Love Story On the rocks

Chapter 2

Meeting the Apple.

“So ya see, my sister always was a hard working girl, she helped us on the farm alot and still managed to have good grades throughout the middle school.”

“Go on.” Chris added while polishing his glasses

“That was until high school, her grades were slowly getting worse till the point where she almost fail her second year.”

Chris nodded.

“We don’t care so much about those grades, although our parents wanted Applejack to live the way she wanted to, she still decided to work on the farm.” Big Mac said with a sense of pride in his voice, while Chris made a mental note that his sister’s name is Applejack, he found it rather weird, but also kind of interesting.

“So we ignored the fact, but Ah’m regretting it now, she recently started to act weird. Usually she was a really kind girl, she would always listen to Granny Smith, or help with my work if I asked her to, but now when someone asks her to do something…” Big Mac sighed and frowned, he took few sips of his drink and sighed again.

“She just gets angry and leave the house to go god knows where.”

“Sounds pretty seriously, so you think she started hanging out with “wrong crowd”?” He said making quotation marks with his fingers in air.

“Eeyup.”

Chris put down the glass he was working on and took another one to polish.

“Problem seems serious but I think the solution might be easier than you think, did you try talking with her?”

“Of course Ah did, but she won’t listen to anything I want to say.” He said frowning again while also finishing his drink.

“Does she have any friends? I mean like really good friends, maybe even best friends.” He said smiling.

“She does actually, Ah don’t know if she was hanging out with them lately, but she had six great friends that might be called her best friends.”

“So perhaps ask them to help? Maybe they will figure something out.”

Big Mac suddenly smiled and mentally face palmed himself, why didn’t he think of that by himself?

“Thanks a lot partner, that is a great idea.” He said with a smile.

“I’m glad I helped.”

“So how much for a drink?”

“11 dollars.”

Big Mac opened his wallet and put 20 dollars on the counter.

“Keep the change.” He said and stood up.

“Thank you and have a nice day.”

‘Another satisfied customer I suppose.’ Chris said with a smile on his face and continued his work, soon new customers started to come and order drinks, occasionally doing some small talk with him.

Rest of the day went by without anyone asking him for an advice, after whole day of working he closed the bar and walked back home, this time he kept himself straight on the road away from graveyard and other places like that.

He walked inside and decided to play few games on his computer, after that he turned on his TV and watched some episodes of “How I met your mother” on ComedyCentral, after that he simply washed himself and went to bed, soon enough he swam away into the land of dreams.

Chris woke up, it was 1:12 p.m.

‘Now that’s more like it.’ He stood up and took some time to wash himself and make few sandwiches for breakfast.

It was 2:01 p.m. as he decided to go and look around the town.

He walked outside making sure he closed door behind him.

After some walking around without any destination in general he got himself  a caramelized apple, he sat down on the bench in small park, after consuming his snack he looked at the time, it was still only 2:24 p.m. he suddenly felt thirsty so he stood up and went towards the nearest grocery shop.

On his was he constantly felt like someone is following him, but he shrugged it off.

He walked inside and got himself small Pepsi can, after leaving the store and taking few sips of his drink he walked down the street, suddenly he felt someone pulling his hand with force and quickly dragging him into the dark alley. Then he felt a sensation he never wanted to feel.

A knife near his throat.

“Whoa whoa, hold down your horses, what…”

“Shut up!” Chris was cut off by his attacker whose voice was surprisingly feminine.

‘A girl?’  Chris thought surprised.

“Listen, let’s calm down and…”

“Ah told you to shut up!” She hold knife closer to his throat, also this time he caught some southern accent in her voice.

“What do you want? Money?” He asked nervously.

Girl nodded, after few seconds she face palmed in her mind forgetting that he can’t see her.

“Y-Yes ex-exactly!” She muttered, he finally realized something, she was as nervous as he was, maybe even more by the way she spoke, he might find a way out of this.

“Ok listen to me, maybe we can talk, you will lower this knife of yours and I promise I won’t call cops.” He said with as much calmness in his voice as he could muster.

“Ah-ah….” He felt knife slowly lowering and then he heard something he quite didn’t except.

She was quietly crying.

He slowly lifted his right hand and when it was close enough he caught her hand which was holding knife and quickly freed himself. He jumped few steps away from her and finally looked at her, she had long blond hair combed with red hairband at the end, she was wearing orange paned T-Shirt and jeans, on top of her head was a brown Stetson hat, he also looked into her eyes, they were a beautiful shade of green, some small tears trying to leave them.

Although his brain was saying to run away as fast as possible, something inside him forbid him from doing that, he examined her more carefully, he knew people like her, they visibly had a problem which was too hard to handle for them alone, but they didn’t want to admit it. But he never refused to help them.

Never.

“Whoa, let’s slow down, now, we can talk, but first how about putting this knife down?” He said trying to smile warmly.

After few moments of looking at him she dropped her knife and soon after that collapsed on her knees crying.

“Ah-Ah’m sorry.”

Now he actually felt guilty a bit, even though it was her who attacked him few moments ago.

He walked up to her and kneeled down to her eye level.

“Why did you do that? From what I see you aren’t someone who would do something like this?”

She sighed trying to stop her crying.

“J-John told me that if Ah won’t do it, he-he would…”

“Would what?”

She shivered visibly, more tears forming in her eyes, she then stood up in a second and quickly ran away, Chris tried to stop her but to no avail.

He stood up and tried to process what just happened, suddenly something caught his eye, yellow school bag which lie down near the wall of the alley.

He opened it and found few school books and notebooks, finally he found something more interesting, his attacker ID.

He looked and it and his eye went wide after learning the name of the would-be robber.

‘Applejack? Wasn’t that how Big Mac’s sister was called?’

He put ID back into the bag where he found it and took it up from the ground.

He looked at the time, it was 2:36 p.m. his shift would start in hour and a half, he took his way home hoping that some comedies would calm him down like they always do.

On his way home he couldn’t stop thinking about that situation, and then he decided to find out more about it later.

He didn’t know why he felt so concerned about Applejack, was it his helping instinct? Or maybe something else, he didn’t care, the feeling that mostly overtook him right now was hunger of curiosity.

And he was going to satisfy it.