Little Whining, England.

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My feet make loud metallic noises as I noisily climb down the stairs towards my godfather's house. The beef jerky in my hand makes my mouth water in an unbecoming way. I'm fucking hungry, but all we can afford right now is beef jerky and ravioli. And ravioli is for dinner.

But as long as we have a place to stay, it's alright. We have running water, heat, and electricity- basic things for a house, I guess. And not having a lot of food isn't horrible. At least I'm not fat.

I bitterly take a big bite out of the jerky and hop off the steps coming down from the bridge, and come face to face with a true asshole—my landlord.

He's a bulkier man, one that's round around the edges and one that also annoys the shit out of me. He doesn't care that my godfather has cancer. He doesn't care that we don't have money. Or food. He just cares about rent. He's also technically my Uncle, and it pisses me off to no end.

When I mentioned that it was good I wasn't fat, I was referencing him.

As I approach the front door, I try not to make eye contact with the fat walrus, but he yells at me.

"Boy!" I grunt softly under my breath and hold up my stick of beef jerky.

"If you can't tell, Mr. Dursley, I'm eating lunch." He makes a face at my blatant show of attitude and mentions for me to come over. Ugh.

"Cut out that smart talk, boy. Unless you want me to up rent? Speaking of rent, it's due by tonight." My eyes narrowed as I listened to what he had just said. What a greedy fat fuck. I look down at him from where I stand above him because even though I'm not the tallest at 5' 8, I still manage to be somehow taller than his broad form. He also has a dog.

I lower the beef stick as he talks, and the dog immediately tries to lurch forward and take a bite of it. I pull it back, and the dog yanks him forward. Mr. Dursely immediately yanks the leash back on the dog, who I know to be named Ripper. Oh?

"Don't jump, you stupid mutt!" He gives the dog a stern look like that'll do anything and then looks back at me. "Now listen here, boy, and listen well. Even though your whore of a mother and your drunk of a father got themselves killed, and I gave you a home, I don't care about you. If you don't have rent by tonight, I'm gonna throw your sick godfather's ass out, along with you! You should be grateful we even let you stay there in the first place, with the lower prices and all." At this, it takes every ounce of me not to punch my Uncle straight in the face, but I have a better idea.

I don't say anything and turn around and head up the steps into my godfather's house. Mr. Dursley moves to follow me, but when he gets to the stairs, I toss the jerky stick behind me as Ripper yanks him off the stairs and almost burst out laughing, hearing his painful cry as he clutches his wrist.

"You'll pay for this boy!"

In response, I flip the bird over my shoulder and slam the door shut.

The house that my godfather and myself reside in is actually kind of nice. There aren't any holes in the wall. No broken light fixtures or mirrors. It's two stories, with two bedrooms downstairs and the bigger one upstairs. There's a kitchen, a laundry room, and all in all, it's pretty nice. But things have changed, and not for the better.

Instead of living in the master bedroom of our house, my godfather has taken up permanent residence in the living room. It's easier to access that way. He has one of those beds in the hospitals you see all the time, the ones you see people buying on. Except it's in our house.

In our living room.

It spent a lot of time in an actual hospital, as did I and my godfather, but he only got worse. They kept on saying that he was gonna get better.

As I shift through the mail that's on the table in the entryway, I hear coughing. Nothing new, I suppose, and as I peek over the wall that's part of the hallway that leads to the living room, I see the edge of my godfather's bed and let a sad smile grace my face as I watch his feet move as I hear him let out a series of semi-violent coughs.

There's knocking again, and like a light switch, I whip around and grab the wooden baseball bat in the umbrella stand. If it's my fat arse of an Uncle, we might get kicked out because I might knock out his teeth. I whip open the door and say a rather loud "What!?" and the person standing on the doorstep lets out a violent curse and drops whatever they had been carrying. Except, this isn't my Uncle.

It's a girl.

With a box?

I look down at the ground and notice it is a handheld vacuum cleaner. Odd.

I turned back around and saw that my godfather didn't hear her. I drop the bat back into the umbrella stand and step outside, closing the door. The girl is trying to pick up the relatively small box again and turns back towards me. My mind goes blank as she regards me coolly.

She has blonde hair that's been put back into a messy bun, and some of it whsips out and curls around her face. She's short- shorter than me, at least- and she has dark blue eyes- like the blue of the bike in my garage. She's pretty fetching, honestly.

She also has a rather lithe body, and her jeans cling to her legs in quite a charming way. I blink up back to her face as I realize she's talking to me.

"-and what the hell was that for? Do you always answer the door like the bloody fuzz are there?"

I realize that she is pretty angry with me.

"What?"

I immediately realized that this was the wrong thing to say.

"What do you mean what?! I'm trying to sell this freakin' vacuum cleaner, is what? And what are you doin' hollerin' and hootin' like that?"

"Thought you were my landlord. Sorry."

She huffs several times before setting the box against her hip, leaning onto her other side, and staring at me.

"My, uh… My godfather was sleepin'."

"In the middle of the afternoon?"

"He's got cancer."

This makes the girl, whose name I have no idea, look like she just sucked a lemon. Not in a disgusted way, but in a "I thought this was gonna be an orange, but it's actually a lemon" way.

An awkward silence fills the air as we just sort of stare at each other. "Does he need a vacuum cleaner?"

"He can't really move, but I guess? I don't know if my house is that dirty.

The box in her hand sort of slides off her side onto the ground, and she squats down to pick it up. I move down to help her, but she waves her hand at me, and I stand back to where I am. "How the hell do you not know if your house is dirty or not?!" I sort of shrug as she stands back up, holding the box in both hands and not against her hip.

She really is quite short, I think to myself.

"Do, you uh… do you wanna come in?"

"To see if your house is dirty?!"

"No… it's cold." She huffs again, and I can see her breath. She looks behind her, almost as if she came here with somebody, but then looks back at me and gives me a strange look. The red on her face from the cold makes her look like one of those models from my godfather's magazines. I blink and look away at the thought.

"You're not gonna do anything weird to me, right?"

I immediately flash to throwing rocks into windows and eating beef jerky for lunch.

"Weird, how?"

"Like, I had more of these earlier today, and I was down the street on Kirby Drive, and some guy asked if the vacuum would feel good on his dick or something. That kinda weird."

An unknown form of stress leaves my chest as I learn that eating beef jerky for lunch isn't weird.

Odd.

"I'm not gonna use the vacuum on my dick or anything." She shrugs and sort of leans forward toward the door, and I turn around and open it. I immediately rushed up the stairs, took off my blue jacket, and began to tidy up. My room, usually not a mess, has some t-shirts strewn about in it, and I pick them up as fast as I can and throw them into my closet. The posters on my wall will probably look weird, but she didn't mention punk rock posters, so I'm safe, right?

I hear her light footsteps rhythmically thump up the stairs as I take off my gray hoodie, leaving me only in a dark green t-shirt.

She walks into my room and looks around, and I feel a little self-conscious. There are only a few decorations in my room, and most of them are from when my godfather was actually working: a lava lamp, some band posters, and a shelf with a clock on it. It's nothing too crazy, but I guess it does leave a little to be desired.

She takes a seat on my bed, and the mattress creaks as the spring sinks beneath her weight. She glances up at me, and I feel something stir in my stomach. I awkwardly gesture towards the stereo in my room.

"So, uhh… Do you like music?" At that, she gives a little laugh and a small smirk, and I feel myself grin involuntarily. She has a nice smile.

"Yeah. All kinds." At this, I turn around and click "start" on the small stereo on my dresser, and as the roaring punk rock music comes on, I start to dance wildly. Music is one of the few places where I let myself go, and as I jump around and shake my hair wildly to the harsh sounds of electric guitar, I hear her giggle a little, making me stop. I glance at her for a minute and then click "stop" on the stereo. I like hearing her laugh.

I look at her, at the stereo, and then at my feet, and the words fall out of my mouth before I can stop them.

"So, uh, you got a boyfriend?" Inwardly, I'm beating the shit out of my brain, and the urge to slap myself in the face is almost impossible to ignore. I just sort of stare at her and wonder if that was weird. She kinda looks at me for a little bit, as if I just showed her my third eye, but then she replies, saying, "Not really."

She doesn't look disgusted. Or repulsed. Or like she wants to throw up, like the last girl. Woof. And she just sort of stares back at me expectantly, like she knows something I don't. It makes the urge to hit myself hard in the head go away, and the words come falling out again.

"You want me to be your boyfriend?"

The girl then gives me a smirk and leans on my bed, propped up on her arm. She kind of gives me a once-over, and it makes me subconscious in a way I've never been before.

"I don't know. Are you gonna be romantic and take me out on dates and stuff?" At this, my mind brings up words like "rent" and "treatment," and I know I don't have any money, and I want to jump out of my window to avoid telling her that I don't have money. Part of me thinks she's being serious. Well, I was serious when I asked her, but she's looking at me in a rather not-so-serious way, and I feel like I'm being played. I glance down at her legs dangling off the bed and see the vacuum cleaner. I have a grave suspicion that someone is living inside me and saying things in my place.

"I have enough to buy a vacuum cleaner if that's what you're asking."

She glances down at said vacuum cleaner and then looks back at me.

"I kinda doubt that. Despite the fact that it's small, the fucker's expensive…"

Well, shit. If she thinks I'm not broke, which I am, and that even if I did have money, then there's no way I can afford it. But this girl makes me feel taller than I am. She makes me feel tingly in my stomach like I ate rotten jerky or something, so I quip back, "If I get you the money and buy the vacuum cleaner, then will you be my girlfriend or whatever?"

She stands up at this, picks up her vacuum, and then smiles brightly at me.

"Sure! Just get the money and then find me." She turned around then and started to tread down the stairs, and my mind was going a mile a minute.

She's fuckin' hot. How am I gonna get the money? Does she think my posters are weird? Does-

"Hey. I live in that house on Digby Court. You know, the one with the Christmas lights still on it? That's where I live." At this, she gives me a nice smile and treks down the stairs again. I glance down at my bed and kind of smile to myself as I think about her more.

Wait? I don't even know this girl's goddam name?!