**Title from Blame It On Me by Parachute**

Chapter One:

Brendon unpacks the last box and glances over at his mother who's sitting on the old dusty arm chair he just placed in the corner of the room. Her eyes are as bleak as the overcast sky peaking through the decaying sheer curtains that came with this damn apartment.

Brendon walks in on his mother, a mess on the kitchen floor. She's crying and her lip has been split open. He tentatively walks forward tears in his eyes after listening to the fight. To the door slamming and Boyd walking out the door, maybe for good this time.

Brendon sighs and prays to God, Buddha, Allah, and possibly Chuck Norris that this town will be better than the last one. It wasn't really his choice to move but he didn't exactly throw up the protest banners either.

Brendon uses his thumbs to wipe away her tears and she sucks on her bleeding lip as she builds the nerve to look her eight-year old son in the eyes. "It'll be ok mommy..." He coos, this process has been repeated a few too many times within the past year. Brendon learned how to help her but even now he can't hold back his own tears.

"Viva Las vegas huh mom?" Brendon says with a forced smirk. He already knows he won't get a reply, so he goes into the kitchen to make dinner. His cooking skills aren't anything extraordinary but he works with whatever talent he's got.

"Viva Las Vegas..." He whispers to himself. He didn't think it was smart for his mother, a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, to be living in a town like this but, according to her, there's a friend here that might be able to lend some money and with their only income basically being what he can make, they really could use some money.

"Dinner's ready mom..." Brendon says softly, walking a plate with a grilled cheese sandwich on it over to his mother. He places the plate in her lap and pushes hair out of her eyes. "Please eat today mom..."

"He's gone Brenny... He's not coming back this time..." She sobs. Brendon does his best to become numb, to stop the tears.

"It's ok mommy... I'll take care of you."

First comment! I absolutely love how this started out! You should definitly continue because I'm anxious to see where this will lead to!

Chapter Two:

Brendon unfolded the couch and made himself comfortable on the all too familiar futon. He had been practically living on this piece of furniture since his dad had decided suicide was better than divorce and they found out that he had no life insurance. After that night, it was one room apartments and major budgeting, or if things were really rough, shoplifting.

Brendon squeezed his eyes shut and begged his body to sleep. It had been a long day.

That night, Brendon hears the car pull into the drive way. He smiles and sits up in bed, because dad did come home. He hears footsteps coming towards his room and pretends to be asleep. Boyd walks into his son's room. He trudges toward the small twin sized bed and sits on the edge. He strokes Brendon's hair and kisses the small boy's forehead. "I always loved you Brendon. I promise." He says weakly. He leaves the room. Brendon bites back a grin, not picking up on any of his father's mannerisms tonight. All he knows is that dad came back home.

Brendon wakes up in a furious cold sweat. He only had gotten a few hours of sleep but all he could usually ask for. Every night for the past nine years ended the same. With the same nightmare that he couldn't shake. He knew how it'd end if he stayed asleep.


Brendon wakes up early the next morning. He rushes into his dad's room, which has been separate from his mom's room for a long time now. With a big grin he opens the door.

Brendon tugs on his hair as he does his best to cast this one memory to the back of his mind, but doing his best isn't enough. He's learned by now that it never is. The one image he wanted to forget had been haunting him since he was eight-years old.

Brendon stumbles back in horror not fully comprehending what is before him. He can't seem to understand what the dangling feet and the torn sheets that had the capability to crush a windpipe meant.

Brendon stands up and paces quickly. Under his breath he is cursing his father, who didn't have the strength to fix their lives. He's cursing that stupid little boy who actually had the gull to hope; the boy that had the nerve to believe that anything could work out for him.

Oh my gosh!
That is amazing!
Wow!

Chapter Three:

Brendon tugs on his shirt the next morning and examines himself in the mirror that was still slightly foggy from his shower. The shirt is a black and grey vertical stripped button up and he's wearing dark, slightly worn, straight-legged jeans with a pair of old, stolen navy blue Converse. He wants to look nice today since him and his mother were basically going to go beg for money from one of her old high school friends.

"Brendon we need to go!" She says from the other room. He was glad she wasn't so... well, out of it today. It'd help their case if she didn't seem like a total junkie.

"Alright mom." He says in a voice that's barely loud enough to hear through the door. He walks into the living room and his mom is in a modest dress with a floral print and he can't help but wonder how long she's had that thing. "I'm ready to go."

The two of them take a bus and watch the neighborhoods change. They started with the scum of the town, then small homes that were slowly falling apart and had desert landscaping with weeds growing between the rocks. This slowly turned into mid-sized homes with rocks and fairly convincing fake grass. The homes increased in size, cleanliness, and overall attractiveness and finally they were in a neighborhood where each home was completely custom and there were long grassy lawns and beautiful flowers spilling out of huge, intricate clay pots that were probably imported directly from any array of third world countries where little women and children were creating more pots just like them. Brendon sighed as his eyes skimmed over the expensive architecture of each home and thought about how each person in these places were probably much happier than him.

It's not so much that Brendon thinks he has it any worse than anyone else. He knows that every life has trial. He just also knows that his interpretation on life has left him more bitter and unhappy than most.

The bus stops and the two of them walk in silence. Brendon follows his mother through the fancy neighborhoods with his hands in his pockets.

"Here we are." She declares. Brendon looks up at the fancy, large three story home with creamy paint and oak trimming. He feels underdressed in his nicest clothes. He gulps and nods and the two of them approach the front door.

Mrs. Urie knocks on the door and she makes sure to stand up straight and hold her head high. An intercom next to the door clicks and the two of them hear a woman's voice come through. Interferences with the frequency make the voice faint and crackled but the voice clearly says,

"Barbara Urie! Get in here chickie! Door is open!" My mom smiled.

"All girls called each other 'chickie' back in high school." Mrs. Urie explained. Brendon snorted slightly and nodded.

His mother opened the door and a wave of air conditioning and the smell of fresh cookies washed over him. A woman around his mother's age walked up a stair case that went into yet another level of the house. She was smiling and looked much younger than Mrs. Urie and Brendon realized how much the drugs and just life had brought his own mother down. This woman was wearing an apron that had flour on it. She wiped her hands on the apron and took it off before hugging Mrs. Urie.

"Sorry I'm such a mess. My daughter needs some cookies for a bake sale and well I decided to help her out." She let go of Mrs. Urie. "That girl is hopeless when it comes to cooking."

She turned to Brendon and her eyes got wide.

"AW is this little Brenny Bear?!" She exclaimed before pulling a rather startled Brendon into her arms. "You look so handsome." She said softly, "Do you remember me?" He blushed and shook his head.

"Sorry ma`am but no." She smiled.

"I'm Mrs. Ross."

this is really good,


update soon?

Woah, this is getting better and with every update! I can't wait to read the next chapter! I feel like it's going to be a great story

Ooh! This is uber cool!

Chapter Four:

"It's nice to meet you Mrs. Ross." Brendon replied with a soft smile. The woman smiled and shook her head.

"I think the last time I saw you was about fifteen years ago. You were about two? You and my little Ryan were inseparable for the five weeks I stayed with you guys." She grinned, "Speaking of which, he's upstairs in the third room on the left. Why don't you go talk to him while your mother and I discuss some things."

Brendon nodded but the second he turned around he grimaced. He wasn't much of a "people person". He was respectful to adults but that was about it. He would have rather stuck around and help discuss financial issues to tell the truth.

Brendon trudged up the stairs and went to the room that had been previously specified as Ryan's. He found it funny that this kid had apparently been his bestest buddy ever and yet he couldn't remember a single detail about him. Brendon sighs and knocks on the door.

"UNO MOMENTO POR FAVOR!" A boy's voice flamboyantly sings from inside. The door swings open and Ryan takes one look at Brendon and smirks, "Well hello sexy, how my I help you?"

Brendon cocks an eyebrow. "My mom and your mom are talking downstairs and I was told to come hang out with you."

Ryan's eyes widen. "OH RIGHT!" He flings forward and pulls Brendon into a bear hug. "IT'S MY BRENNY BEAR!" Brendon stands stiffly and makes a face. He's not really one for physical contact.

"Please call me Brendon..."

"Dude!" Ryan grins and pulls Brendon into his room, "Do you even like remember me? You probably don't since we were SUPERDUPER little but yeah, I was like a year older than you... was? I probably am still a year older that you unless some weird SciFi thing happened but I highly doubt that but anyways you were super cool..." Ryan is speaking so fast that Brendon begins to feel a head ache coming on.

"That's-that's cool man..." Brendon mumbles and leans against a wall. Ryan smirks.

"My mom said you guys are here though cuz you guys need some help and my mom feels like she owes you guys big time since your mom let the two of us stay with you when she was pregnant with my sis and in between husbands." Brendon shrugs.

"Yeah I guess that's about right." Ryan beams again and Brendon can't help but think about how much he hates when people abuse the right to smile.

"Well then, glad we could be of assistance." Brendon rolls his eyes and focuses on a bird sitting on a tree outside of Ryan's window. Ryan frowns slightly at Brendon's behavior. "So umm... how's life been since I saw you last?" Ryan laughs slightly. Brendon brings his gaze back to Ryan and smirks.

"Oh wonderful. Let's see, since the age of two my parent's marriage fell apart, my dad killed himself and ever since then I've basically taken care of my incompetent mother. I've never had a girlfriend, not that I'd have time to anyways and besides, I'm not really into that whole talking to people thing, if you haven't figured that out yet." Brendon raised an eyebrow, "How about you?"

Ryan fidgeted awkwardly, "I'm sorry man, that sucks..." Brendon shrugs it off.

"Doesn't matter, all I want right now is to get all this over with and go home." Ryan gives him a sympathetic look and nods. He sits down on the edge of the bed and wonders how long he'll have to sit here in a silence that provokes enough tension to cut with a power saw.

Ooh! Niiiiiice!

To my few readers: Thank you for reading what I have so far I'll keep working on it and please, if there's something about my writing style you like or dislike, tell me. This is more of growing experience for me as a writer so I'd appreciate brutal honesty. If you think a character seems to unreal or a situation doesn't seem quite right, let me know and I'll do my best to fix whatevers wrong as I go along

I think it's quite good so far! No problems yet, but I will be looking if you want me to look! (Just a warning, I wear glasses so I'm not very good at finding things... )

quote:

Originally posted by TheSingingDiva:
I think it's quite good so far! No problems yet, but I will be looking if you want me to look! (Just a warning, I wear glasses so I'm not very good at finding things... )

Haha thank you And it's not so much mechanical errors just as far as story flow and plot. anywho, I'm gonna update again so if you're around in twenty minutes or so, they'll be another chapter for you!

I may just be here stalking/waiting patiently/impatiently for the update... depends on my mood, or how cool or pathetic I'm feeling.

Woot twenty minutes. Can't wait.