Chapter 6 – The Secret Past of Mihael Keehl

Mello made his way back to his room. It was now time for lights out and he had made up his mind to take L's advice. He decided the easiest way to do that was to let his new room mate in on the parts of his life that he wished to forget, the parts of his life that had made him bitter, cynical and hostile towards people.

When he walked into his bedroom, the lights were out; the only sources of light were the stars in the night sky and the dull glare of the several computer screens in front of Matt.

"Hey," Mello said as he threw himself down onto his bed.

Matt waved his hand in Mello's general direction and continued what he was doing.

"So, I spoke to L earlier."

"Yeah, I was there, remember, I told you he wanted to talk to you?"

Mello inhaled loudly; What was Matt's problem? He thought.

"Look, Matt, I'm trying to be nice here. Could you at least extend that courtesy and TRY to be civil?"

Matt looked up from his computer screen, remembering what Wammy said about taking Mello under his wing, he sighed and bit back the comment he was about to say.

"Sorry, Mello. It's just that this project is really important to me and my grades. If you could give me a few minutes to finish it, We can talk all you want about how you think L is a douche bag and how much you hate Wammy's."

Matt turned back to his computer and sighed. As he added the finishing touches to the project he was working on, he shut his laptop and proceeded to set up a new firewall system on the desktop.

A few minutes later, he shut down his desk top and sat on his bed, facing Mello.

"You have my undivided attention," he said sarcastically.

"I was thinking, since I'm going to be sharing this box with you for as long as we both are here, we should at least try and get along."

"And how do you suggest we do that, since it's pretty obvious that you and I have absolutely nothing in common."

Mello sighed, this was going to be harder than he thought.

"Well, everyone's here for a reason, right?"

"Yeah," Matt said, rolling his eyes at the obviousness of the statement.

"So, maybe that's why they made you share your room with me. Maybe it's our past that puts us where we are now."

"Well, it obviously isn't our personalities," Matt replied, sarcastically.

"Matt, how old are you?"

"Almost 13, why?"

"I just turned 13 in December. When I was 10, my dad died in a train wreck. My mother was distraught for months afterwards. We didn't have Christmas that year. I can remember because there was this really cool chocolate making thing I wanted." Mello stopped for a few seconds before continuing. "2 years later, on Christmas eve, just after my birthday, my mother was on her way home from the store when she was stabbed by a teenager. He was run over by a car on the same day. He'd killed my mom for the sake of a few pieces of paper that had my Christmas list written on it. My mom and I had nothing really. I grew up in a bad neighbourhood where everybody was unemployed. We never stayed in a house for more than a couple of months because my parents couldn't afford the rent. We'd skip town every few months and go to another bad neighbourhood and as a result, I was never in the same school for long. By the time I was eight I had gotten used to sometimes having to steal things, food, books, stuff we needed, stuff I wanted.

When I turned 11, I stole a gun. It wasn't loaded and I didn't take any ammo. I just wanted the gun. I walked into school one day and these guys who used to bully me started to walk over to me. I decided that the next day, I'd take my gun into school with me. The next day they beat me up so bad it took me almost twice as long to walk home."

Matt stood up and sat next to Mello. He could tell this was the first time Mello had told anyone about any of this.

"Those guys were idiots anyway. Y'know. I found out after my mom died that one of them was related to the guy who killed her."

"Dude…"

"I don't want your sympathy, Matt. I want you to know why I don't like you. You remind me of those guys. You didn't even know me and you didn't want me in your life, in your room, I bet you didn't even want me in your damn school."

"That's not it. You just… the last person I ever shared a room with was my older brother and that was four years ago, before I came here. I don't hate you, I don't dislike you, hell, I don't even know you and you've told me some things I wouldn't tell people."

"I can remember realising my dad was never coming back. It was a few months after he died. I asked my mom where he was and she burst into tears. I was 11 at the time. All I could do was but my arm around her shoulders and say, 'don't worry mommy, he'll be home soon.' But he wasn't. I realised after I said it that it was the wrong thing to do. I realised that maybe he wasn't coming back."

By this point, Mello had tears in his eyes, but his voice didn't break as he relayed his memories to Matt.

"My mom turned to drink. Every morning I'd leave for school and she'd still be in bed and every afternoon, I'd come home and she be sat in a darkened room, drunk. Just before she died, she stopped drinking. She began to care about her life a little bit more. She began to take a bit more notice of me. Sometimes, I think, maybe if she'd carried on drinking, she'd still be alive. I don't know if it's better or worse."

The tears began to fall.

"Sometimes I think it's entirely my fault. If I hadn't asked for a gift from that store, she wouldn't be dead. If I wasn't there for her to have to get sober, she'd never have left the house. If I…"

For the first time, Mello stopped. He looked at his fingernails; he looked at his feet; and finally, he looked at Matt.

"I think I've said enough. Good night Matt." And with that, Mello lay down, on top of the covers and pulled his knees up to his chest. Matt stood up and closed the curtains before making his way over to Mello's bed and lying down next to the blonde. Mello was shaking as he cried. Matt gently stroked the blonde's hair. From that moment on, Matt and Mello considered themselves friends. Well, almost.