BAD REPUTATION.

22

Brandy Mae

"Brandy Mae, you're going to have to talk to me at some point today." He says.
That's because I've been acting like a petulant kid. Staring intently at the counter and ignoring all his "Brandy Mae, Brandy Maaeee..."
I feel like I'm mad at him but I don't know why.

It has nothing to with that image of him I still have in my mind. It has nothing to do with the fact that he's been acting single all this while. He's stupid. I'm stupid.

"Can I have my usual?" He asks and now I remember why I'm mad at him.

I throw the rug down and look at him, "We are out of alcohol." I tell him matter of factly.
A baffled look clouds his face as his eyes scan the rows of alcohol bottles stocked in the counters behind me.

Then they travel all the way to the keg tap next to me and then they rest on my face with a question in them.
I act like I don't understand face questions.

"What?!" He asks loudly, when I don't offer an answer to his silent question.

"I'm not selling alcohol to you anymore." I tell him.

He levels me with a blank stare, "why?"

Why indeed? I mean, if he wants to drink to his death then it shouldn't be my problem.

"I know about you." That's the easiest way I can think of telling him that I kniw all about his addictions.
He acts like he doesn't understand direct statements with loaded meaning so he quirks an eyebrow which clearly says, 'please elaborate.'

"I know you're a drug addict and alcoholic and I know you're best friend died and I know you're in this town like some kind of a rehab and I know you have a girlfriend and I know you cheat on her all the time and I know you're facing assault charges for beating her!! " Fuck! What did I just say? Fuck you Noah for telling me all these things. Could I sound any more sociopathic??

After killing myself two million ways in my head, I look at him. He's seated where he was seated a second ago but now he looks like he's miles away. His left hand is cupped on his chin with the elbow on the counter, his eyes gazing intently on the door to the side that leads to the washrooms and his body rigid like a stripper pole.
I even think for a moment he didn't hear me but then he snaps back and looks at me.

"Oh, I have something for you." He says while at the same time bending to his side to collect something from the floor.
He places a huge plastic bag on the counter and then pushes it toward me.

I stare at the bag then at him .

When he sees that I'm making no moves to look at what's in the plastic bag, he dips one hand in and comes up with a t-shirt. The t-shirt I gave him to wear this morning. Noah's t-shirt. It smells like the whole Downy company just poured itself into the t-shirt.

He pushes the huge t shirt towards me.
"I brought back your t-shirt. I even washed it." He says.

I push it back to him. " It's not my t-shirt." I tell him.

He looks at it as if to confirm that it's the same piece of clothing I gave him. "You gave me this t-shirt this morning."

" I know, but it's not my t-shirt. You can keep it. Like a gift from one asshole to another." I explain to him.

"Brandy Mae?? Did you give me your mother's clothes? Did I walk around in your mother's clothes?"

Sigh, How can someone so... just so.. I want to say good looking but he's more than that. He's just so.. Judd-ish. Anyway how can someone like him be so stupid. It's like when God was creating him he was like, here have these good teeth to go with your nice body and these good legs to go with that devilish smile and oh, what do I have here? This whole bag of stupidity I was going to give to Trump but he's already stupid enough. Why don't you take it uh?