeseychapter below. Thanks for your reviews and I'll attempt to start a better, longer chapter tonight.
Madison stared from the stairs. The smell of weed and cigarettes was overwhelming, but nobody else seemed to mind. Her eyes paid close attention to Matt as he shoved his way through the crowd until he got to the front. The rest of the crowd was attempting to shove each other, in what would have been a mosh pit if they place hadn't been so packed. Slowly, her eyes drifted over to T.J for some type of condolence, but she found none. Instead he grabbed her arm and dragged her down the rest of the stairs despite her protests.
"Todd...noo! Arggg. Let me go!" In her eyes the audience looked dangerous and the thought of being stuck between everybody terrified her. T.J didn't let go though.
"It'll be okay!" His voice was extremely loud, as he was trying to speak over the music. Continuing to pull at her, he landed them on the floor of the basement stuck between a group of rowdy, sweaty guys. The loudest was smoking a cigarette and blew smoke towards them. Madison turned her head away but before she could say anything, Todd pushed them forward.
Receiving plenty of dirty looks from other audience members, mainly the girls, Madison silently apologized with a small smile as she was pushed forward. They finally landed at Matt's side and Todd tapped him on the shoulder. Matt greeted them with a wide smile and tossed his arm around Madison's waist and held her close to himself. By that time she was feeling very shoved around and pretty angered by the entire thing, but she said nothing.
The screamer of the band got into the faces of the crowds, lyrics pouring out, seemingly directly from his soul. The guitarist swung his guitar around his body in unison with the bassist, and the drummer's arms were flying madly. The second guitarist stood tall on the largest amp with a goofy grin plastered to his face. And the front rows of the crowd, those of who knew the band, sung along to the words. For a fleeting moment Matt wondered what it was like to be in front of such an appreciative crowd, a crowd who begged for more, whose energy could be played off of. Todd shared the same thought and for a moment their eyes met. They could practically read each other's minds, but with a small smile they both turned the attention back to the band.
Madison threw her arms around Matt's waist in an attempt to keep from falling over. From all of the bouncing and sweating she quickly had begun to feel nauseous. And then the song ended. Glancing downward at her, Matt gave her a concerned look. "Are you alright, Mad?"
She shook her head, a bit afraid to open her mouth.
"Alright...alright. here." Matt tapped Todd on the shoulder and let him know that they would be heading upstairs, and then led Madison up the staircase and into the living room by her waist. He then let go of her waist and let her fall with ease to the couch. "Are you okay?"
"Just dandy."
"Heh." The sarcasm in her voice caused a grin to overtake his face, but there wasn't much to say. "Not an avid show go-er, eh?"
"Is it that obvious?"
He smiled a bit wider and shrugged. "I'm gonna go get a drink. You want anything?"
"No, I'm good."
"Okay...stay put." Matt disappeared around the corner. In the kitchen he found himself raiding the refrigerator. Bending over and rummaging through the shelves, he hadn't heard Casey enter and was surprised to feel a light punch at his shoulder. "Ow, dang. What the hell's wrong with you?!"
"Shuddup," Casey's voice impersonated a macho guy, but then he cracked a grin. "What's goin' on? I didn't even realize you were here until T.J. said something to me downstairs."
"Not a lot. I brought Madison with me and she got kinda sick downstairs so I brought her up. Do you have anything to drink?"
"Is that why you're in my fridge?"
"Yep."
"Here, move." Casey shoved Matt out of the way and dug around in the back, producing a bottle of vodka and presenting it to him. "Drink with care." Matt nodded and took the bottle from his friend. "So what's going on between you and Madison anyway?" Casey swung the fridge door shut and looked over at Matt.
"What do you mean?"
"Come on dude. We all know that there is no way you're going to have a girl in your house all summer and you're not going to do anything with her."
Matt shrugged and struggled to open the bottle. He took a swig before replying. "Nothing. Haley just broke up with me man, how can you expect me to move on so quickly?"
"Because you're Matt. Besides, you had Haley holding you down for so long...aren't you kind of relieved to be free? I mean, shit. You don't have a girl constantly at your side. You can go out and do whatever you want, score with who you want, and you don't have to worry about a thing. Being single has so many advantages."
"No. Haley and I really had something, y'know? I couldn't move on so quickly."
"Obviously she didn't think so."
Matt shot him a stare, then took another swig of his drink. "Ass."
"The truth hurts."
Matt gave him another hard stare and then turned and walked out of the room. Plopping back down on the couch next to Madison, he said nothing. He felt as if his blood were boiling. Madison eyed the vodka bottle wearily but said nothing. Instead she looked across the room blankly. She hadn't known Matt drank. Neither of them spoke for a long while until Madison finally broke the silence.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Don't try that with me, Matt. I know better than that—what's wrong?"
"I dunno. Casey's just being an ass again. Want some?"
"No...I don't drink."
"Why not?"
Giving her answer a moment of thought before speaking, she spoke in a questioning voice. "...because I'm not stupid." Matt studied her face for a quick moment before bursting into a fit of laughter. Confused looks aside, Madison also smiled. "Matt, how is that so funny?"
"'Cause you're such a damn good girl. I don't understand how you do it. You make it seem like it's so easy—not to drink, not to smoke, not to go out and cause havoc." He let the drink slip from his hands down to the floor, landing upright. "I just...man. How do you even have fun?"
"What, does that make me horribly lame or something?" she replied, her tone sarcastic and edgy.
"Nah. It's kinda cute."
"Cute?" She couldn't help but laugh.
"Yeah. Cute."
"Okay Matt, whatever." Trying to control her smile she just shook her head and glanced away. He stared at her, a smile still on his face, for a second and then stood up.
"I'm gonna go sit outside a minute and have myself a smoke, 'kay?"
The smoking...the drinking...the shows. It was enough to make Madison's head spin like crazy. "You're going to get lung cancer and die."
"...so? What's there to look forward to in life anyway?"
"Don't be dumb Matthew. I'm not going to keep falling into these 'pity me' acts of yours. You know there are people who care about you and things to look forward in your life."
"No, I'm serious Mad. What is there to look forward to in life?"
"Well. Love...success..." She paused unable to think of anything more.
"Yeah, exactly. Bullshit. The only thing we can look forward to is growing old and dying. I'll be back." Without another word he turned and exited the house. On the front porch Matt lit himself a cigarette and took a long drag before plopping himself down on a rail.
Inside the house Madison stretched herself out on the couch. Boys were so confusing and Matt was definitely no exception. One moment he was happy and almost flirty and the next he was depressing and talking about death. It almost seemed as if the boy were bi polar. She sighed and spoke out loud as if somebody were actually in the room with her. "I definitely like the happy, flirty Matt better."
When Matt came back inside he stretched his own body out across the floor horizontally next to the couch. Madison glanced down at him. "Why are you a vegetarian Matt?"
"That's kind of a random question."
"I know but...just answer."
"Because in this society today there really is no need to be producing mass amounts of animals to kill. Back before we had skyscrapers and scientists and all this technology and knowledge that we have now—I can understand that. But now we know so much more than ever before and the slaughtering of all these animals is definitely not necessary. Besides...if you've ever seen the videos of slaughterhouses I think that you would understand. The look on the faces of those animals as they're so carelessly mutilated...it's heartbreaking. They know what's coming and they haven't done a thing to deserve it. They're scared. It's horrible—I'll show you the videos sometime."
There wasn't a thing to say. Madison gazed down at Matt, unable to make eye contact and knowing he had made a point. He was right. "You're not so tough, Matt. You're not so bad. You can't honestly have such a bad look out on life when you care so deeply about something such as the welfare of animals."
"They're the only honest beings on earth nowadays."
"You pretend like life is so bad though..."
"Life is bad, Mad. Don't you realize what I just said? I mean..."
"Yeah. I do realize what you just said. And what you just basically told me was that you're not so tough, you're not uncaring...that you care about others besides yourself. Even if you won't let anybody else know it, I know it's there. So why do you put up this front?"
"Because life is rough. You gotta be tough to survive."
"I thought you didn't care about surviving?" she replied, referring to the comment he made about not having anything worth living for. And then he fell silent. "You have such a negative lookout on life. It isn't necessary."
Without another word slowly Matt got up from the floor and invited himself onto the couch with Madison. She sat up and scooted over, grabbing his bottle of vodka off the floor and handing it to him. He took another long drink, set it back on the floor and stretched out on the couch, pulling Madison down along side him. "You're right, Mad. You're right..." His arm draped around her and pulled her close to himself and her eyes closed and she relaxed, her body molding into his.