Intertwined

Chapter Three

Charles and I had gotten along so well. I now knew that we could only be friends. We both started sharing stories of our own to each other. I had so much fun with Charles. He had this incredible sense of humor and I could genuinely laugh at his jokes that were mostly not "green jokes". He had these ridiculous dance moves that made me laugh so hard I could feel all my fats melting. We had been hanging out together for two months and we already had our favorite place to hang out. It's the café beside our apartment. We would just talk for hours and then I'd write and Charles would try to help me. Well, he tried. The café's manager, Rory, happened to be Charles' friend so that's why we could stay in as much as we wanted.

"Okay, let's do ourselves a favor," Charles said.

"What?" I got myself ready for whatever crazy idea he had came up.

"We go get the other a lover," he suggested.

I laughed at this crazy idea. I responded, "Why can't we just find our own lovers by ourselves?" And I added, "Besides, all you ever want is Amanda which makes my job easier."

"That's not true! And you don't know where she lives."

"Uhh wrong! She lives in Santa Monica. I remember you telling that to me two hours ago when you just ranted about Amanda for a full half hour." I gave out a laugh.

"I'm sorry. Am I annoying you?" He asked apologetically as if he pissed me off.

"Yes I am annoyed. God you're so annoying!" I jokingly said. But Charles didn't seem to take it as a joke and he felt bad. I hurriedly said, "I was kidding. I mean yeah you could pretty much be annoying. But I don't mind listening to your stories about Amanda. It's good to feel trusted. Besides, I'm your friend so you could definitely tell me stuff. Okay?" I gave him a smile. "Now go get more drinks." I added.

"Wow. That's some tough love you got there," Charles teased. We both laughed and Charles went to get more drinks.

I got out my pen and notebook and decided to start writing the assignment. The assignment was to make a screenplay and the genre that I picked was tragedy. I thought of different tragic movies. I thought of Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, and The Great Gatsby, all of which involved Leonardo DiCaprio's character dead. And let's face it, that's tragic. Charles came back with two macchiato in his hands.

"I don't know what to write!" I felt exasperated.

"Well, why won't you try unrequited love? That's always tragic," he suggested.

"That's too cliché! Being mainstream is too mainstream," I retorted. Charles tried to calm me down, "Look just drink your macchiato. Maybe you could get something out of it." He handed me my mug and he added, "If it tastes bad then you could write how tragic it was." Again, I laughed.

"No one writes a tragedy about a bad tasting macchiato, Charles," I said.

"Well isn't that what you wanted? Something that is not too mainstream?"

"Touché." I agreed.

Charles and I went back to the apartment and we stayed in my room. Nana was gone grocery shopping. We were just watching television and eating ice cream. Out of the blue, Charles asked me a question.

"How are your parents?"

I answered, "They're fine. They just called last night."

"What are their names?"

"Robert and Kym. And they are the best!" I looked at Charles but his face was expressionless. My mind went back to the time I was invited to their room and realized I didn't see a picture of Charles with anybody else than Nana. I hoped it was not a bad timing but I asked Charles, "How about yours?" He looked down and went back at me. He tried to smile but his lips quivered. He answered, "Victor and Whitney. But I don't remember them anymore." I felt sorry for him.