...I saw the mass of mistakes that I made.
#7 of If I could be your chew-toy: Based on a True Story.
***Stupid Disclaimer Thingy***
Everything you see here, came from my brain. The characters, the scenery, the situations... Everything. Any coincidences like character similarities, name usages, or scenes are utterly just that. Coincidence. Nobody likes getting ripped off.
Also, this story contains romance, love, and graphic interaction between members of the same sex. not your bag? I request you leave. Nobody likes hate-spam.
Otherwise Enjoy It^^
***
I didn't want this...
This heartache, this pit in my stomach...
Honest...
I'd rather sacrifice to kill this addiction.
My phone reached 4:00 before I reached the diner. A place called "Heaven and Hell" stood before me as I checked my pant-leg to make sure I wasn't about to walk into the wrong place.
I had scribbled directions from Google Maps on there with a sharpie, and I was just realizing now how bad of an idea that was. But in lighter news I seemed to be at my stop.
The breeze inside was cool as flame embroidered booths contrasted with a brightly lit blue ceiling. Waiters in red uniforms walked in circles as chefs in white could be seen peppered around the room.
Angels and Demons...
This was almost depressing... I hardly remembered why I came to such a cliché place while pun after pun,
joke after joke bounced off the walls of my head.
Then I saw him.
Todd was a beautiful fox, a catch among catches, in all honesty. Jenna was so fucked in the head forcheating on him with the likes of Aiden. This kid was going somewhere, and he wore it on his shoulders like he knew, but was embarrassed about it. Sort of like a garnish to a perfectly done steak.
He waved me over, and I suddenly felt nervous. Like I was on a date. Which made me queazy and left a hint that vomit shall soon make an appearance.
"Hey!" He smiled, looking me in the eye as he stood with his paw out for a shake. "Felix! How are you?"
Kay never mind... This scene had "business meeting" written all over it. Sexual tension gone...
"I'm... pretty okay, Todd, and you?" I did my best to seem cheerful. It seemed he was blissfully ignorant to the WHOLE situation, caught up in his own world of success and perfection.
"I'm great!" He smiled, waving his paw to the only waiter in the building actually wearing devils horns. "Could I get 2 long island ice teas over here please?"
"Oh no," I intervened for some reason. Ya know, like i wasn't about to ruin his life in the next 10 seconds or something... "I don't really... drink or anything..."
"Oh don't worry it's on me!" he smiled, eyeing the waiter to continue.
"Oh my god what am I doing..." I thought, looking towards the sparkly black table. "How am I going to break..."
"So Felix," He turned back towards me, flashing his perfect teeth. "You sounded reallyâ€""
"Bathroom!" I shouted.
I apparently caught him off guard (don't really know why?).
"I'm sorry?"
"Bathroom!" I repeated, chuckling as I stood. "I really have to pee... Care to join me?"
Todd tensed, eyeing me like I was on drugs or something. "I'm actually... okay right now. But you go onâ€""
"Kay good!" I turned on my heel and marched, not exactly sure which direction the bathrooms were in.
***
"No fuck!" Alex shouted, an xbox controller in paw. Tonight, Lindsay was out with a friend of hers (no questions asked because he TRUSTED her) which meant a rigorous session of gaming on Live.
"DAMNIT TO FUCKING SHIâ€"" Something stopped him. The sound of a phone ringing. In Felix's bedroom. "Dumbshit left his phone..." He sighed, immediately diving into another respawn point.
The ringing was relentless, constantly pulling at the inner ear of the red bat. Gunshots, grenade explosions, and death after death weren't helping either.
"OH MY GOD!" He shouted, throwing the controller against the wall. "What the FUCK does a guy have to do to get keep up concentration?!"
He stood as hard as he could, which shot him up in the air a few feet before he landed and stomped into the kitchen. Luckily, Felix's bedroom wasn't locked and his phone sat in plain view, face-up on his pillow.
"God FUCKINGâ€"" But his words were cut short at the site of the caller-ID screen. It mercilessly read "Alex" with a small pixilated picture of himself beside it, making him rip it from the fabric and open. "What the fuck, dude..."
"I need a really big favor..."
***
Alex wasn't happy I took his phone... Like, clear-the-room-for-a-year sort of pissed.
"What the fuck, dude..." He growled.
"I need a really big favour," I sighed, looking at myself in the flame shaped mirror situated in the men's bathroom. "I can't do it..."
"I'll give you a hundred other things you won't be able to do if you don't bring myâ€""
"I can't show him the picture..." I cut him off, hoping for a break.
"What do you mean?" Alex demanded. "Where the hell are you!?"
"I can't show Jenna's boyfriend the picture..." I said a bit more sternly, trying to get my point across without being painfully obvious. "He's such a nice guy... and to do that to him... it would justâ€""
"Look," Alex growled. "I know you've got yourself a decision to make, but I really REALLY need my phone..."
"I gotta go," I said right before I closed it, cutting off the call. Something felt off. Like I was being watched or something. The room seemed too still and the air hung with a menacing sort of vibe.
So I got the heck out of there, still feeling the need to pee. Bathrooms always do that to me, no matter how empty my bladder is. I always think "Hey I'm in here... might as well contribute" and I always muster up enough to get a good stream going.
It's a curse really...
Our drinks had arrived by the time I got back, and one glance at Todd showed something had changed. He sat still, focused, like a shade loomed over his head. The cheerfulness he wore so well melted, leaving a calm, cool menace to anyone who got in his way. Intensity in it's barest form.
"Hey?" I ventured, but he kept his eyes glued to my seat.
"Hello," He said, toneless. "Have a seat," he motioned a paw to the booth in front of him.
"You okay?" I asked as I took it. Something wasn't right. The feeling I got in the bathroom was returning.
"Let me see it." He said behind bared teeth.
My whole body froze. "I'm sorry?"
"The picture..." He said. "The picture you wanted to show me. Let me see it."
"I don't know what your talking about?" I tried lying, but I just couldn't. My ears were already down, my body language was limp. I knew I couldn't hide it from him. Not with a clear conscience anyway. It sickened me to the core that I still had some allegiance to Jenna, even if she was a sniveling, conniving bitch.
"Don't play with me, Felix," Todd said. His tone was frigid, but he meant no harm. Like a beast nestling it's young. The compassion still lay in his eyes like a the spark of a shimmering orb, but there seemed to be no joy there. Like he was expecting this all along...
I sighed, took out the phone, and slid it open. My thumbs found their ways to the buttons all by themselves as I sat watching, hoping he wouldn't be completely crushed. I didn't want to be the cause of his downward spiral, and even if Jenna did cheat on him, ignorance (most of the time) was bliss these days.
"Here," I said, finding the image that made me want to thrust the fork to my right through my temple. I slid the phone over to him face-down. "I just want you to know... That I didn't mean for things to be this way."
He stopped it with his paw and rested it on top, looking deep into my eyes as he spoke. "What do you mean?"
"You loved her..." I said, feeling the need to bawl my face off. "And you just deserve much better. Forgive me for interfering, but this is something I thought you needed to know..."
He sighed, gulped down half of his drink, and lifted, putting one eye after the other on the screen.
"It's black?"
"...Oh," I said, taking the thing back. "Backlight goes off every 15 seconds or something." I tapped the "7" button and it flipped on again. "There..."
He looked again, eyes widening as he took it in. The woman he loved in the arms of another. "She looks so happy..."
"She's a bitch," I groaned.
Moments flew by like that were taped to the ground as he just stared, looking like he was going to burst into tears any second.
"I didn't want it to happenâ€""
"Stop," He cut me off. His eyes were slowly going red as they glistened against the flame lamps scattered all around. "Just stop..."
I didn't know what else to say. The guy had gone from happy-go-lucky stressless fox to depresso-ball suicide contemplation in the course of 10 seconds...
"Need a hug?" Yeah I heard it come out of my mouth. I meant it, though in a "Please don't accept" sort of way. I just ruined the guys life, for the God I don't believe in's sake. I wasn't about to confuse him with mixed messages.
"No it's alright," He sighed.
*phew!*
"I think I'm gonna go..." He got up, dragging his paws along the ground. He let Alex's phone fall, which (thanks to my awesomeness) I caught before it shattered on the hardwood floor.
"Do you need anyone there?"
"Where?" He turned.
"Ya know," I said, gulping and helping myself up. "This is a hard thing to go through... Everybody needs someone to pull them backâ€""
"I'm not about to go kill myself, Felix?" He sort of scoffed at me, like I've met him ten years ago, been buddies with him since then, and know how he ticks. "Sure this sucks, but I'm going to get through it?"
"But..." I asked him. "...how?"
"It's going to take time for me to heal," He said. "But after that, things are going to go back toâ€""
"But you guys loved each other!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I didn't want to. Love is the one thing that holds us together, and I'd be more then willing to eat a scorpion then let something like what he had go so easily.
"Apparently I was the only one," He gave a weak smile, threw his jacket over his shoulder, and walked up the steps.
"It can't just be that easy..." I looked for his eye contact one more time before gluing my eyes to the floor.
"Live and let live, Felix," He gave a wave with a flick of his paw. "If you go around holding grudges, keeping scars right in front of your eyes, how can you ever expect someone to see you for who you are?"
The revolving doors swallowed him as I felt a tapping at my shoulder. A turn on my heal revealed our waiter, tapping his foot-paw with a bill in his hand.
"And how will you be paying this...?"
***
Alex came to my rescue. Yet again he saved me, paying for drinks that were never consumed (by me anyway).
"My phone?" He said, holding out his paw.
With I sigh I handed it over. "Sorry..."
"And what did we learn tonight?" He said, taking my left as we started down the sidewalk.
I thought about it. "That Jenna's boyfriend is WAY to nice for his own good."
"No," He said. "Try again."
"That I should never take your phone?" I already knew the answer. I just wanted to avert the crisis so I could bounce these new ideas off him.
"Bingo," He winked. "You didn't find anything on the phone did you...?"
"I didn't look," I chuckled. It felt good, but I couldn't exactly remember the last time I actually put effort into laughing.
"I knew you wouldn't," Alex said. "Just making sure. So what happened?"
And I told him, putting a negative spin on it to make it seem like it was his fault.
"How is it MY fault he heard you in the bathroom?"
"How exactly is it not?"
"...what?"
"Exactly..." I stopped, feeling the glow of victory, having won that battle of wits and put my nose to the wind. "Are you hungry?"
"Getting' there, why?"
"Because that Heaven and Hell place freaked me out," I said, feeling my stomach. "And I'm starved."
"Okay, let's get something to eat." He smiled. And I smiled back.
It seemed Todd was right. Things WERE going back to normal. The good kind of normal, too.
***
It was 4:44 am. Sunday night. Sleep was actually on my side tonight, probably from the McBurger that still gurgled away in my stomach. I don't exactly remember what I was dreaming about, but the looming shade that was in the process of covering gave me this fucked up feeling...
Maybe that was the McBurger too... ugh...
I was startled by my phone buzzing. I must have missed it the first few times because it had vibrated all the way to my floor before I picked it up...
"Helâ€"" Was all I could get out before my eyes closed again, leaving my flopped over the edge of my bed.
"Felix, I need you to let me in..."
My eyes flashed open. "Jenna?"
"Felix, I'm not going to ask you again, now let me in." Her tone basically breathed fire into my ear. An act I promptly predicted as I showed her boyfriend the picture. Fat chance...
"Sorry, angry-face butâ€""
"Felix," She cut me off. "It's Aiden..."
This didn't show on my radar. I wasn't sure what to expect as I pawed down the side-stairs in my boxers like it was my own house or something. My slipper-grips clanged off the cement, echoing off the walls as I sent out thoughts to follow them.
"This is crazy..."
"It's a trap..."
"But what if it's not...?"
"What do I care?'
"How could I not care..."
I reached the front door to Jenna crying. Not for anything in particular, but she was shaking in soaked, matted fur. The rain was coming down hard as she held something close to her chest.
"Thank God..." She said as she walked her way in.
"Whoa," I forcelessly put my paw out to stop her. Thankfully she replied with eye contact, because a month ago she would have pushed right past... and I wouldn't have cared either way. "What the hell's going on?"
"He called me..." She heaved, tears running down her face. She sat down on the carpet in the lobby. More collapsed, really... I couldn't help but feel sympathy for her. For the Jenna I once knew...
"I told him it was over. That I couldn't do that to Todd... He argued that I used him. That I was just trying to get back at you..."
"Bastard..." I growled, sitting next to her. My paw found hers as I let myself be there for her. She squeezed like it was the medicine she'd needed.
"I tried... to tell him it wasn't like that... That I valued our friendship. And he kept on... about how alone he was and how much he found himself needing me... How I had become his soulmate in such a short time..."
"Shhh..." I tried consoling her so she could keep something steady about her, but it wasn't working. She looked like she had been out there for hours.
"He said he couldn't live without me... And that he refused to... I mean, I took it all as some drama-queen presentation of him trying to win me over but..." She paused, staring into the carpet... "Half an hour later, this was thrust through my mail-slot, followed by tires screeching... I didn't know what to do once I found it... I've never heard such a horrid sound in my life... That's why I walked here..."
Apparently she HAD been out there for hours...
"Todd wouldn't answer his cell phone..." Then she turned to me, handing an incredibly soaked letter.
I could smell blood before I even opened it. That fact alone made my heart race as I slipped the flaps from each other.
"Holy fuck..." I swallowed hard as I read it. Inside was a sloppily drawn heart with the word "Goodbye" breaking it in half up the middle. That's when I felt the McBurger knocking at my throat. "I'm going to be sick..."
"Felix we have to find him!" She said, grabbing me by the shoulder. "He could be dying out there!"
"I know..." I replied, lending a paw to help her up. "We don't have much time..."
I had to race upstairs to wrestle some clothes on, all the way looking for my cell phone and dialing. The ring stood firmly in my ear as I knocked as hard as I could on Alex's door.
"WHAT!"
"ALEX!" I shouted. "I'M going out, kay?" Making it sound as nonchalant as possible.
"Why do we need those piano keys?" He replied with a groggy undertone as he shuffled around in his sheets.
"Don't worry buddy, I'll beâ€" Hey Nameless! Listen I really need a favor..."
The tiger must have sensed my tone on the phone. Or he must have been in the area... like batman... sort of... because he was waiting outside when we pushed the doors open.
"Who theâ€"" Jenna said as I pulled the door open.
"Get in the back," I commanded, hoping for her cooperation. Thankfully she hated the wet as she more the happily jumped through the middle.
"Felix...?" She said. "Who's your friend?"
"The name's Nameless," The Tiger said, and I swear to the God I don't believe in that if he had a freaking cowboy hat, he woulda tipped it, winked, and kissed her wrist... The whole scene had that western feel to it.
"Delighted... But what's your real name?"
But as soon as I was in, we were off.
"Where do you think he'll be?" Nameless asked, tipping his peripherals my way.
"I don't know, I don't know..." I said as my eyes dove into the dash board. "I need to fucking think!" The I turned. "Jenna!"
"Yeah?"
"Is there anything else he might of said on the phone? Something that would give us a clue...?"
"Well..." She was looking like she thought about it. "No I don't think so...? Just that I was his world and that'd he rather..." Then she paused. "...jump?"
"Jump...?" Nameless and I both said in unison.
"He wants to jump...?" I thought hard about it, hoping my brain would just kick in and tell me the answer. I knew we were running out of time... and I wasn't sure how much of it we had. "What's high? City Hall?"
"He could walk to City Hall...?" Jenna said. "He wouldn't need his mom's van for that...
"How do you know he had his mom's van?"
"He had to get the letter to me somehow didn't he?"
"Good point..." Then I thought about it. "How did you know he was in walking distance?"
"I've sort of been to his house... heh..."
"Jenna!?"
"NEED A DIRECTION HERE PEOPLE!!" Nameless shouted.
"Kay hold on... thinking..." My mind ran through tall things one could jump off of to kill themselves successfully. "The bridge?"
"Too much public..."
"City Plaza?"
"Can't really get on the roof. It's all glass, and in this rain he'd just slide down..."
"Hmmm..."
"Oh my fucking god..." Nameless growled before cranked the wheel as hard as he could to the left. The jeep U-turned in a slide, whipping water in a jet behind us.
Jenna and I sat there screaming as nameless glared at the road. "Shut the fuck up and turn on the radio!"
My paw shot out and tapped the knob, setting to life the brand new player that lay in the dash, which bombarded us with static.
"Fuck!" Nameless shouted as he went through a stop-sign. "Where the fuck did my antenna go?!" He sat there looking on his hood, meanwhile Jenna gripped my arm like it was supposed to come off. "You see! THIS is EXACTLY why I should just keep all my money in a bank. Because THEN I can dream about having nice things, own them another day, AND KEEP MY MONEY!"
"Uh... Nameless?" I tapped him in the shouder.
"WHAT!" He shouted, snapping his head as hard as he could. His glare could have killed kittens... newborn baby kittens...
"Why are we on the highway?" I asked him. Jenna just sat there, eyes forward like she was about to die.
"I think I know exactly where he is..."
"How...?"
"Remember that thing I needed to show you?"
"No...?"
He gave me a hard look. Once again the kitten-murderer kind.
"I mean yeah...?"
"Well you're about to see it whether you like it or not..." He tapped the door-lock button and put the petal to the floor sending that McBurger up to my throat again.
***
Sorry it's took so long for me to post. An out of town excursion had me... well... out of town as it were. Fun times though, im gonna post some fun on my youtube accoutn about soon lol.
Hope you enjoyed ^^ This is the second to last part!
=Pup