User blog:SodaCat/Style - Chapter 13: Hardwood Floors

i have risen from the ashes

“Yo… you… you ever realize how soft wood is? Like on the floor and shit? It’s like… like a 1,000 thread count sheet, man…”

Alexis said this as she lowered her face down onto the floor and rested her cheek on it, relishing in the gentleness of the material on her skin. It was so goddamn soft.

“Like the hardwood floor? Nah… Nah, it’s hard,” Ricky countered, lowering himself down as well and resting his own cheek on the floor. Still, he could see the point she made. Something about it was pretty inviting…

She shot an ‘I-told-you-so’ look back at him and reached for the blunt in his hands, taking as long and as deep of a drag from it as she could manage. Her cheeks sucked in as she did, making Ricky tumble into a fit of laughter.

“You look like my goldfish when I was twelve,” he howled between laughs, pointing in her general direction. It was a bit hard keeping his finger pointed straight at her when everything was so blurry and in motion.

Alexis stared at him, and for a moment, it may have appeared that she was confused by his words. But within seconds, she was laughing along with him, rolling on the dirty wood floors of the tenements with one hand clutching her stomach as the other did its best to keep the blunt from falling and putting itself out. Something about that whole goldfish analogy or metaphor or whatever (Alexis didn’t really go to English class that often anymore) was just hilarious. She’d never noticed what a damn funny guy Ricky Pucino was.

Their laughter successfully hid the heavy thumps made by the boots Peanut Romano wore on his feet as he trekked down the hallway, guided only by crazed laughter and the unmistakable scent of marijuana. He found himself standing in the doorway of Ricky’s room which was a lot dirtier and disorganized than usual, Ricky and Alexis themselves lying on the floor laughing like two imbeciles.

“What the fuck are you two doing here?” he shot out, a mixture of outrage and downright fear coating his voice.

The two teenagers on the floor looked up, their laughing faces breaking out into excited and welcoming ones.

“Look who it is!” Alexis cheered, pushing herself up clumsily. “Happy fuckin’ new year, Larry! C’mere gimme a hug!”

She opened her arms to him, breaking her hug stance a couple times to take some more drags of the blunt. “Yeah, Romano, come celebrate with us! Happy new year, dude!” Ricky cheered, throwing one arm around Alexis’ shoulders and holding the other open to Peanut as if the two were preparing for some sort of group hug. Ricky took the cigarette from Alexis and took a drag himself, making his own goldfish face.

Peanut couldn’t do much but just stare incredulously. A wide range of emotions were running through him, though he settled on the easiest one for the given situation; fury. Acting on it, he stepped forward and grasped Alexis’ arm, his fingers wrapping all around it. She was getting skinnier and skinnier by the moment, and he was concerned. He yanked her up onto her feet roughly.

“I’ll deal with you later,” he spat to Ricky, and then, thinking better on it, ripped the weed cigarette from Ricky’s fingers and threw it to the ground where he smashed it to bits with his boot. Ignoring Ricky and Alexis’ cries of protests, he dragged Alexis behind him to his own tenements room.

“Why did you do that?!” Alexis whined, instantly collapsing onto the old brown sofa that Peanut used as a bed. She stared up at Peanut like a particularly sour four-year-old.

He took a moment to study her. Her green eyes were dull as if someone had flipped off the light switch in them, and sunken in. Her face was thinner; sharper. Her blonde hair was a mess, just a giant mess of frizz to the right side of her face. She looked like a crazy homeless woman dressed up in leather.

“You’re high as a kite!” Peanut snapped, and because he couldn’t think of anything better to do he yanked the cushion from behind her back. “I haven’t seen you since Christmas eve and then you just turn up outta nowhere to get yourself and Pucino wasted?!”

She stared at him, eyes trained on his brown ones, her lower lip jutted out in an angry pout. “Don’t be pissed just ‘cause I made new friends,” she replied, the teasing tone in her voice giving Peanut the slight desire to smack her.

Instead, he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Alex. I’m pissed ‘cause you went and made yourself some new friends, sure. Look, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you’ve been up to this past week. But shit, you’re one of my best friends. So yeah, when you show up so high you can’t walk straight, with more drugs to get another one of our guys high too, you’re damn straight I’m gonna do something about it.”

He searched her face for any sort of change in emotion, but she remained with the same stubborn glare that she’d been practicing since they were kids. Irritated, Peanut dragged a hand up to his hair, smoothing it down. What the hell was he supposed to do with her?

It would hurt her, but he knew what he had to do. “What, Alex? Is this part of your neverending journey to get Johnny to notice you?” he asked, the words feeling odd on his lips. It was gonna hit her like a truck, but it was the only way he could think of to get through to her.

The reaction on Alexis’ face was instantaneous. She crumpled but within a moment had smoothed herself out into the angriest stare Peanut had ever seen her direct towards him. He knew it was working. “It is, isn’t it? God, Alex, you’re still living with this Romeo and Juliet thing?”

Peanut walked towards a lone dirty window and looked out of it, eyeing the few townspeople who roamed the streets. Probably drunks who’d hobbled out of their tents or shelters to go urinate in public or rob a liquor store in celebration of the new year. He made his way back to Alexis and set his hands on his knees so that he was inches from her face, eye to eye.

“‘Cause babe, that was a real shitty play, and six people died.”

“Fuck you,” she snapped, looking away from him. She wobbled slightly as she did so, and Peanut let out a loud sigh.

“Just lie down, Alex. You look exhausted. I’ll go get you a sandwich or a burger or something.” He gave her a gentle push on her shoulder, intending for her to lay back down on the sofa, but Alexis’ hand flew onto his and threw it off her.

She stood, almost losing her balance, and flipped up her middle finger at him. “I don’t need this. I don’t need you. Piss off, Romano,” she hissed, making her way towards the door.

Peanut followed after, tired of this bullshit. Maybe he could find some sort of alcoholics anonymous group around Bullworth. “Alex, this is stupid. Just come on, get some rest.”

He reached out to grab a hold of her wrist, but Alexis whipped around instantly, effectively scratching him on the cheek with her untrimmed fingernails. Peanut stared at her, surprised, three thin red marks on his left cheek. He placed a hand up to them, shocked.

“You ain’t my dad,” Alexis whispered, venom dripping off her words, before marching off into the hallway.