"Give it up, man, just give it up. She doesn't want your sorry a** anymore."
"Two whole years. Two whole years!"
"You know, I always knew she was a strange one. What kind of woman would break up with you because you WANT to marry her and start a family?"
"Well, you know how Angela's always been. So work-oriented. I should have expected it. She never wanted people to know she had a personal life. She claimed that it made her look "weak" in front of her legal competition and associates. She went to desperate measures to make sure that nobody knew about us two even though there were rumors. Everybody had always thought that I was her older brother and even asked me if she was a lesbian. She didn't want anybody to find out that she liked to sing in the rain or that she has a cute, little snore when she's sleeping. She didn't want to acknowledge our relationship…or her humanity. It wasn't fair to me but I loved her. And I guess she decided that I was too much of a liability to keep."
A soft sigh followed.
"Well, Ethan, you're a good-looking guy, nice personality, and you're actually willing to marry, so you'll have no problem finding another one."
"Calvin, it's not as easy as that," replied Ethan, sighing deeply. "My heart's definitely broken this time."
"Oh come on!" scoffed Calvin. "Look at me! I can't even keep a girl for two weeks, let alone two years! And this time, she said I was gaining weight…"
His funny face turned into a frown as he gazed at himself in the mirror, grabbing his chubby cheeks to see if there was any truth to his girlfriend's statement about his weight.
"I'm more pathetic than you'll ever be, not only dumped but fat too."
"No way, if we're going to try to measure who's more pathetic, I think I take home the gold. I've been dumped by the ultimate career woman. What is it with women taking up the men roles?"
A moment of silence followed the outburst and then, "Never mind, that was stupid and liable to get my ass kicked by them. I shouldn't blame women because of my situation with Angie."
"Well, I think women are overrated. Who needs them, right? Besides to procreate, we don't need them to survive. I say, all we need is right here. Food, TV, and beer."
Calvin settled himself into his little Calvin-shaped area on the couch, a place where he obviously spent most of his time, following his own survival philosophy of 'food, tv, and beer.'
"Which reminds me," Ethan opened the fridge door. "We're out."
"Out of beer?!" exclaimed Calvin, his eyes bulging from their sockets. "That's not possible; we just packed the fridge with beer last week."
"Well, all I have to say is that your last girlfriend certainly could drink. Are you sure she's a woman?"
"What are you trying to say, dude?" Calvin furrowed his forehead and stared at Ethan. "You trying to step on me when I'm down? Hey, you're my best friend!"
"Yeah, exactly. Best friends don't let friends date transvestites," joked Ethan. "Seriously though, she had a little too much facial hair for my taste."
"Ok, so she had a few hairs on her upper lip and chin, it's not illegal for women to have a little facial hair."
"Yeah, but it's weird when she needs to shave more than you do," replied Ethan, wrinkling his nose. "I'm going out to get some more beer, you want anything?"
He fiddled with his keys as he impatiently waited for Calvin to switch from his manly ex-girlfriend thoughts to the matter of food.
"Get me some ice cream, I'm in the mood to drown my sorrows in non-alcoholic bliss," sighed Calvin, hugging a couch cushion to his chest. "Manny did like her beer, she could even outdrink me…man…I miss her!"
Loud wails made Ethan wince. Ethan rolled his eyes and left behind a sobbing Calvin.
Jumping down the flights of stairs and nearly hitting his head on the ceiling light fixtures, he thought about his own life.
He was really a good-for-nothing. No wonder Angela broke up with him. They were old classmates but hung out in different crowds. EXTREMELY different crowds.
It wasn't a big surprise that two years later, Angela was the youngest female partner at her top law firm and Ethan was still living at his old apartment, doing odd jobs in order to earn food for the table.
They had met again two years ago at a nightclub. He was surprised to see her, knowing how morally virtuous she was back in their school days. The club he was at wasn't the kind of place he thought a person like Angela Zhang would hang out at…
~
Flashing lights, throbbing music, writhing bodies, morals left behind at the front entrance.
He had gone in for a little relaxation, hoping the ear-shattering music and the dark atmosphere could make him forget his reality.
He was a 20-year-old deadbeat. Old classmates of his were out there, conquering the world, exploring opportunities, making tons of money.
And what did he have?
A dishwashing job at a McDonald's restaurant. A tiny apartment with no hot running water. And a warm bottle of outrageously priced beer in his hand paid with the money he was supposed to use to pay rent.
"Stop it!" screamed a woman's voice, scared but silent in the loud music. The only reason Ethan had even heard it was because the woman had screamed right in front of his left ear.
He turned around and being a little drunk, accidentally shattered his beer bottle on a man's head. The man's eyes crossed and he fainted to the ground. The crowd noticed nothing.
A woman's soft, small body hugging him and thanking him. The scent of jasmine flowers and money.
Before he knew it, he was waking up in a king-sized bed, clutching black satin blankets over his naked body, and staring out at the water and the city landscape.
He quickly got up and ran to the window, felt the glass, touched the expensive designer dressers and table, wondering if he was dreaming.
"You're finally awake," a voice made him twist his head around so fast that his neck cramped.
"Owwwwwwwwwwwww!" He fell to the floor, clutching his neck.
A set of hurried footsteps and then a pair of soft hands massaging his injured neck. His eyes closed, enjoying the pleasant feelings running through his body. Then, he realized he was naked and his eyes snapped open.
He tried to get up and cover his body with the silk sheets but he only succeeded in tripping over his own feet and end up with the sheets covering his head.
"Are you ok?"
The sheets came off and Ethan blearily looked up into a woman's smiling face. He nodded grumpily and the woman smiled again.
"You're…E…Ethan Lee, right? From Riverside?"
She had left and reappeared with a cup of coffee as if by magic. Well, the fact that the entire world was spinning 598743 miles a minute before Ethan's eyes might have been the reason that he hadn't notice her leaving.
She pressed the steaming cup into his hands and smiled warmly, enticing Ethan's lips to slightly curve upwards.
"Yeah, I'm Ethan," he replied and gulped down some of the steaming coffee. "How did you know..."
Her eyes widened and she only stared at him for a few seconds before his body finally reacted, sending searing pain pulses to his intoxicated brain…
"HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!"
He spat out the coffee and grabbed his tongue, tears appearing in his eyes as he made a fool of himself the second time that morning.
And he didn't even know her name yet.
She ran out of the room and shoved ice cubes into Ethan's burnt mouth and one could hear the faint "hissssssss" as the burning subsided.
"Ahhhhhhhhh…" his eyes closed in childish bliss as the ice cubes eased the burning pain.
The woman giggled at how easily pleased Ethan was, just like a little kid.
His eyes opened and he grinned, ice cubes threatening to fall out of his mouth as melted water dripped down his chin.
He made quite a picture, with his nakedness and wild bed hair.
She howled in laughter, falling to the ground but quickly saved by Ethan's quick reaction, and ended up falling into his warm embrace instead.
The half-melted ice cubes skittered on the floor as he wiped his mouth.
"And you are, miss?" he said in his most dashing, suave voice. The fact that his hair was standing straight up, water dripped from his nose, and beer breath did not help the debonair appearance he was trying to emanate but it made her breathless nonetheless.
"Angela, sir, Angela Zhang," she replied. Her eyes stared into his, heart beating quicker than the speed of light. For some reason, this clumsy dolt was making her feel emotions she's never felt before…
"Well, I'm Ethan…Ethan Lee," and he made his eyebrows wiggle like two caterpillars crawling on a tree branch which made Angela burst into another round of giggles.
"You...you're so…silly!" she gasped, trying to catch her breath between giggles.
"I try, ma'am," and he tipped an imaginary cowboy hat at her, grinning like a fool. Warmth overcame him as his silly smile was swept away by the soft lips of Angela…
~
And that was how it all started.
But the world of childish dreams could not keep Angela from looking outside to reality and feeling guilty. She wasn't a little girl anymore. She could not keep fooling around with Ethan when her entire future and career was at stake.
Better to break it off now instead of later when stronger bonds were formed and the burden of breaking up constantly loomed over their heads.
She needed to find a serious man, preferably corporate-executive-of-a-sizeable-company-or-hotshot-lawyer-of-own-firm kind of man.
Ethan…was a fling from the past…nothing more.
It wasn't like Ethan didn't try…he did…but failed miserably.
He may wear the clothes, talk the talk, but in the end, he was still street trash.
His ignorance in public circles humiliated her, he still could not understand what had went wrong at the dinner party…all he had mentioned was his friend's foot fungus and asked Angela's friend who was a doctor how many treatments he had to undergo before the smell in the apartment would finally go away and if he would do him a favor for free…he was completely inexperienced in regards to interaction with the upper crust of society.
And that's why Angela left him.
Ethan miserably kicked an empty soda can, sending it skittering into the night, metallic noises blending with the clamoring of city nightlife.
Momentary blindness affected his eyes as he walked into the 24/7 convenience store, making it necessary to blink repeatedly until he adjusted to the light after the darkness of the night.
Ignoring the bored cashier reading his newspaper with his feet propped upon the counter, Ethan headed straight for the alcohol section in the back of the store.
He grabbed two six packs of the cheapest beer and went to pay at the front.
The cashier scowled at him as he took his feet off the counter. "Is that all?" he asked in a disgusted, nasal voice, as if he was way too good to provide customer service to Ethan.
Suddenly, Ethan remembered Calvin wanted to drown his sorrows in non-alcoholic sweetness…or something to that effect.
"No, I gotta grab one more thing." He turned around, heading back to the freezers, not noticing the cashier giving him the dirtiest look one person can give somebody who interrupted him and then wasted his time.
As he walked down the aisle to the ice cream section, his brow furrowed in confusion as the figure of a woman dressed in a bathrobe was savagely scooping out ice cream out of a box and shoving it into her mouth.
Ethan widened his eyes, looked to the left and to the right, to see if this woman had anybody responsible for her. Or, at least that there was no third person around to accuse him of being involved with the strange sight before him and somehow get him into trouble.
He diverted his attention back to the tiny figure splayed on the cold floor, staring off into space, while half-melted ice cream trickled down her arms.
Not knowing whether or not he should say something or merely ignore the odd sight before him, he decided it was none of his business.
"Excuse me," he mumbled as he stepped over the woman, opening the freezer to grab some Haagen Daz "Chunky Monkey" ice cream, deciding to avoid the delicate issue by not getting "Chubby Hubby" though it was his favorite.
He figured Calvin did not need the extra sorrow that was sure to ensue by such a name. Ethan did not want to hear Calvin's wails and sobs for the entire night; he actually wanted to be able to shut his eyes for more than five minutes.
As he turned to return to the front, he fell flat on his face. He sat up on the floor, bewildered as to what had just happened.
The cause of such graceless clumsiness was the fragile hand wrapped around his right leg.
"Don't leave me…" Beseeching eyes sought for Ethan's sympathy in his face. "…please…"
The sad face, though covered with a comical mess of ice cream, tugged at Ethan's kind heart with the distress flowing from the large eyes.
"Miss, are you ok?"
A slow shake of the head and tears began to form rivulets through the white ice cream melting off of her face.
Suddenly, she slumped into Ethan's arms, sobbing desperately into his black t-shirt as if the world was ending.
Ethan automatically wrapped his arms around the sobbing figure without a second thought, letting the woman cry.
Tears were the best healing solution, better to let it all out instead of keeping it all inside.
But his survival sense was tingling, and Spiderman…uhhhh, heroes knew not to stay long at the scene of the crime.
He had to get the both of them out of there before the clerk at the front desk decided to investigate what was detaining Ethan from returning to pay for the beer.
"You want to come over to my place?"
Her eyes widened and she stopped crying momentarily. It took Ethan a few seconds to realize how wrong that question just sounded right then and he cursed himself internally.
\Stupid, stupid, stupid…\
"I meant…well…I mean, we're not alone, I got a good friend of mine there and he'll want to help me comfort you too…" and the words trailed off as his attempt to clear up the misunderstanding only made it sound like they were going to bring her home and take turns raping her.
/F*ck/
"Forget it. I only want to know one thing, do you trust me?"
An inner battle was fought in the luminous eyes of the pitiful creature before she dipped her head in acquiescence.
What did she have to lose? She had already lost everything and everybody. What more could this stranger do to her that could make it any worse?
He was the first one to show her any kind of kindness and consideration for her state of being.
"Alright, good. Now follow what I do, and don't say a word, ok?" He slowly brought her to her feet and gently wiped off the rest of the ice cream off of her face with his t-shirt.
Then, he enclosed her small hand in his strong one and gave her a little smile. Walking casually to the counter, he laid down the "Chunky Monkey" and waited for the cashier to ring the items up.
The clerk scowled at the two before him and curtly said, "$16.12."
Ethan rummaged in his pockets for a few moments before he took out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill and set it on the counter.
Just as the clerk moved to take the bill, the girl took out some coins and set it on the counter, grinning as children do when they are allowed to take Mommy's dollar and "pay" for things.
The two exchanged a smile while the clerk rolled his eyes and returned four dollars to the odd couple.
Without a smile or thank you, he returned to his newspaper. Ethan pocketed the change and tugged gently on the girl, signaling to her that this was their chance to escape.
The two walked calmly out of the store and was a few blocks away before they started laughing. "I wonder what he's going to say when he finds out the mess I made in the freezer aisle."
"Doesn't matter, that jerk deserve it. Come on, he's just a cashier working the late-night shift at some convenience store. Who does he think is, putting on airs like that? As if he was a noble looking down at some peasants." He was sick and tired of people looking down at him without even knowing him.
Ethan pulled out his keys and opened the building door, holding it open for his new friend. As he climbed the stairs, he added, "If I were him, I'd take a look at my own self before looking down on others. He ain't that much better off."
"True…" and she flashed a mischievous smile, one of childish delight, as she tried to catch up with Ethan.
"You know, you look a lot better without all that ice cream smeared all over your face, kinda cute, even," said Ethan offhandedly as he unlocked his front door, missing the blush that effused his new friend's face. "Hey pighead, we've got company!"
Calvin walked out, tissues stuffed into every hole he could find on his face, looking like some kind of tissue flower. His jaw dropped and eyes widened at the sight of the "company" that Ethan had brought home. All he could do was stare at her and go, "Uhhhhhhh...."
The small figure blushed shyly and attempted to hide behind Ethan.
"Here's your 'non-alcoholic bliss,' man. You don't know what I had to go through to get that for you," said Ethan, rubbing the sore spots that he received when he fell on his face.
Calvin received the box of ice cream without any reaction, still keeping his eyes glued on her.
"Stop staring at…wait, I never got your name, sorry. What's your name?" He turned back to the girl who was starting to fidget nervously under all the attention she was receiving.
"…"
"What?" Ethan leaned in closer, their faces almost touching, and the girl blushed even harder.
"Raina," she whispered, without even looking up, not daring to look into the eyes of her new friends.