The People Of Guilt

Two

Austin had a bad habit of coming home drunk. He goes to the studio, listens to a bunch of different guys playing different music, smoking, and taking a bunch of various substances before downing it all down with a bunch of different kinds of alcohol. Oh, and can't forget the bunch of scantly clad women who hung around for the attention. It was the type of scene out of a movie, a scene Zorana hated. She disliked the loud music, the smell of weed and cigarettes, the ugly men who wore fake gold grills and fake gold chains that hung down their ankles. She hated the sticky couches that lined the studio, all caked in alcohol and god knows what else. It disgusted every inch of her soul.

And then here comes Austin, home smelling, feeling, and acting like all the above. He stumbled into the room, jarring Zorana out of her sleep and flopping down onto the pump up with her. "Good morning, beautiful," he grumbled, pushing himself up and onto Zorana's chest. When she cringed and pushed him off, Austin rolled onto the floor overdramatically, wincing a bit when he hit the hardwood.

Looking down at her phone Zorana caught the time and snapped her head over to him, "It's one in the morning!?" Austin grumbled something inaudible as he tried picking himself up off the ground. "One in the morning Austin, what the hell were you doing? You left at like four."

"Had that flame!" he bores back. He stumbles over to his bed and flops down. "I told you if I got a good idea, I would record it."

"Oh yeah," Zorana says, "Let me hear it." Austin quickly sits up and cuts his phone on, scrolling through a few pictures and landing on a video he had recorded. He handed it to Zorana, and instead of listening to it, she went through the pictures. Austin holding a big ass bottle of crown. Austin in the booth rapping about probably nothing important. Austin standing, throwing gang signs with random other guys, another picture of Austin with alcohol. Austin with some girl sitting in his lap. Another of the same girl taking a puff of the blunt he had in his mouth. Zorana cringed at all of it, her face twisting up in pure disgust. Those pictures reeked of the bootleg rap game. She. Hated. It. "Wow, this took like eight hours?"

The look on Austin's face changed quickly, and he glared at her. "I worked my ass off for that song, and you didn't even listen to it."

"Sure does look like you worked your ass off." Zorana tosses the phone back to him and gets back into her pump-up. Austin watches her for a second, letting her words brew on him. It pissed him off that she was so dismissive of his craft, his art. He was excellent at his work; he made music on Drake's level. He was cemented in being the next rap king. He was gonna go places. Real expensive, luxury places. And Zorana wasn't going with that attitude she always had with him.

"Well, I did work my ass off, and if you listened to it, you would see that the product is proof," Zorana said nothing back, which just pissed him off more. Seeing as he wasn't getting anywhere, Austin smacked his tongue against his teeth and rolled himself into his bed, not even bothering to get changed.

Zorana stayed turned away from him for a long time. Truth be told, she wasn't even fazed by his pastimes. She wasn't bothered by the ladies all over him or being so close they were smoking the same blunt. It didn't bother her at all. What bothered her was the fact that this was what she settled for. Austin was her partner, but she was stuck with him because she had nowhere else to go.

She was far from in love with him. She was, in fact, closer to hating him. She found herself disgusted after being intimate, and she never enjoyed herself when they went out on dates. Austin was never someone she pictured herself with for a long time. Initially, he was just someone she hung out with periodically when she first went to college. It turned sexual, and then suddenly, she was his girlfriend. There wasn't even anything that solidified them in transitioning; it just...happened. They used each other for what it was worth, even from the start. How could she expect faithfulness to such a childish man? How could she ever envision a future with such an immature human? She couldn't, and she knew that the moment she started sleeping with him. That's all he was supposed to be. No dates, no matching outfits, no professional couple portraits done at JCPenny. Just sex. And then she became his girlfriend and still didn't get any of that.