Love is a Bitch Sometimes

The Bar : Episode 1

My name is Daniel Arias. I'm 23 years old and I live in New York City. I am 5'8, I weight 175 pounds with 9 percent body fat. I work out 5 times a week to keep my body this way.
  I live in a tiny apartment on the East Side. The rent's affordable on my salary, luckily. I drive the shittest car in Manhattan. It chokes every time I make a left turn, and it sounds like A/C put on full blast when I run it. My passenger door doesn't match the rest of the car; the rust and dirt on it are way too dark to blend in. I drive my car 6 days a week to get to my job: a Mailroom Clerk.
  I guess I wasn't lucky enough to be a desk jockey.
  It's April 15, 2006, and I'm standing there, stuffing letters into boxes while the smoke from Mandy's cigarette filled my lungs and nose.  Mandy's about as young as me, but she's got a voice and cancer of a woman in her 70's. She's been here for 3 months, but I've never got used to the smoke. There was no window in this hellhole, so the smoke would pile up against the ceiling. It kinda looked like a cloud that filled the sky completely, and that smelled like shit
  There was a copier in that room.
  If that copier was a person, I'd bet it's head in with an ink cartridge.
  It'd never work without you slapping the side of it, but until you hit it, it made this rapid shuddering noise. It sounded like a machine gun that went off in the middle of the night. The sound banged up against my skull until Mandy finally hit it hard enough to stop the sound.
  "Sorry," she says. I nodded, trying to pretend that I wasn't 7 seconds away from killing someone. After that, she goes on about how there should a window installed. I agree with her, but after hearing about it for the next 15 minutes, it was time to go to the bathroom. Going in there was like a smoke break for me. It gave me time for the vein in my forehead to relax and get a breath of air that wasn't tied to printer ink and Mandy's breath.
  "You look like tired, have you been sleeping lately?" Says Joey after walking out of one of the stalls. He was the desk jockey that took the last spot before I could fill it in, but that was pretty much the only thing I hated about him. He was alright.
  I looked into the big mirror that was on the wall behind the sinks, looking at the dark circles around my thin eyes. I always had these; I liked them. "I've had these since I was a kid, Joe," I told him while I started to wash my hands
  Shrugging, Joey walked up to the sink next to me and actually starts washing his hands, unlike every other guy in this building. "I'm going to a club with my friends tonight. You coming with? You look like you need a night out."
  "What club? And I'm fine."
  "That vein poking out of your forehead says otherwise." He told me with a little laugh.
  I looked into the mirror and saw my forehead vein was still bludging against my skin.  Weird. "It's that mailroom. You need to get out of there." He said again.
  You and me both, Joe.
  I told him that I'd go to the club with him and went back to my cell to finish up my hours for the day.
  That club is where I met Emma Brown.

  The place was packed, but that was because it was small. The only thing in that place that was lit up was the stage and the bar.
  The only things I remember that night.
  Her skin was like chocolate, and her black and cyan hair caught my eyes.
  Her band was probably the 5th or 6th that played that night, but it was one I gave a damn about. Her voice was like silk as her psychedelic music filled my ears. It was like getting high for the first time all over again. It was enough to get me away from the bar and close to the stage. I even liked the gap in her front teeth and the two buns she put her curly hair in.
  I liked her.
  After the song was over and she was off the stage, my heart started beating like normal again and the rush I got was gone. I went back to the bar and ordered another beer while Joe and his friends were dancing to a shitty band that came next. It was a decent night so far.
  Then she was right there next to me.
  "A Modelo," was her order as she sat down on the stool next to mine, not noticing me. My heart started beating up against my chest while I turned my head, smiling at her. "Hey, I liked your song." That glance she had while she turned. It's hard to describe, but it wasn't a 'happy to meet a fan' kind of glance; It was more like a 'just another drunk' glance. Maybe it was nothing, but when she saw what I looked like, she smiled back at me. "Happy to meet a fan," She spoke.
  She liked me too.
  "What genre was that?" I asked, and it opened the floodgates. I never had such a deep conversation about music with anyone and it was obvious that she hadn't explained her music in a while. Her soothing voice told me everything. The meaning behind her songs, the time it took to make, the feeling of being on stage. It was like I was the first person she had ever opened up to.
  Her name was Emma and her number was 664-7664. I know this because of the piece of paper she handed to me at the end of the night, and that night was what caused the best 2 weeks of my life, at the time.

  "I don't think it's going to work with us anymore," She said over the phone while I sat down on my kitchen floor, pressing my back up against my fridge. I remember the awkward silence after hearing that. When you've had failed relationship after failed relationship, you start getting numb to the whole breakup thing. I was upset, of course, but I wasn't anywhere near depressed. I was waiting for her to hang up, so I could just get up and move on, but then she said something else.
  "It's just, you're so stressed, and I got all those gigs for the bands...  I just don't want this to end badly. I'm sorry." Then there was a click.
  This is how I fell in love with Emma Brown.

  Mandy's big lips were wrapped around her cigarette and her smoke filled my nose again the next morning. Something felt different that day. Every word that came out of Mandy's mouth about the window added to a headache I already had. It only got worse when she had gone to use the copier. That sound started killing me from the inside. My veins felt like they were going to burst through my skin, and I could feel my face turn red. That was when I snapped.
  I shoved Mandy out of the way and lifted it off the table, smashing it against the floor while my coworker screamed in fear. "You want a fucking window, Mandy? I'll get you one," I tell her before I go out to the hall, grabbing the fire extinguisher off the wall while everyone in the office started to gather near the mailroom. It's funny because I think that the first time anyone other than me or Mandy came near that place. I push everyone out of my way and go back to my station, where I then start breaking a hole through the concrete and drywall with the end of the extinguisher. Part of me was afraid of it bursting while I was banging it against the wall, but it didn't, luckily. After a while, I tossed the extinguisher to the side and I started punching the concrete until a large hole was left in the wall. Finally, fresh air.
I didn't care that my knuckles were bleeding. I didn't care that lost my job. I felt better than I've ever felt before in life. I pressed my bloodied hand up against my white button up shirt and stepped off the elevator after riding it down to get to my car. I didn't want to get any blood on my dress shoes; they were my favorite pair. I started driving my car down the road, and while the piece of shit was spitting and coughing, sounding like it was going to fall apart at any minute, I remember something. I hate this car, and I don't need it anymore. My hand slowly left the wheel, and my foot pressed hard down on the gas pedal. I put my seatbelt tight against my chest, only a few seconds before I end up wrapping my car around a light post. I step out of my car with a bloody smile on my face, ignoring the crowd that surrounded me.
  I am Daniel Arias.
  I am unemployed, I have no car, a bloody nose, a possibly broken hand, fractured ribs, and a constant ringing in my head.
  I am happy.
  I am free.