TBD

One

Bill sighed, walking out of Mr. Davidson's office. He sat back down at his desk and rubbed his temples.
His best friend, Paul, turned to face him. "Everything alright, Bill?" he asked.
"No! Everything's not alright Paul!" Bill replied. "I just got fired!"
"Oh. Well, I'm sure everything will work itself out," Paul assured his friend awkwardly, not really knowing what to say.
Bill nodded, not buying it. His phone dinged with a text from his daughter, Alice.
Hey Dad, I'm going over to Deb's for dinner tonight
"Oh, now Alice is going to have dinner with her girlfriend, Deb! We had plans tonight, it's Crabfest!" Bill exclaimed.
Paul paused. "Maybe she's outgrown it," he pointed out.
Bill looked at Paul, scandalized. "Outgrown Crabfest!? She always loved that-" His eyes widened in realization, "when she was a kid..." He mentally slapped himself. "Paul, you're right! She must have. Paul, what do lesbians like to do?"
"Why are you asking me?" Paul asked in response, clearly confused.
Bill shrugged. "All the lesbians on the tumbler retweeted Alice's post about you. She called it 'lesbian solidarity,' I think," he explained to his friend. "So Paul, what do lesbians like to do?"
Paul hesitated, thinking. "Uh... girls, probably?" he suggested.
"Paul!" Bill slapped his friend's arm.
"I don't know, Bill! They listen to that band, uh... Girl in Red, I think? That's like... their thing," Paul offered. "I don't know, I'm not a lesbian!"
"Alice says the lesbians on the tumbler made you a lesbian, so you must be," Bill insisted.
Paul groaned. "Bill, that's not what a les-"
Ted popped up behind them. "You going to Beanie's?" he asked.
"Uh, no?" Paul replied.
"You didn't invite me!" Ted grumbled. "Hey, so I heard someone over here say they got canned, which one of you was it?"
Bill put his head in his hands. "Me, Ted! It was me!"
"You!? But you've never done anything wrong, you're the office goodie two shoes!" Ted replied. "Paul never turns in his statistical analyses, firing him would make sense. But you? Stupid!"
"Uh... thanks?" Bill muttered. Paul glanced up at Ted, clearly offended, but he didn't say anything for his friend's sake. "I'm gonna have to tell Alice at some point. What am I supposed to say to her!?"
Ted sighed. "I don't know, Bill! I haven't seen my kids in... God, I don't know how long," he murmured. He glanced up, panicked, as he noticed his slip-up. "Shit."
Paul looked up at him from his chair. "Ted, you have kids?" he asked, understandably incredulous.
His coworker closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Forget I said that, eh? It's a long story," Ted muttered in response.
Paul stood up. "We have time, it's five o'clock. How about we go to Beanie's, Ted?"

"Paul!" Emma exclaimed, grinning.
Paul smiled back at his girlfriend. "Hey, Emma. I'll have a black coffee. And Ted?"
The slightly taller man sighed. "I'll have an iced chai tea, eh?" he asked.
Emma nodded. "Okay. Two checks?" she asked.
"I'll pay," Ted said, handing her a fifty. "The change is for you. And no, I won't make you sing."
Paul and Emma looked at Ted, both equally confused. "Uh... thanks. That's really very generous of you, it was only twelve fifty," Emma said.
Ted sighed. "Just take it before I change my mind."
Emma nodded and went to make their drinks, putting the fifty in the register and gathering the change for her as she did so.
"So, Ted, about your... kids," Paul said, turning to face his coworker.
Ted sighed yet again. "I was a kid, Paul. I didn't know what I was doing. I was... I dunno, sixteen? Seventeen? I had a girlfriend, and long story short, I got her pregnant, her parents kicked her out and wouldn't help her abort it, and we had a daughter. Alexandra Foster," he said softly.
Paul's girlfriend came over and handed them their drinks. "Thanks again for the tip, Ted. It really means a lot," she reiterated.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Ted muttered. "Paul, can we just... y'know... walk? I don't want people hearing me."
"Oh. Sure, Ted," Paul replied.
The two men walked out of Beanie's and drank the shitty beverages they'd gotten. "Anyway... I couldn't leave her homeless with a baby after high school. We got married as soon as it was legal, and nine years later, we had another baby girl, Hannah." Ted smiled at the memory of his daughters. "I loved them, Paul. But I was a piece of shit, just like now. I grew tired of my wife. I was 27, still with my high school girlfriend, with a shitty retail job... I wanted more out of life. So I left her.
"That was the worst decision I ever made. I lost contact with her and the girls. I haven't seen them since Hannah was maybe a year old, tops. I never loved her. She was just a high school fling to me. But I should've stayed with her so I could see my girls," Ted finished. Paul looked at the man and was shocked to see him raw and emotional, tears in his eyes.
Paul cleared his throat. "Wasn't it for the best? To get out of an unhappy marriage?" he asked.
Ted shook his head. "However unhappy the marriage was, I needed those girls. They made me better. I want to be better. I'm such a fucking piece of shit, Paul. I'm a total douchebag!" he exclaimed.
Paul placed a gentle hand on Ted's shoulder. "Do you know if they're still in Hatchetfield? We could try and find them," he offered.
Ted sighed and shrugged Paul's hand off, throwing his empty cup in the nearest trash can. "I don't even know what they look like, Paul. It's been... eight, nine years? The only connection they still have to me is my last name," he muttered.

A/N: Okay, wow. That's... longer than anything I've ever really written, 992 words. Uh, thanks for reading I guess? Ima see if I'll actually finish this one, I'm bad at that. - Varian