We were fighting again. Nothing had been right since that night at the hospital over two weeks ago.  

"I'm so done with this shit, Jaylyn!" he snapped at me, throwing the book he had in his hand at the wall in front of him. "You pick and you pick and when I snap I'm the asshole! Alright, I love you! But I am tired of the arguing!" I didn't say anything. I just stormed off into the bedroom and slammed the door behind me.  

A moment later, I heard the front door slam and his car pull away. I picked up a little ceramic dragon off the bedside table, a gift from him on our anniversary, and threw it. The face snapped neatly in half and the pieces clattered to the floor. I broke down and began to cry, sitting on the end of the bed. I pulled out my phone and texted him. 

You're not the only one who doesn't want to do this anymore... I typed, leaving it at that. Then I stood and went to my closet, pulling out the dusty old suitcase. I brushed it off and set it on the bed. My phone went off and I ignored it. If I answered that text, a whole new fight would begin. I just turned the radio up and gathered my clothes from the drawers and hangers, leaving his things scattered angrily on the floor. After I gathered my toiletries and slammed the suitcase shut, I picked up some paper and a pen and tried to write JC a letter. It wasn't as hard to tell him goodbye as I thought it would be. 

C,  

You're right. The arguing is getting old. I can't take it anymore, either. We have both turned into people we're not and I don't like it. I love you too. But we just want different things. And I think we need to be with people that want what we do. 

Take care of yourself. 

Cassie 

I called the one friend I've always turned to other than one of the guys, Boys, Aaron or my family (it includes Kenisha) and prayed he had the time to help me out. "Hey, 'Lyn," voice greets me, happiness in his voice. 

I tearily smirk. "I need your help and only yours." 

He gasps. "Fill me in while we work and I can promise I'll come alone," he barters. 

"Of course, 'Rik. Get here and help me get my shit to your place and I'll tell you everything you want to know, no limits," I counter with, motioning to the ground and like I were erasing something from a chalkboard. 

"Give me ten minutes and I can be at JC's," he agrees, a soft chuckle ending it. 

"See you in ten." I hang up and sigh, quickly deciding on getting all I can that's mine in the living room before he gets here so I can be gone long before Josh returns. I just can't deal with another argument; it's pretty much like my parents used to be prior to me moving in with Titi Bev and 'Lan. I shake my head and grab my suitcase and phone once I'm satisfied with how my things are placed that had been in the basement for the past twelve, almost thirteen months. I've been with Josh for five months, three weeks and two days out of the whole time I've been living under his roof.  

I finally gave up and read the text, letting the air rush out of my lungs to find out that it had been my cousin and Joey. What's happening? Joe and I can sense something's not kosher, been for a couple weeks now. 

I sigh again. Just fighting (verbal only) like my parents did since Deven had her son. I'm leaving cuz I just can't. 

Where are you staying? He fires back in moments. 

EVD's place. Of course I tell my family where I'm staying so that they don't worry as much. Then I realize that I have to make him do something. Swear on our closeness that you WILL NOT TELL JC WHERE I AM!!! 

Cookie promise, is what he says and it's agreed upon. 

Erik texts for the codes and I punch them in, allowing him access. I see he got smart and brought his truck, knowing it's how I got the small things I have with me to Josh's in the first place. "Let's get this done." 

"You want the story now?" 

"Abbreviated version would be awesome, 'Lyn," he answers, smirking and grabs two boxes stacked one on top of the other. 

I do the same and we begin walking to his truck. "You know about Deven having her baby," I recall. 

"Yeah, Harry something is the dad in the UK." 

"Yeah, well, I said I want kids and he snapped. Something about not wanting them now and we've been fighting off and on since then, over every and anything," I explain. 

"And you can't deal with that sorta thing because of your parents being like that when you were a kid," he echoes back what I'd told him when we first started getting to be besties back in 96, there while he filmed Brink! I nodded and buried my face in my hands. 

"I love him, 'Rik," I say, my voice coming out muffled and teary. "But I'm not going to stay where I'm not happy." He reached over and touched my cheek. 

"You're going to be okay, 'Lyn," he said. "I'm here for you." I touched his fingers gently. 

"I know." We pulled up to his house and he helped bring my things up to the guest room right next door to his own room. Through the big bay window, I could see the sky beginning to darken. 

"If you want we can go somewhere for dinner," 'Rik suggested, tossing my things onto the bed. 

 "Or we could order in, ice cream included, and watch some bad movies." Which told him I wasn't really up to going out. 

"Then take-out it is," he laughed, turning to go order the food. He already knew what I liked.  

Over ten years of being best friends has it's perks and advantages, along with the downfalls which are few and far between. "Do you know of any horrible thriller movies that have come out recently?" I shout through the downstairs after changing and descend the steps in my Power Ranger green yoga pants and white spaghetti strap tank top with my bare naked feet slapping the floor lightly. 

I watch him look online for bad thriller movies as I tie my hair up in a messy French braid, one spawning out of the list that I heard about and wanted to see what he bitched about for a couple weeks around mid-April. That was nearly a month and a half earlier. "Just the one who you just dipped on had a part in may turn out slightly humorous for us," he tells me, scanning the description as I do so over his shoulder and I hold him like I would someone who I'm with from behind him. I allow my arms to encircle his waist, pressing our bodies close and my head resting on his left shoulder. We've always been comfortable with each other like that since day one of meeting and it causes problems when one or both of us is in a relationship. 

"Yeah, along with Freddy, Chucky and Jason movies," I agree. 

"Most current ones are?" 

"Seed of Chucky and Freddy Vs. Jason," I seamlessly reply, having searched it a couple days before. 

"What about Jason Voorhees?" 

"Jason X and Freddy Vs. Jason," I confirm. He reaches up behind himself, winding his arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer. He got up only for a few minutes to make the largest pitcher of margaritas I had ever seen. He poured them into big glasses and even topped mine with a lemon and little umbrella. 

"Oh!" I said when he brought it out. "I'm certainly being spoiled tonight. Take out, margaritas. What's next? You gunna give me a manicure too?" I laughed at my own joke louder than I meant to. He laughed with me and sat back down, pulling me back against his side.  

"No," he said. "What I'm going to do is make you forget about why you're even here, 'Lyn." He emphasized my name by squeezing me. "You're not even going to remember his name. At least for tonight." I sipped my drink, suddenly remembering why I didn't drink his margaritas. The amount of alcohol burned my throat and made me cough a little. He was laughing again as I set the drink on the table. 

"Oh, no," he said. "You're going to drink that and help me finish the pitcher!" I shook my head defiantly. 

"No way," I said. "Too much alcohol. I will be passed out before I finish my second drink." 

He looks at me confuzzled, shock tinged with control soon after taking over his expression. "There is NO way of getting out of this," he informs me, handing me my margarita back, "and the entire pitcher." 

"Bu-" 

He shoves the glass to my lips and empties it into my mouth. "C'mon, miss 'I can drink you so stupid that you won't know anything about yourself' can't even get me to drink myself buzzed," he calls me out on my months earlier shit talking. 

"Really? Now you call me out on shit spoken like six months ago?" I retort, folding my arms under my bust with a challenging glare. 

"And that you're a lightweight bitch who can't back up her shit talking." He returns the gesture just before he speaks, doing the hood rat head bobble and attitude for good measure and it earns a giggle from me. The doorbell interrupts our fun. But over priced Chinese food is calling our names. He gives the man a generous tip and calls him by his first name, shutting the door after. 

"Order out from that Chinese place enough?" I taunt. 

"Only once or twice a week and they only have two or three drivers." His tongue pokes out between his lips.  

A shiver rises from the base of my spine and runs through my body, leaving a tingling sensation in my head, chest and between my legs. I shake my head behind his back and assume it's the alcohol kicking in. I could never like him that way, ever. I'm not destroying what we have with something as small as a one night stand. He grabs the forks and paper plates, placing the previous on the latter before bringing my drink to me in one hand and the plates in the other. I set the cornucopia of food containers on his counter in a buffet style with the various sauces at the end. We fill our plates and grab our sauces, sitting on the couch before he snaps his fingers. He walks off and returns with our margaritas, placing mine in front of me. "You're seriously trying to make me drink to that point of pure stupidity?" I groan. 

"Just like you made me do on my 21st birthday," he reminds me, smirking like the evil and sick minded fucker he is. 

"You were so fucked up that you couldn't tell me why you were doing what you were," I reply, turning bright red in the face as I attempt to switch his almost empty margarita glass with my half full one. 

"You haven't told JC, have you?" 

"No way, José." 

"It happened in his living room." 

"He doesn't need to necessarily know every little thing that happens in his house when he's not even there," I defend, taking a mouth full of twirled lo mein from my fork. 

"It's his place." 

"And something that happened between you and I, therefore not involving him or his right to know cuz I was single then," I retort, chewing a piece of crab rangoon. 

"What do you plan on telling him when he does ask about the stains?" he presses, pointing at me with his fork.