There's a Trick to it, You Do it or You Die

I hit the ground hard, my eye hurting. I start pushing myself off of the ground, but Paulie grabs me by the hair and lifts my head up and brings his fist into my cheek. I feel hair get ripped out as I hit the ground again, and Paulie says something, but I can't hear him. I roll onto my back, and look up at him. He gets ready to kick me, but I manage to roll out of the way and stand up. I manage to block the next couple of punches that he throws at me, but he gets a good hit in, his right hook connecting with my nose.

"You son-of-a-bitch!" He yells, getting ready to hit me again. I duck down, and he punches the wall hard, and yells in pain. I punch him in the stomach and he doubles over, and I stumble down the hall. I see Zoey walk out of the back bedroom.

"Hey, what's wrong?" She asks, walking towards me. I'm about to answer her when Paulie grabs me by the collar of my shirt, pulling me down hard onto my back. "What the fuck are you doing?!" She screams at Paulie. "Get the hell away from him!"

"You break up with me, then the next day you've already hooked up with someone else? You fucking bitch!" He screams, moving towards her. I manage to pull myself off the ground and position myself between Zoey and Paulie. "Get the fuck out of my way!" He screams. He starts walking again, and I manage to shove him backwards, my entire body hurting after I do it. He runs at me, and puts his entire body weight into tackling me. I scream in pain when I hit the ground, my back not being able to support his body weight on top of me. I hear Zoey yell, but that's about it. I black out.

When I wake up, I'm in the back of Zoey's car, lying in the backseat. I try to get up, but I quickly give up. We pull up to a red light, and Zoey looks back at me.

"Are you okay?" She asks, her voice shaking.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." I lie, trying to pull myself up again. She puts her hand on my chest lightly, and pushes me down slowly.

"Don't get up," she says. "Wait till we're at Jared's before you even try to get up."

"What happened?" I ask, looking down at my shirt. The collar is ripped, and a few bloodstains are on it.

"The guy from the apartment next door happened," she says, stepping on the gas. The car lurches forward and I moan in pain a little. "Are you sure you're okay? We can go to the hospital or something, I don't mind."

"No, I'm fine," I lie again. "Let's just get to Jared's. What do you mean the 'guy from next door happened'?"

"Well, he was outside smoking, and Paulie left the door to his patio open, so he could hear all the screaming. Thank God Paulie doesn't lock his door, like thirty seconds after you blacked out the guy was in the apartment, pulling Paulie off of you."

"I'll have to send him a pack of smokes as a thank you," I mutter under my breath.

"I gave him the pack that was in your pocket," she says laughing a little. I try to laugh, but it hurts too much so I stop. The last five minutes of the drive happen in silence, and I eventually pass out again.

I wake up on Jared's couch, my eye freezing cold and hurting. I move the Ziploc bag of ice off of my eye and look around the apartment. I hear Zoey and Ash outside talking, and see Jared on the other couch, playing with his laptop.

"How long have I been asleep?" I ask, pulling myself up, despite the back pain.

"Only an hour or two." He says, closing his laptop. "You okay?" He asks.

"My back just hurts like a bitch," I say. "It'll get better."

"How'd it go with Zoey?" He asks. I smile like an idiot, despite the pain. He smiles back, and heads into the kitchen.

For Every Action, There is an Equal and Opposite Reaction

"What?" Zoey says to me after a minute or two of awkward silence, grinning a little.

"Ummm," I start as I stumble over the words, all the piss and vinegar gone.

"You love me?" She says, her grin getting a little bigger as she starts to walk towards me slowly.

"Yes," I say under my breath quietly.

"One more time? I couldn't hear you," Zoey says, stopping in front of me.

"Yes." I say with an amount of confidence that shocks me. Where in the hell did that come from? I wonder to myself for a second before she takes my hand. My heart pounding like a drum, I kiss her. Fuck Paulie and his machete.

We go back inside, both of us smiling like idiots.

"I really don't want to ask, but I have to... What's up with you and Paulie?" I ask, standing behind her, my arms wrapped around her waist.

"So I called him last night to see if he wanted to see a movie later, and guess who picked up." She says, her words dripping with acid. "So I told her to tell him that I'd be by later to pick up anything I may have left at his place, then told her to tell him that he can suck my dick."

"Hot," I say, trying to add some humor to the situation. She laughs a little, and I turn her around. I put my hand under her chin and lift her face up a little and wipe away the tear that was running down her cheek and smile.

"I feel stupid, crying over the asshole." She says, laughing a little.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I ask before she pulls me onto the carpeted ground with her.

We spend the rest of the day with each other. Around eight thirty, she calls Jared and asks if he wants to hang out for a bit.

"Hey Jared, what's up?" She asks, trying not to giggle or laugh while I kiss her neck. "Oh, I'm not doing anything right now, just hanging out with a friend." I mouth just a friend? to her with a smile. She smiles back at me and pushes me back, laughing as she does. "Yeah, we were just wondering if you wanted to hang out for a bit. Okay, we'll be there in a bit," she says, hanging up the phone. "He said if we gave him half an hour to finish something up, we can go on over."

"What'd you want to do till then?" I ask, sitting up. She pulls me over to her and puts my head onto her lap so I'm looking up at her.

"Maybe chill here for a bit longer, then I guess I should go over to Paulie's and get whatever I may have left there." I shudder involuntary at the prospect of going over to Paulie's apartment (even though I think a good argument can be made that he sleeps in a coffin in a crypt), and she runs her hand through my hair. "It'll be okay. You can wait in the car, if you wanted to." For some reason, all I can think of is Paulie running at her with machete.

"I'll go up with you," I say. Yeah, better I get hacked into pieces with a machete then you... I think to myself before I close my eyes and enjoy the feeling of her hands running through my hair.

"C'mon, time to go." Zoey says to me, shaking me a little, smiling. I blink, trying blink away the bright light. She picks my head up from her lap, and I sit up and yawn.

"I fell asleep?"

"You've been passed out for like... Fifteen minutes. It was cute," she says, taking my hand and pulling me off the couch.

"I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but I'm going to spin 'cute' as positive," I say as we get into her Ford. We drive over to Paulie's apartment, talking all the way. We park outside, and I suddenly get the chills (another sign from God to never see the prick). I look at Zoey and smile. "Ready?" I ask. She takes a breath, and looks at me.

"You sure you want to go up with me?" She asks. I nod, and we kiss one more time before going up. She knocks on the door, and Paulie opens the door, a towel wrapped around his waist.
"Zoey?"
"What's up, asshole?" She asks. "I'm here to pick up anything I may have left over here."

"Look, can we talk about last night?"
"No."

"That was my sister!"
"You've already told me that you didn't have any siblings. Jesus Christ, if you're going to lie to me, at least do it well." We all stand there for a minute. "If you're not going to let me in, then you can keep anything I left." He looks at me for a minute and sighs.

"Alright, fine. Let me go put clothes on."

We walk into the small, cluttered apartment. I squeeze her hand one more time, and she lets go, not wanting to piss Paulie off. He comes back out, wearing some ratty-ass T-shirt and ripped jeans.

"Anything you may have left would probably be in my room," Paulie says, wiping his hair with the towel. Zoey walks down the hall into his room, leaving the two of us alone.

"What's up?" I venture. He looks at me, and I instantly regret asking.

"Oh, not much, my girlfriend just dumped me." He says. I decide not to say anything else and just wait for Zoey to finish looking for anything that was hers. "When did you and Zoey start hanging out?" He asks suddenly.

"Jared and Ash. I'm crashing at their apartment for a while," I say. He looks at me like a butcher looks at a piece of meat.

"Get kicked out or something?" He asks.

"I'd rather not get into that," I say, looking at the clock on the wall, anxious to get out of here. I feel Paulie's eyes on me still, and I get even more anxious.

"What happened to your neck?" He asks, putting the towel on the couch he's leaning on.

"No idea," I lie. As soon as the words leave my mouth, Paulie hits me in right eye, and I go down.

Chances

After Zoey left for the night, I walked back into the house and sat down on the couch and took my shoes off, putting them at the end of the couch that I had been crashing on. I checked the time, wondering if I could go to sleep without anyone else popping in and out of the room to bother me. It was only nine-thirty, so I quickly gave up on that idea, instead picking up the remote for the T.V. and turning it on. After thirty minutes of terrible television, I turn the T.V. off and throw the remote onto another couch and get up, hunting for something else to do to keep my mind off of Zoey and Paulie together. I quickly give up on that and crash back onto the couch and lie down, deciding to just try and sleep through whatever noises pop up. I sleep for about twenty minutes before someone starts poking and prodding me. I rolled onto my side and looked up to see Ash.

"Why are you watching me sleep?" I asked, slightly creeped out.

"Don't flatter yourself," she responds, picking my legs up and throwing them off of the couch so she can sit down. "What's up? Why are you trying to go to sleep at nine forty?"

"I talked to Zoey. Asked her if she was happy, and she said she was."
"And?" She asked, leaning closer to me.

"And I'm just gonna try and be happy for her, I guess." I said, propping my feet up onto the table.
"I'm sorry. I really am," she said, putting her hand on my back. "I know that he's an asshole, but if she's happy, what're you going to do? It sucks, yeah, but that's life."
"Yeah, I know." I said, putting my head in my hands, rubbing my eyes. "Fuckin' figures," I muttered under my breath, pulling my feet off of the table.

"I know that you really don't want to anymore, but you really should quit smoking. It'd make all of us happy. Hell, I'd be happy if you cut back." Ash said, patting my back before getting up and walking back to the Isaac's bedroom. I stretched back onto the couch, looking at all the posters that were plastered on the walls. I reached into my pockets to pull everything out of them and tossed them onto the table, and reached over to pick up my phone to check for any messages before going to sleep.

I woke up to the vacuum running, and sat up on the couch, and rubbed my eyes, trying to see who was cleaning. I got up and folded the blanket I'd been using up and threw it onto the couch and stumbled to the bathroom to take a shower. After getting out of the shower, I saw Jared sitting on the couch, the vacuum sitting in a corner.

"Morning," he said over the noise of the T.V.. "Sorry about the noise, but I needed to vacuum."
"It's cool," I said, sitting down on the couch. "I didn't know you had today off."

"Yeah, I forgot to mention it yesterday. It's nice to be able to just chill for a day." He said, picking up the controller and turning on our X-Box. "How you doing, dude?"
"Been better." I said, pulling a cigarette out of the pack. "Found out that Zoey's already dating some asshole."
"Harsh," he replied. "Do you know which asshole she's dating?" I picked up my lighter off of the table and got up to go outside to have my first smoke of the day.

"Paulie," I said, lighting the cigarette in the kitchen.
"Wait, Paulie Talbot?" I heard him ask from inside.

"Yeah," I replied, sitting down on the top step of the cement stairs. For a guy that's had multiple leg surgeries, Jared moves incredibly fast.

"She's dating Paulie fucking Talbot?!" He screamed at me, scaring me to death.

"From what I heard from Ash, yeah." I manage to finally say.

"Paulie 'I nearly made my ex-girlfriend kill themselves and five minutes later was in bed with another girl' Talbot?"

"Yup." I said, the bitterness surprising even me. I took a long drag off of the cigarette and looked at Jared, who was literally shaking with what I assumed was rage. "Ummm... You okay?" I asked.

"That is NOT okay," he said.

"Yeah, no shit." I replied, finishing the cigarette off and tossing the butt into an ashtray.

"How in the hell did that happen?" He asked after a moment silence. "How did that prick get someone like that?"
"What in the hell do you think I've been trying to figure out?" I asked, laughing.

"You need to do something!" He yelled.

"What do you want me to do about this?" I asked, getting up to get another cigarette. "I'm not going to talk to Paulie, last time I ever saw him I got hurt! It's a sign from God not to be near this prick." I said, walking back inside.

"And how do you think this is going to end for her?" He yelled back, running into the house. "The last time that person was in a long term relationship, you know how it ended!"

He was right. Paulie Talbot was the biggest asshole I had ever met. He was violent, crude, and thought he was God's greatest gift to man. If he ever said that he was in a relationship, it meant that he was only screwing one girl. The man didn't want relationships, he just wanted an unlimited amount of booty calls. He claimed he fell in love once, but three weeks into the relationship, he was already cheating on the girl, Lisa. But that wasn't enough for Paulie, he wanted to set a record. So in the time that he had 'fallen in love', he was cheating on Lisa, while at the same time screwing five other girls. This guy, in my opinion, was trash. Lisa, after discovering what he was doing, attempted to kill herself by an overdose. Thankfully, someone found her in time to help. I don't know how this asshole still had friends.

"Well, what the hell can I do?" I asked, sitting down on the couch.

"Do something really romantic to show that she deserves a nice guy!" Jared said back, getting excited.

"What, pull a Cusack?" I asked, laughing. Just to clear up, this laugh isn't a ha-ha laugh, it's a laugh of desperation and exacerbation.

"Ummm... Something like that, yeah!" He said back, starting to pace around.

"Look, Jared, I appreciate this, but I don't think there's anything I can do! You know me, I'm not that kind of guy," I said. "That and Paulie would fucking kill me. Last time I heard, he had just bought a machete for some goddamn reason!"
"Is this the kind of girl that you'd be willing to be killed with a machete for?" Jared asked, stopping and looking at me.
"Yes." I said immediately. Jared just leaned on the wall and grinned at me.

"You're willing to risk getting cut into tiny bits and pieces by that piece of human trash for her?"
"Yes." I said again, standing up, my mind made up. I grabbed my wallet and keys off of the table and sprinted out of the apartment.

Zoey lives in a gated community, a plus from her parent's lucrative jobs. Since it was three o'clock in the afternoon, everyone was either in school or at work, so no cars were coming in or out. So I did what anyone would do in this situation: I climbed the fence, and promptly proceeded in falling on my ass on the way down. Not letting my hurt bottom stop me, I got up and ran down the street towards her house. I saw her white Ford parked in the driveway, and after a few deep breathes and a small prep talk, I walked to her front door and knocked. She opened the door before I knocked again.

"Hey," she said, smiling. "This is a pleasant surprise." Knowing that I'd loss steam or chicken out if I said anything else first, I blurted it out without thinking.

"Zoey, I love you."

Lies

I sat on the porch, staring out into space, attempting to not believe what I just heard. I looked at the pack of cigarettes on the ground, considering the pros and cons of starting again.

"You're kidding, right? This is some cruel joke you're pulling on me?" I asked.

"What? Why the hell would I do that? The last time I heard was that she was dating Paulie," she said, stubbing the cigarette out on her her heel before getting up and heading back inside. When she opened the door, I heard laughter, and caught the end of an anecdote from Zoey, which confirmed it. I stood up, and closed the door gently, not wanting anyone to look towards the door. Paulie, who was worse then Kyle when it came to women, was dating Zoey, a Czech girl that I was in love with. I sat for silence in three minutes before my phone rang.

"What?" I answered, not even checking the caller id.

"Okay, why in the hell won't you go to the club with us?" Kyle yelled, slurring over his words.

"Okay, why in the hell are you drinking?" I shot back, choosing to take it all out on Kyle.

"Bitch, don't start preaching to me! It's a Saturday night, and I am entitled to enjoy it however I want!"

"Just because it's Saturday doesn't mean that you can get wasted and fuck!" I yelled into my phone loudly.

"The hell it doesn't! I worked all week, what did you do?" He yelled back, matching my anger. "You have a hard week of sitting on your ass?"

"Fuck you!" I screamed into my phone.

"Hey, I'm going to call back in five minutes, and you better have your shit together when I do." He said, waiting to hang up the phone so I could hear this in the background: 'I don't know, he's just being a whiny bitch about something, I'll call him back later.'

By the time that I had shoved my phone into my pocket, someone from the next apartment popped their head out of their window.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry," I muttered, looking down.

"It's cool dude. Everyone has bad days," he said, before disappearing back into his apartment. In order to seem productive, I grabbed the trash bag off of the porch and walked down the cement stairs and around the corner to the dumpster. I walked slowly back up the stairs, still calming down. By the time I got back up the stairs, Ash was sitting outside, smoking another cigarette. She held the pack out and I took one, shoving it into my mouth. I sat down on the top step, trying to avoid eye contact with her. We smoked the cigarettes in silence, and I didn't even notice when she walked back inside, leaving her pack next to me. I smoked the entire pack in about five minutes (Kyle had obviously decided not to call back) and ripped the pack up into tiny pieces. I stood up and walked back inside. Ash was the only sitting in the kitchen, washing the dishes. I sat down at the table.

"They went down the street to get dessert for everyone. They'll be back in five minutes." She said. "You okay? Christ, I didn't expect you to react like that."

"Yeah, I'm fine," I lied, picking up a magazine off of the ground and tossing it back on the table.

"Of course you're fine, that's why you're screaming at your phone." She said, turning the sink off.

"That was directed at another asshole," I said, getting up to help her dry the dishes.

"You've only known her for how long? A few weeks?" She said, handing me towel and a plate.

"It's not that, I'm used to being that one friend. It's who's she's dating," I said. "Paulie is a terrible, terrible person."

"Who you hang out with."

"I've only ever been around him when necessary or when Kyle brings him around. I don't do it for fun." I corrected her.

"Okay, I'm not denying that he's an asshole. I'm just saying that maybe he's nice to her," she said.

"Bullshit!" I yelled, shoving the plate into the cupboard.

"Hey, I don't care if you're pissed, but don't take your anger out on the plates!" She yelled.

"Sorry," I muttered, throwing the towel down, walking to the living room. "I'm getting a pack of smokes."

"Giving up on quitting?"

"Don't see the point now."

I took the backstairs out of the apartment to avoid bumping into everyone, and was halfway to the gas station when my phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket and looked at the caller id.

"What?" I said bitterly into the phone.

"Dude, have you calmed down yet?" Kyle asked, still slurring his words.

"If I say no, are you going to insult me and hang up again?"

"Well, if you weren't being such an asshole--"
"How was I being an asshole?" I said, cutting him off.

"You were all yelling at me!" He yelled back.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I should be more considerate when talking to drunk, belligerent assholes. My bad." I said. "I'm not going to that stupid club, so don't call me again to ask." I hung up the phone and walked to the gas station and back to the apartment in silence, attempting to enjoy the breeze and my smoke. I walked up the backstairs and sat down on the top step. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and got ready to pull the battery out when a voice spoke up from behind me.

"I thought you were quitting," Zoey asked from behind me. I jumped a little, and the cigarette fell out of my mouth.

"Jesus Christ, you scared me!" I yelled, turning around to look at her.

"Oh, sorry," she said, smiling at me. I crushed the cigarette beneath my heel.

"Yeah, I'm still working on quitting," I said, suddenly feeling guilty.

"Well, if you need or want any help quitting, you can always ask me." She said.

"Umm... Yeah, of course," I said. After a minute of silence, I broke the silence. "Hey, are you happy right now?"
"Happy with what?" She asked, confused.

"Just happy with the way your life is." I clarified. She was quiet for a minute, thinking about the question. After a while, she answered.

"I think I am, yeah." She smiled at me, her eyes lighting up with the smile. I somehow managed to hide how much I wanted to scream and smiled back at her. "How about you?" She asked, leaning closer to me. "Are you happy with the way your life is, right now?" She was so close to me, that I could smell her perfume, and could feel her breathing close to my neck. I fought back the urge to blurt out I love you and just smiled.

"Yeah, I'm happy." I lied.

Fall

It took another three weeks for my back to feel like I could move without it going out again. By the time I was up and walking again, fall had started. My summer had ended terribly, and Kyle was already calling me again, trying to get me to go out. Most of his calls always happened when I was trying to sleep, so I wouldn't call him back, hoping that he would either realize that I wouldn't be up at nine in the morning, or he would realize that I was pissed off at him for the back injuries (which I was blaming him for). When I did ever pick up the phone when he called me, the conversations would be about him being bored, or someone that he was trying to hook with this girl and needed my help. The only good thing about my situation was that I met Zoey, a friend of Jared's roommate. She was everything I could want in someone, and she was from the Czech Republic, which added a layer of mystery to her that I fell in love with. She was always over at the apartment (she could cook amazing food, which was a plus in a group of young males that were used to eating Top Ramen or Rice-a-Roni for lunch and dinner), and the two of us became good friends. Since it was a small apartment, I would eat outside on the porch (Jared had an apartment on the second story, so I always had a nice view of suburbia when I ate and smoked) to save room at their dinner table for them. I would hear them talk about their day, and I would pop in occasionally to say something or get something to drink before disappearing outside to finish my dinner.

"Why do you always eat outside?" Zoey asked me one night. She spoke with a light accent, which we all loved.

"To make sure there's enough room at the table for the important people of the apartment," I replied, putting my plate down on the ground and pulling out a cigarette.

"And to smoke?" She asked, smiling.

"Yeah, and to smoke," I said, lighting the cigarette. "I do enjoy smoking," I said.

"How much do you smoke?"

"Depends. Bad day, three packs a day. Good day, two." I said. "It sounds really terrible when you say it like that," I said.

"Well, it's a terrible habit," she said, picking up my plate and glass.

"Yeah, it is." I agreed.

"I think you should quit," she said, walking back in the apartment to do the dishes. I looked at the cigarette in my fingers, took one last drag off of it and stubbed it out and headed back inside.

I was still trying to ignore Kyle calls due to fear of my back going out again, but after a while, I caved. He called while I was cleaning up the apartment while everyone was at work, so I decided to talk to him and take a break and relax.

"Dude, how the hell have you been?" He asked.

"Recovering. How've you been?"

"Pretty fuckin' good, dude. Me and Stacey hooked up."

"Ummm... Good for you?" I hated it when he told me things like that, I never knew how to respond.

"It was pretty good dude, I'm not gonna lie," he said, sounding too proud of himself.

"Well, have fun with her?" I ventured.

"Oh, I will. We're going to this club tomorrow night, you should come!"
"No," I said firmly. "I don't do clubs or things like that."
"What? Why not?" He asked.

"I don't like crowds, I hate music they play at those shitty clubs, and if you're taking her to the one I'm thinking of, the people are fucking weird!"

"C'mon, please? I need a wingman! I could help hook you up with someone!"

"Find a different wingman!" I yelled back.

"Dude, I'm driving right now, but I'm gonna call back later and talk about this," he said.

I hung up the phone and tossed it onto the couch. The club in question was one that was a half hour drive into a different city. It was popular with the people in my age group due to the fact that you only had to be eighteen to get in. In a brilliant marketing move, the owners of the club would throw a night to celebrate goth\emo culture. What that meant was that they would play even shittier music, while people got to wear strange outfits. To some people, it was awesome, and that was okay. I, however, was not one of those people. Kyle wasn't either, but the man was dedicated to hooking up with as many women as possible, and if that meant doing something he didn't like, he would do it. In a force of habit, I looked for a pack of cigarettes, then realized that I was quitting. So I just turned on the T.V. and played a game to take my mind off of the fact that I was going to have to deal with a constant stream of pleading for me to go.

Jared got off of work first, and got home around four in the afternoon. I nodded at him, trying to focus on the game I was playing. He disappeared into his bedroom and changed, then popped back into the living room and sprawled out onto the other couch.

"Thanks for cleaning, dude." He said, pulling his laptop onto his chest and turning it on.

"Yup," I said, before going into a string of profanities as I got shot to death in my game.

"You do anything else today aside from clean?"
"I walked down to the store and bought some more food. I got stuff that Zoey can cook with, and got stuff we can just throw in the oven and stuff. There's also a milkshake in the fridge for you, and I got some more potatoes." I said, throwing the controller down, deciding not to play the game anymore.

"Sweet," he said. "Trade you." I reached over and handed him the controller and he gave me the laptop.

"What's the plan for tonight?" I asked.

"Uhhh... Zoey called, she's coming over in a bit, she's gonna cook, then Isaac is getting off of work early, and Ash is probably going to swing by for dinner too."

"Okay," I said.

"What do you think of Zoey?" Jared asked, after a minute of silence.

"She's nice. I like her," I said. "Like, I really like her."

"Go for it, dude. You two seem made for each other," he said before screaming at the game.

I shrugged and put the laptop down, and pulled my phone out of the couch. I looked at the messages and saw that I already had three from Kyle, all asking me if I had reconsidered the club offer. I deleted them, shoved the phone into my pocket, and got up to change. I threw my clothes in the large garbage bag that we used to take the clothes to the laundromat, and looked out to Jared.

"You want me to do laundry tomorrow?" I asked. "I only got three bucks on me right now."
"Yeah, if you could that'd be nice. I'll throw in a few bucks, and so will Isaac. Thanks, dude."
"Yup," I said, planting myself back onto the couch. "What time is Zoey coming over?"
"Soon, she just texted to say she was on her way."

Five minutes later, we heard footsteps come up the stairs and a knock on the door. I walked over to the door and opened it. She walked in, heading straight for the kitchen, and I closed and locked the door. We sat and talked, and soon Isaac and Ash were over. We ate, and while Zoey made dessert, I sat outside with Ash while she smoked.

"You want one?" She asked, holding the pack up to me.

"I quit," I said, stretching out on the patio furniture.

"Well, good for you," she said, sitting down. "Any reason why?"
"Zoey said I should, so I did."
"Cute," she said. "You know, you too would make a great couple."
"That's what Jared was saying," I said, looking at my phone.

"Too bad she's already in a relationship," she said, taking a long drag off of the cigarette.

"What? With who?" I asked.

"Ummm... Last time I heard, Paulie. Friend of Kyle." She said.

If the person you think is the love of your life isn't dating the biggest asshole in the world, you wouldn't understand.

Advenutre in Falling and Pain

After the whole debacle with Tommy, I needed a break from all the things that I then had to deal with (my friends apparently don't like to keep secrets, and when I told Kyle about the Tommy and the girl, he then told his friends, and word spread like wildfire). So I decided that the next time I would actually go out of my house, it would be for something fun. So when Kyle told me about an abandoned two story house he had found, I was ecstatic to go. I left this up to Kyle to plan the whole thing (mistake one of this adventure).

"Well, who do you want to go?" He asked.

"I don't care, dude. Just plan everything. I mean, what's the worst that could go wrong?" I replied, sticking a cigarette in my mouth (the habit was turning into an addiction, but I didn't really care at this point). He called up a bunch of people, telling them to meet them at his house. In all honesty, I wasn't expecting this big of a group, but I didn't really care. It seemed like it would be a good night, full of friends and a random adventure to somewhere cool. We all piled into cars, filling them to the max, and we set off. The car me and Kyle were in led the way (since he knew the way there), and it had three girls I would later to refer to as the 'Stepsister's' because they reminded me of Cinderella every time I saw them. They didn't really like me, but I always had cigarettes on me, and that made me tolerable. Kyle had (to my knowledge) slept with two of them, and a conversation we had while we were filling up his tank of gas lead me to his real goal of the night.

"Dude, I'm gonna nail Stacey tonight," he said, leaning on his car while he filled it. I looked at him, then the three girls inside, buying something to eat.

"Which one is Stacey?" I asked. I didn't like them enough to know them by their actual names.

"She's the one with the dark-ish hair, with the blonde highlights," he said, shaking the last little drops of gas from the nozzle.

"Oh," I said uninterestedly. The three walk out, all laughing, eating some kind of pastry they just bought from the gas station. We all got into the car and pulled out onto the road.

We got to the house around 11:30 pm. We got there first, so the first ten minutes was spent with Kyle hitting on Stacey in front of the other three. I chose to wait on the other side of the car, and finished off the first pack that I brought with me. The rest of the cars parked, and everyone piled out into the street.

"Alright, everyone ready to go?" Kyle asked, throwing his cigarette into the gutter.

"I think you're full of it, Kyle." Paul said, folding his arms. Paul was a prick, but he had known Kyle longer then I had so he always tagged along with us.

"Well, everyone get ready and follow me," he said, pulling a flashlight from his car. He took the lead, and we all followed him.

"Dude, it's safe to be out here?" I heard someone ask from the back.

"Yeah, sure, it's plenty safe!" Kyle yelled back. We walked for about fifteen minutes, much to the complaint of the women who said that he didn't mention the long walk.

When we got to the house, it looked like a horror movie waiting to happen. The house was dilapidated, and all the windows were broken out. That and it was a full moon, and the moon was directly over the house. I was waiting for a horde of zombies or the Wolfman to come and kill us. Kyle walked to the front of the house and run up to the front door.

"Let's go guys. It's better inside." All of the guys walked up to the front door, trying to prove how manly they were. The girls walked up slowly, as if the cement steps could possibly break as they stepped on it. Their was no door, so Kyle shined a light in the doorway to show us what it looked like. The moonlight was casting a faint light in it, so the flashlight was really needed.
"It's all good guys, go ahead and explore. Plenty safe," Kyle assured us as we walked into the house with caution. Almost all of the girls stayed downstairs, except for Stacey, who followed me upstairs for some reason.

"Hey, let's check out this room," she said. I looked into the room, which seemed safe. So I walked into the room. I was able to get to the other side of the room, but as soon as I got to the middle of the room, the floor creaked and gave away. I don't know which was louder, everything breaking or Stacey screaming as I fell through the floor. The good thing about her scream was that it got people to run up, and as soon as Kyle noticed what was wrong, he ran downstairs to the room that I had landed in.

Something broke my fall somewhat (I couldn't tell what, there was too much crap that I was lying on to tell), and I was lying on my back. I tried to roll over, but pain shot through my back and in the back of my head.
"Dude, holy SHIT!" I heard Kyle yell. "Are you okay, dude?" I grunted and managed to sit up, despite the pain.

"I'm going to go to the car." With that, I set off to the car, walking slowly. Everyone was downstairs, looking at me. I got outside the door and put a cigarette into my mouth, still moving slowly, not wanting to hurt myself anymore. I was able to limp halfway to the car before a sharp pain went through my foot. I don't know why I didn't yell in pain or anything, but with a calm that surprised even me, I pulled my foot up. Along with it came a line of barbed wire that had stuck itself inside of my foot. I reached down and with a quick pull, I yanked it out of my foot. I limped the rest of the way to the car, sat down under a street light and pulled off my shoe. I looked inside, saw some blood. I pulled off my sock, and saw more blood. I pulled my foot onto my lap and looked at the bottom of it to see how bad my foot was. The hole that the barbed wire had put in my foot was bleeding at a steady rate, so I did what anyone would do in my position. I wrapped my foot in my sock and smoked a whole pack of cigarettes in fifteen minutes. By the time I had finished my last one, the group was back, talking. Kyle looked at me, looked at my foot, and looked back to the group.

"What happened to your foot?" He asked.

"Barbed wire." I said. "Hey, Kyle?"
"What's up dude?"
"Can you help me up and into the car?" I probably could've gotten up myself, but I didn't want to risk hurting myself anymore tonight. He helped me into the car and the three girls got into the back and looked at me.

"Do you want to go to the hospital or something?" One of them asked. I shook my head no and sat in silence for the rest of the ride. When we pulled in front of my house, I slowly got out of the car and walked into my house and into my room.

I stayed in bed for about three weeks due to the fact that my back was in excruciating pain. I didn't want to really talk to anyone, so the majority of my time was spent reading or watching movies. It was around this time the concept of a vacation began to cross my mind. I pushed it to the back of my mind as the ultimate back up plan, and that I wouldn't have to use it because after this, my summer and my life could only go uphill, right?

Yeah, right.

Going Past the Breaking Point

By this time, word of my ability to 'forgive and forget' had become the thing of legend, and would come up at least three times in one day if I hung out with a group of people. I would just laugh and wave it off, and try to return the conversation to something else. The Mexican restaurant story had somehow spread like wildfire, though, and people wanted to begin to test to see if I had a breaking point, and if they could reach it. I don't think they had a back up plan in case going past my breaking point would result in loss of life and limb, but hey. Almost everyday, something would happen, or someone would do something to try to push me over that edge so they could start a conversation with "I WON!" (at this time, there was a large sum of money to go to whoever got me to the breaking point). I had my ipod stolen three times by the same person, someone told a girl that I was thisclose to dating that I was actually a sexual deviant who liked to dress up in women's under while listening to Goodbye Horses while touching myself (which actually backfired on them, because she for some reason thought that was funny and wanted to see it, although it did send up a red flag in our almost relationship). But still I just laughed these off and went about my life. What could I say? I had endured worst things in my life then these, so I was used to this kind of thing.

I was still maintaining the reputation that I had in high school about being able to help everyone, so I encouraged my friends that were younger then me to feel free and call or text me if they ever needed help with anything. So almost everyday, I had a message on my phone and a problem I could deal with and fix. They ran the normal course for high schoolers, so it was all easy for me to deal with. Most of them just needed me to nudge them in the right direction or say something encouraging and positive and they'd manage just fine. They'd call and cry their stories and problems to me, and I would sit in my boxers and a Mario t-shirt eating a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal or be making a sandwich, and help them out. In hindsight, making this policy did have it's downsides, especially when breakups came around, or people decided that they just didn't want to be friends anymore, which forced me to either play favorites, play both sides, or just say 'fuck it' and tell them to sink or swim without me.

Karma, never being nice to me, decided that this act of me trying my hardest to be nice was what would get me to my breaking point. It happened on a nice, fall day while I was sitting outside reading and smoking (I picked the habit back up two weeks after Claire dumped me). It's a call that most men don't like to get, mainly because you can't understand a goddamn word that's being said: it was the crying girl call.

"Hello?" I said as I picked up the phone, not ready for what was waiting on the other end.

"He*SOB*he*SOB*he's an asshole!" She cried into the phone.

"Wait, what? Who's an asshole?" I closed my book to try and focus on the conversation, trying to get past the sobbing to hear the problem.

"He*SOB*for*SOB*..."

"Hey, why don't I meet you somewhere for lunch?" I ventured. I could understand her better in person then over the phone, and I could probably get her to stop crying long enough to actually tell me what was wrong, and who was an asshole. "Where do you want to go?" I asked, stubbing the cigarette out on the bottom of my shoes. We agreed on a place, a time, and I set out to meet her there.

I got to the diner before she did, and got our table. The girl, Caroline, and I had dated for three months in my last year of high school, so I always made sure to actually invest time to make sure she was okay. She was wearing a pair of knock off Ray-Ban sunglasses, and I knew what that meant. One time during our relationship, she had donned the same pair of sunglasses when her beloved pet bird had died, so I was able to tell how bad she was feeling. I offered her a smile and gave her a big hug before she sat down in our little booth. She had managed to compose herself and articulate one sentence as she sat down.

"Tommy is an asshole." She said, taking off her sunglasses and putting them on the table.

"How is Tommy an asshole?" I asked, trying not to sound to surprised. Tommy and I knew each other, but that didn't mean that we liked each other. We were nice to each other when it benefited us, but for the main part, I thought he was a prick and he thought I was pompous.

"He broke up with me," she said, trying not to break down in tears again.

"What? Why? You two were so..." I hunted for the words that didn't involve wrong or unholy abomonation from the very depths of hell sent by Satan 'cos he was bored one night. "Happy looking," I eventually managed to say.

"I thought that too," she said, playing with her sunglasses.

"Did he say why he did?" I asked with caution, not wanting to have to calm her down in the middle of the diner.

"He just said that he needed time to think about things, and all that crap." She said, while switching from playing with her sunglasses to the napkins that were on the table.

"Ah."

We ordered our food, and I tried my best to help her, but in the end, her best friend managed to bail me out of saying something that I would later regret. She came in, talked to us, and told Caroline that she'd drop her off at home. I nibbled at the plate of fries in front of me, and pulled my wallet out, getting ready to pay the bill when I heard a familiar laugh. I peeked over at the booth that was in front of the diner, and my heart dropped into stomach. It was Tommy, with a girl that I knew all too well. I turned back to the plate of fries, but I suddenly wasn't hungry. This was probably because my heart was in my stomach, filling up all the room that food does, or it was because the girl that Tommy was sitting with, holding hands with, and gently moving that one strand of hair from her face, was the girl that I had planned to ask out tomorrow. I threw the last fire onto my plate, and started to suck down the rest of my Coke.

If you've never had the urge to use a French fry as a tool of murder, then you probably wouldn't understand the main urge I was fighting off. Instead of shoving the incredibly long fry that I had just picked up into Tommy's eye, I instead dipped it in an unhealthy amount of ketchup and shoved it in my mouth. I got up and walked to the cash register and paid off the bill, and left. The two were so involved with themselves they didn't even notice me walk by.

When I got home, my phone started ringing. I checked the caller id, and swore to myself. It was her. I didn't really want to talk to her right now, but I hated not picking up my phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, what's up?" She asked, all happy. I knew why she was happy, and it made me depressed.

"Nothing, just sitting around," I said, trying to sound somewhat happy.

"What did you want to see me about tomorrow?" She asked, and with every word my mood got worse and worse.

"Oh, nothing really." I lied. "Just needed help with something, but it's all taken care of now." It's times like these I'm glad I can lie like a president.

"Oh, okay. Just checking," she said. I prayed that I would be able to hang up soon, I wouldn't be able to keep up the civil tone for much longer, it was causing me physical pain.

"So, I'll talk to you later then." I said quickly and hung up. I stared at my phone for a bit, and then walked into my room and threw my phone onto the bed.

I don't know why, but this was my breaking point. I couldn't forgive Tommy for doing that to Caroline, and I wouldn't forget that literally twenty minutes after breaking up with his girlfriend of two years, he was out and about with someone else. And I couldn't forgive her for doing that. I eventually told Kyle, and he told the other people, and they called off the large sum of money they had riding on this moment. Kyle would later tell me that they did this because "it wasn't as fun that way".

This, despite belief to the contrary, is NOT the reason that I decided to take a long vacation without anyway to contact me.

An Unlikely Pariah

Okay, I'll admit. The word 'pariah' is too strong. But it is the first word that comes to my mind when I think back to my summer one year. I had just graduated high school, along with some of my best friends. We were determined to have fun and put off work and college until at least one of us couldn't bear it any longer. Me and one friend, Kyle, hung out the most. We had a common interest, and the fact that we both knew about everyone made for some good times. When we weren't hanging out, I'd either be reading a book or watching a movie (my favorite pastimes, forget baseball and apple pie, give me a good book and a good movie and I'm set), and he'd go out fishing or do the one thing he liked more. Women. I wouldn't go as far to say the guy was addicted to them, but he did enjoy them. And he had a way with 'em.

This is where me and Kyle are different. I'm terrible with women, and I could never do the whole 'friends with benefits' scenario. It made me feel terrible for just thinking about it. I bought into the whole 'your first time should be special. It should mean something.' I wasn't holding out till marriage, but I wanted my first time to be while I was in a relationship, a long meaningful one. Kyle, on the other hand, didn't share this idea with me. He wanted to live life to the max, and enjoy every last minute of it. And the fact that he could woo anyone helped him in that department. And he didn't care who knew about it.

One moment sticks out the most, and that being one o'clock in the morning, and me sitting outside of his house, smoking Camel cigarettes while he went off to the park near his house to be with one of his many women. He would come back, a big smile plastered on his face while I pulled my coat closer to me and wondered if I was going to get sick from the cold and die.

He couldn't understand why I had this mindset. Not in a bad way, mind you. He just wanted me to live life to the max and enjoy every last bit of it before I got old and all the fun got sucked out of me. He would even try to hook me up, but my overall awkwardness, anxiety, and the fact that I insulted almost everyone made me that friend that they would just talk to and hang out with. Nothing more, nothing less. Which worked for me, I was all for having more friends. When he wasn't trying to hook me up, he would tell me some of his secrets. Some of them made sense, others not so much.

"Dude, Harry Potter is great."
"Really?"
"Yeah, every time I've watched it recently, I've gotten laid."

That was one of the more strange bits of advice he gave me. It's probably just me, and my outdated attempts at charm, but I stick more with paying for dinner, giving them flowers, and long walks in the moonlight hand in hand. That usual romantic crap.

Since I couldn't drive (a lack of money, and I was blind as a bat having lost my glasses for the longest time), he would always have to pick me up. Which wasn't all that bad, seeing as how instead of gas money, I just had to buy him food at the many fast food establishments we went to. And to be quite honest, I enjoyed hearing some of his stories and the random bits of information he would say. Sometimes, we would drive past someone that he had screwed around with and say "[insert name here]... Man, that was nice. Dude, I can't wait till you get some for yourself and know what I'm talkin' about."

I was always afraid of this moment though, when I eventually was in a relationship and she'd go "I want to meet your friends! From all the stories you tell, they sound funny!" Let me clarify something. My stories are not meant to be like that. I mean them to be cautionary tales of debauchery, bad choices, and the consequences of those choices. But hey. People think they're funny, so to each their own, I guess. This one girl I met, Claire, was fantastic. Funny, down to earth, and almost as equally cynical and jaded as I am. Needless to say, we hit it off pretty well. Knowing that this was going to happen, I decided that a preemptive strike was needed to avoid disaster. So one day, I called Kyle.

"Hey," he said, sounding groggy. I checked my watch to see that I had woken him up at two thirty in the afternoon.

"Hey, what're you doing tonight?" I asked.

"Uhhh.... Nothing, why?" He asked. In the background, I heard him pissing. What can I say? I know classy people.

"Do you want to go to dinner with me and Claire?" I heard the words come out of my mouth, but my brain was too busy screaming at me.

"Sure man. Where at?" I heard the toilet flush and him walk back into his room. His bed, he told me, after so many uses had a very distinctive squeak to it. Needless to say, I immediately never sat on his bed again.

After I gave him the details, I hung up the phone and called Claire. She came over, and I told her about dinner.

"That's great!" She said with a level of enthusiasm that one usually reserves for getting a new animal.

"Yeah," I replied, not sounding so sure. She picked up on my weariness.
"It'll be fine," she told me, rubbing my back. I secretly wished that I could somehow get to that level of denial. My life would be so much better.

"Yeah, well... He may or may not bring someone." I told her, rolling onto my side to look at her.

"Hey, that'd be fantastic! It'd be like a double date!" I shuddered internally at the thought and laughed with her.

The time came, and me and Claire got into her car to drive to the restaurant where we were eating. It was a cheap, reliable Mexican place that I went to so often that the waiters and waitress already knew what I wanted to get to eat. They liked me, mainly because I didn't try to speak in broken Spanish from high school, and I tipped pretty well. We waited, and Kyle and some girl walked in. My heart sank down in my chest. I knew this girl. This girl and I had a fling that went nowhere two summers ago. And she and Kyle and tried the whole 'relationship thing before'. It didn't end well. They sat down at the table with us and everyone got introduced to each other. We all ordered, and started to make small talk. It was tame, but that was because of the text message conversation I had with Kyle (something that would later be called the ten commandments of double dating with me):

1. Do NOT ask about our sex life.

2. Do NOT talk about your sex life.

3. Do NOT talk about how great you are.

4. Do NOT try to make subtle hints about how much you like my date.

5. Do NOT try to hook up with my date.

6. Do NOT make me pay for you and your date.

7. Do NOT talk about the one time that you had to carry me to your car because I couldn't walk.

8. DO show basic table manners.

9. Do NOT mess with my OCD.

10. DO respect my date.

We talked about music, movies, I talked about books and art. Kyle talked about his interests, Clarie talked about hers (which was revealing, I never knew that she wanted to be an artist...), and Mandy (Kyle's date) talked about her experiences in high school. It was going too well, I should've known that something was going to come up and ruin it. It went like this:

"So, what're you going to do in college?" Mandy asked me.

"Well, I want a major in psychology, and a minor in art history," I told her.

"Oh, what do you want to do with those?" Kyle asked. He enjoyed busting my balls about how 'useless' these degrees were.

"Well, a psychiatrist is what I would love to do. And I would love to teach art history in a high school." I said, sounding more smug then I wanted to.

"Why do you want to be a shrink?" Kyle asked, putting his hand on Mandy's lap. I didn't notice this until too late, and the conversation went on.

"Well, I've always been good at helping people," I responded, still not paying attention to where his hand was.

"Oh, like that one girl in school!" He exclaimed.

I earned a reputation in high school as being the person that most people came to with their problems, my most famous success story being a girl that was going to kill herself when she didn't make the cheer squad. Not only did I convince her that life would go on, I introduced her to someone, and asked her what she really wanted to do, which was paint. Last time I talked with her, she's been dating the guy I introduced her to for three years, and she's in college with an art scholarship.

"Yeah, like her," I said, with an air of smugness that I figured I deserved. It was then I noticed the face that Mandy was making. I knocked my napkin off the table and went down to get it. That's when I saw it. I was going to say something, but Claire noticed it, probably because Mandy was trying to control herself, so she was tweaking out with her legs, and kicked Claire. The check came thirty seconds after that. We paid and left. Claire dropped me off without saying a word, and three days later we broke up. She wouldn't tell me why, but I knew why.

I was furious for a few days, at Claire, at Kyle, at Mandy, and at myself for not picking up on what Kyle was doing. I stopped being mad at myself (after a week of playing the Pink Floyd song Wish You Were Here while I cried in a bathtub for a week), and eventually forgave Mandy. I eventually learned that before getting picked up by Kyle, she had polished off a handle of imported liquor she stole from her dad, so I forgave her a couple of weeks later. Kyle's apology was a carton of cigarettes (despite me quitting when I met Claire), thirty bucks, and a note with the words 'sorry broski' scribbled on a casino napkin. Then, three weeks after that, I had another apology from him. He said I'd know in due time, so I didn't let it bother me. 'In due time' was three days after the second apology, when I saw a picture of him and Claire cuddling together in some cabin in Tahoe. Another week in the bathtub, but with a different song (I chose the song Leave by The Swell Season this time, as I thought it better conveyed my emotions).

Kyle and I are still friends despite this, which from what I hear is the talk of a small group of our friends who are amazed at my ability 'forgive and forget', while another group says that I'm a 'master of repression'. I try not to think about it, but hey. I was still a virgin, the only one in my group of friends, and at age eighteen, I was the pariah of the group. It's still too strong of a word, but at the time, it described how I felt. And this was only the start of it.