Passing the Bottle

Greg - Abnormal

Liz Amherst does not cry. I've known her literally since we were in diapers. We've been neighbours since our shared day of birth. I do not remember one single day of her crying. One day she scraped her leg so badly that she needed stitches. You know what she said when I asked her why she wasn't crying? She said, "It could be way worse, so why should I cry?" And that was when we were seven. When her aunt died, literally no tears escaped from her face. When her childhood dog, Bibbit died, she barely even sulked. So, seeing her crying for the first time really surprised me.

I immediately ran up to her when I saw the tears.

"Liz, what's wrong?" I asked as I sympathetically touched her shoulder.

"Nothing," she replied, while wiping her face.

"I'm pretty sure that you didn't even cry as a baby, so what's wrong?"

"I got into a fight with Danny, okay? Are you happy now?" She yelled at me. Such a rarity for her to yell too.

"No, I'm not  happy now. What did Danny do?"

"He broke the small amount of self confidence that I did have," she weeped. She finally broke down into crying on my shoulder. When she seemed a bit better, I walked her to her porch. She explained her predicament and regretted not thinking about emotions when she came up with the idea to breakup with Danny. Yet, I couldn't believe that Danny would ever say such insults to innocent Liz.

"I'm ready to cry by myself now. I'll see you later Greg." Liz left me on the porch alone. I walked away and called Danny.

"What the f#ck Danny?" I yelled at him. I walked into my home, thankful that my parents were out at work. "You made Liz cry!"

"And it turns out that she's a selfish b!tch!" Danny yelled back. "I hate her!"

"You do not hate her."

"I wish she would go die in a hole. That's how much I hate her."

"At least you don't have to worry about international tuition." I attempted to make the situation better.

"F#ck you." Then he hung up. I suck at making things better. A few minutes later, there was a knock on my door.

"Could you drive me to Danny's?" Liz's tears were completely dried up, but she was still red and looked a bit weak.

"Of course." We got there pretty fast. Liz got out and told me to stay in my car. She knocked on the front door and Danny answered. He still looked ticked off and started to yell at her. However, Liz raised her hand, slapped Danny and walked inside.

Once ten minutes passed. I realized that it was going to be awhile until Liz got back out.

I plugged my iPod into the auxiliary of my car and let "Won't Mind" play. I had recently started to listen to both Hoodie Allen and Max Schneider, so obviously I was listening to both of them a lot. After that song, "Against Me," came on. I listened to the lyrics until I nodded off.

I woke up to knocking on my car window. It was Liz. As I unlocked my car, I noticed that over two hours had passed.

"Is everything okay now?" I asked her.

"Yep, all good." She looked pretty flushed, so I didn't want to ask about it.

"Are you guys back together?" I asked her.

"Yes. Can we go back now?" Straight to the point as always. I put my car into drive and drove off.