Chapter 3: Finding out the truth.

I open my eyes and rub away the slight crust that had formed at the tear ducts. I let out a long yawn and pulled myself out of bed. I sit at the edge of my bed, crack my neck and fingers before standing up and stretching. I go to my dresser and pick out a black t-shirt with a big adidas logo on the front side of it. It does feel like I’m advertising them a bit too much sometimes but I love this shirt because of the comfortability of it and the colour. I look in my pants drawer and find a pair of tan jeans, I check the size and slip them on. They fit nicely so I shrug and continue on to find the rest of my clothes

Once I got my full apparel on I walk into my kitchen and check the fridge. I look inside the monotone white contrasting the yellowed plastic in a familiar sense as it reminded me of my mother’s old fridge. I then noticed that almost nothing in there and I felt kind of stupid as it reminded me that I haven’t bought groceries in a long time. With keeping up with the coffee dates every week and my job I find myself too busy to worry about eating. My stomach growls at me in rebellion and I quickly grab my keys and head out the door. I knew I needed groceries so I started walking to the supermarket. I past down a few familiar people who wave at me, in which I wave back in return and before I know it I’m standing in front of my workplace. I shove my hands in my pockets and casually walk in. I hear the dull ringing noise of the automatic door as it reopens to let another person in. “Hey big boy!” I turn around and look at Chrissy standing eerily close to me.

I shuffle back a bit so I can be in my physical comfort zone and smile back. “Hey Chrissy how are you?”

“Oh you know same old, same old. Go to work, get harassed. The whole works.” I nodded in agreement. Lately Chrissy has been getting more ‘attention’ centered on her. “What about you? I saw you earlier this week but I doubt nothing happened. after that”

I chuckle and rub my hand nervously. “No I’m the same as you, minus the harassment part of course.” She laughed for a bit and looked at me with a sly grin.

“It sounds to me like you think that all harassment is bad. Let me tell ya when one of those men hit the right spot....” I blushed as she stood there with a dreamy smile on her face. “Any who are you going shopping or just stalking people here?”

I chuckle. “Oh no I need some groceries, have nothing in the fridge and it seems that my body says I’m hungry.” She walks a bit past me before I put my hand on her shoulder. She turns around and looks at me in confusion. “Hey do you want to shop with me? It’s not really like our weekly coffee dates but it would nice to do this with you.”

She smiles at me. “Sure I guess I could shop with you. Just keep up with me when I’m going through the aisles, I am not afraid of losing you here.” I laugh and we hold hands as we walk down into the dairy department. “Well I need milk, eggs, and butter...”
She smiles and squeezes my hand, which makes me feel good inside. “Okay I need all those things as well so we will just get two of each item.” We walk down the aisle and chose our favorite brands, we differ on it by her choosing margarine while I chose butter and other small things like that. But other than those things our choices seemed relatively they seem the same. We continued to shop and we soon we walked up to the till.

I glanced up at the teen working the till, the absolute stoic face he showed seeming very unwelcomed. Chrissy let me in front of her and I waited as the boy slid the items under the barcode reader. He worked at a snails pace often failing at the registering the codes, I sighed and watched him work. He slid the final item through the register and started messing around with the keys on the machine. I facepalmed as he pressed several wrong buttons and a loud buzzing noise emmitted from the machine, several errors popped up on the screen.

I went behind the employee and began clearing up the many mistakes he made. I ran my items through the register and put my cash in the register, taking out the change afterwards. I looked over to the teen as he slipped a silent thank you towards me. I smiled up at Chrissy. “Well, can we get done with your items now?” She put her items on the conveyor belt and the items started rolling towards me.

Soon I had all of her groceries done and I look at her for the money need for the food. She rubbed the back of her head and blushed. “I.... kind of don’t have any money on me.” I looked at her in disbelief. “What? I forgot to bring my cash.” She hang her head down in embarrassment. I sighed and extracted the money need from my wallet. I put the groceries in some bags and handed them to her.

I patted her on the back and she look up at me. “Don’t worry about it. I usually have a lot of money left over from work.” She smiled at me and I sent one back.

She started walking away and I felt some courage swell into my heart to ask her something I had wanted to ask for a long time. “Hey Chrissy.” She turned and looked at me, my heart started racing. “I know we’ve only been friends for a few months but could we have.....” I tried to force it out, but it felt as if a glutinous mass had lodged itself in my throat.

She put her fingers across my lips. “Yes, Tyler I would love to have dinner with you.” I smiled and my heart rate slowed down. I felt some tension leave my body that I didn’t even know was there. “I haven’t been to your place, how about we do it there?”

She looked at me, her eyes boring into me like needles injecting sweet relief into my veins. I sighed. “Sure, it’s the least I can do.” She looked at me in disbelief. “Well you did accept and I really don’t help you with anything so....”

“Tyler, you just paid for my groceries. You have paid for almost every date we have been on for the last few months.” I blushed when she mentioned them as dates. “ Just calm down and stop trying to pay for everything. You aren’t going to buy me, you are dating me.” She chuckled a bit. “Though your actions aren’t unwelcome in anyway, in fact I am extremely grateful for what you have done for me.” I stood there a bit dazed, I felt something warm touch my lips and saw that she was kissing me. She lifted away from me and I smiled goofily. “See you later stud.”

She walk off and I slowly looked around to see practically the whole store looking at me. “I’ll be going....” I quietly picked up my bags and walked out of the store. I grinned as I walked down the street, a new burst of energy filling my body as I looked towards the park. I shrugged and went into the park. I took a random path through the park, admiring the nature and people that were around me. The leaves, rustled in the trees as a gentle breeze rolled thorough.

The people around me were either play frisbee or sitting together. I turned my attention to a couple sitting at a picnic table, they ogled at each other and soon started kissing passionately. My face turned a faint rose color as I passed by them. I sped my walk to a jog and found a bench, far from the couple. I sat down and put my head in my hands. I wanted to be like that couple with Chrissy, I wanted our relationship to be as loving as theirs. I wish things would just speed up and we could be a couple, but it seems things are moving at a snails pace for me.

But over all, I have been happier since I’ve met Chrissy. I’ve been going out more often, socializing with people more, and generally been having a lot more fun. People continually passed me by as i sat there and I began to lift my mind off of my own problems and relaxed as I watched the people go through their regular routines. Some jogged and other people were parents with their kids, probably going to the playground.

I heard a loud crashing sound and looked over to see a woman rooting through garbage cans. I looked closer and saw a glimpse of her face..... Is that Chrissy? My eyes widen in shock as I saw her pick out a barely ate sandwich and shove it in a grimey plastic bag.

I want to ask her what’s wrong but my body refuses to move, maybe I shouldn’t bother her though. Maybe she has actually been lying about her situation, maybe she doesn’t actually have a job, or a small apartment like she said. With this as proof, I’m beginning to doubt that. I think I should go before she sees me, I don’t want to cause her any pain.

I got up and sped up my walk. “Tyler!” My body froze up and I turned to see Chrissy looking at me. Her eyes filled with tears, and her mascara running down her once clean face. “I...I didn’t want you to know, I thought you wouldn’t want me knowing I was just common trash on the street. Please, I was going to tell you, but....” She broke down in front of me, cradling her head in her hands as loud sorrowful sobs came out of her mouth.

I walked over to her, and pulled her up. I then did something my mind could only think of doing. I kissed her hard on the lips, she backed into the bolted down trash can. Her eyelids fluttered vigorously as she relaxed into it, I released her from my grip and softly parted my lips. “I...I, don’t know what to say Tyler.”

“Do you need any help Chrissy? Because you damn well probably know by now that I would allow to live with me.” She looked in my eyes and new tears sprung up.

“Yes I would love some help Tyler, thank you for taking me in. I love you dearly for it.” My heart skipped several beats when she said that she loved me.

“Okay then, let’s get going.” I grabbed her hand and smoothly started guiding her to my apartment, dodging traffic and pedestrians while we walked. We arrived there about ten minutes later and I unlocked the door to the stair way, locking it right after Chrissy and I were in to make sure no one would get in other than the other tenants. We walked up to the top floor and I opened the door, revealing the shitty, small apartment to her. “Well, here it is. It’s not much but at least it’s somewhere to sleep.” Chrissy walked in and looked in all the rooms.

“It’s better than staying in the forest near the city.” I looked at her in shock.

“You were staying in a forest, you could've at least stayed in the city. Or you could have went to me for help....”

“Stop! Just stop!” Her fists clenched in anger. “I hate being pitied, I hate being viewed as a weak woman, and I hate asking for help. So if you think it was easy to ask you for money, or to pay for my groceries. It was severely not.” I backed away from her, in fear of being struck at. Seeing my fear, Chrissy calmed down quickly and turned her head away in shame. “I’m sorry but, this isn’t easy for me. Trying to adjust to this new lifestyle is hard and I know you are only trying to help.” I walked up to her and hugged her close to me, her soft breaths soothing my frazzled nerves. “Thank you so much for taking care of me.”

I squeezed her tighter. “You are welcome.” I let her go and smiled. “So would you like my bed to sleep in a bed or an inflatable mattress.”

She chuckled. “Well I would say the most comfortable choice is for me. I need my sleep.” I nodded.

“Bed, it is then.” I walked into my bedroom and pulled the inflatable mattress from underneath my bed. I looked up to see Chrissy watching me, I pulled out the battery powered pump and soon the inflatable mattress was all set up. “There, all set up. Now what do you want for supper?”

She rubbed her fingers across her face as she thought. “Umm.... how about spaghetti.” I nodded and walked into the kitchen. I pulled out a pot and filled it with water, I then put it on the burner and set it on high. I pull out a chair from my table and sit down.

After a few minutes the water started to boil at a moderate rate, so I pour in some spaghetti noodles. They swirled around the water as the roughness of the boiling started to turn them soft. Soon after, the noodles were done cooking. I heated up some sauce from a previous batch of spaghetti I made last week and drizzled the sauce over the noodles, providing an ample amount for us both. I grabbed two forks and stuck them in the two mounds of food. I walked back to my bedroom and handed one of the plates to her. “Thank you for the dinner.” I nodded in return and sat down beside her. We began to eat and the room was filled with deathly silence, the air filled with a heavy tension.

“Why do I feel so awkward?” I said to no one in particular.

“Well you have a girl you like in your house, she will probably be staying with you overnight, and we don’t really have anything to talk about.” I rubbed my hand again my chin.

“Want to watch animes?”

She looked at me, a confused expression lit on her face. “Yeah I would love to, if I knew what they were.”

Again I stared at her in disbelief. “You don’t know what anime is? Well we are definitely watching it now.” She giggled at me and I turned on my PS3. I went to the Neon Alley app and the animes began to play. At first it was the light stuff like Fruit Basket and Chobits but as time went on and the room generally got darker, stuff like Afro Samurai started playing. I grinned as Chrissy watched the action with childlike enthusiasm. I glanced at the clock to see it was about six at night. “So how do you like anime?”

She turned to me a huge smile plastered on her face. “I love it, I wish Equestria had stuff like this.....” She widened her eyes in shock.

I grew confused by her comment. “Hey Chrissy, what’s Equestria?” She began to fidget around and her face was pale for some reason.

“Oh, it was what my parents called our farm....yeah, farm.” She flashed a nervous grin at me. Even though I knew she was probably lying, I nodded and played along.

“Okay well, do you want to continue watching these or is there something else you want to do?”

“I looked at your movie collection while you were making supper and I couldn’t help but see an anime movie there.” I gulp in fear, knowing what it was.

“You mean Dead Space Downfall?” I prayed that there was another in my collection.
“Yeah, can we watch that movie?”

“I’m sorry but you are new at anime so I think that movie is a little too bloody for you.” She pouted at me but I held my stand. Knowing that she wouldn’t win she sighed and went back to watching animes on the PS3.

We continued this till about ten at night and then I hear Chrissy let out a big yawn. “Seems that you’re tired. How about you get some sleep.”

“But...I want to know how Kasawii gets the statue of Jurojin to save the village.” She let out another yawn. “Or I should go to bed.” I chuckled and soon she was covered in a blanket and her back was turned to me.

I pull out the blanket I have prepared for guests and lay on the rubbery mattress. I let out a yawn. “Good night Chrissy.” I get a mumble in return and soon I was fast asleep.

Author's Note

This chapter has not been editted yet and that is for the sole fact that I knew you deserved this soon. I am so sorry for not coming out with this sooner. But my motivation to write dropped severely and school is kicking my ass.