Things have been peaceful here in LA. My work is infrequent. For humans, that's almost never a good thing. For me, it's awesome. It buys me a hell of a lot of time to just sit on my ass and do whatever I want. It was all fun and games this morning until Circe showed up. It wasn't her who upset me. Every time I see her, she puts a huge smile on my face,it's who she had in tow who pissed me off. She brought that dreaded Anti 2.0 with her. Fucking dickhead. She swears up and down that I will just love this dude if I get to know him. I doubt that somehow. He looks just like the old one, he speaks just like the old one, he even reeks just like the old one. Fucking dickhead. I almost snapped his neck when she said the two of them were dating. Currently, I'm locked in my room contemplating homicide. There's got to be some human out there up to no good I can take my anger out on. Circe is begging me to come out and be reasonable. Ha! Never gonna happen. I'm completely lost right now. The old Anti, she hated his guts. He used to stalk and harass her all the time, and finally she got so freaked out she brought me into the situation to make peace. Let me be clear, before she did that, I did NOT like Anti. He got on my last fucking nerve by merely breathing, but after she did that, things escalated and I started to flat out hate him. Being a pain in my neck is one thing, that won't get you anywhere good with me, but nobody fucks with my best friend. Not all that long ago, she tried making peace with him because she hated watching him try to antagonize me, and me fighting him off all the time as a result. It did not end well. Had I not showed up to that party when I did, I don't think I'd be dealing with the same Circe to say the least. Now that he's been replaced, she thinks he's the shit, and they're dating. Sure the new Anti has none of the old Anti's memory, but they share a fucking personality among pretty much everything else. Just because she hit it off with him this time around doesn't mean that he's different. I have a bad feeling about this whole thing. I don't trust this dude at fucking all, and if he doesn't leave my home, I'm going to break everything from his toes to his skull. "Come out." Circe pleaded. "No thanks, kiddo." I replied, lighting up. "You're being so unfair." she said. "That's fine with me. Just go hang out with your boyfriend." "Are you jealous?" She asked, feeling concerned. "No. I don't feel anything but pure unbridled anger." I heard her sigh. I hated making her upset more than most things, but it had to happen every now and again. "You're really not gonna come out and see us?" "Nope." She went silent for a minute. "What about just me?" She had my attention. "JUST you?" I asked to be sure. "Yes." she replied. "I would love to see just you." I heard her footsteps as she walked away, presumably to tell Anti that she was going to talk to just me. I heard her returning and she slid into my room quietly. "Hi." she said. I refused to look at her. "Don't be that way." She said, crawling onto my bed, sitting on the foot of it. "It's not so bad." "Not so bad? You're right, it's not so bad, it's way worse than so bad." She sighed heavily. "Fuck this dude." "Stop..." she said. "He's not the same." "Oh but he is. He's got the same personality. Remember how the old Anti was a great con artist? So is this one, and you're playing right into his hand." She seemed angered to hear that. "You are so fucking judgmental!" she said. "Yes I am." I replied. "It took you over twenty thousand years to understand that?" She glared at me. "I swear, you just don't want me to date." "I couldn't care less if you date someone, as long as it isn't him." "You know, it took me months to work up the nerve to come over here and tell you about this because I had to convince myself that you wouldn't act like this. I really had myself believing that you'd be mature enough to deal with this." "Congrats on deluding yourself, Kiddo, but delusions don't have any impact on reality." She looked like she wanted to smack me, but she controlled her temper. She took a deep breath. "Can't you put things behind you?" "No, but your boyfriend can put my front door behind him." She just looked away. "We were best friends, Arioch. I have no idea what the fuck happened, but we're not anymore." That hurt. Badly. I've cried less than a handful of times in my life, but hearing that made me want to break down and cry for a long time. I held it in though. "I wish you could accept me." "Accept you?" I asked. "I do. I always have. You're delusional if you think I haven't accepted you...I just don't accept your boyfriend, and you know why." "I swear, he is different." "Do you even understand how replacements work?" I asked. "Of course I do." She protested. "How do they work then?" "Out with the old, in with a new." "Circe, really? That's no explanation." "They just take the bad demon, and bring out a new one...same job, same body, same appearance, same everything..." "Same everything. Exactly. Same fucking personality." "Well something changed, because he's nothing like the old Anti. If you'd give him a chance you'd see it." "Nope. Not gonna happen. I know better." I replied. "God! You are so stubborn, just like your mother!" "I'll tell her you love her work." "There's no sense in arguing with you, Ari. When you think you're right, you're right in your mind. I regret coming over. I hope someday soon you'll get it together and come see me. You know where I live." I wanted so badly to stop her from leaving, but...there was no sense in it. She had firmly fallen for his shit. I have no idea what he has up his sleeve, but I'm imagining he doesn't care for her one bit. Arm candy. She's gorgeous,and that's all he seems to care about. That's all the old Anti ever cared about, he just went about pursuing Circe in a way that was...bad for everyone. He probably doesn't even know her favorite color. Sidenote: it's red. I suppose if I had red hair that hung past my waist, I'd be fond of the color red, too. As much as I want to stay far away from Anti, I have to go near his ugly fucking face and get this shit sorted out before it gets really ugly.
