A sprawled out figure lay face-down on a ratty old couch. A bag of half-finished Doritos sat on the table, next to a few empty beer cans. An orange tabby lay next to his owner, content and purring.
The figure stirred, and reached over to give the cat a little scratch behind the ears.
“Oh Esmeralda, you’re so good to me. Unlike that other lady…”. He trailed off.
“Denise.”
Saying that name seemed to take all the life back out of him, as he assumed again his face-down position. A few choked sobs could be heard coming from the cushion. Suddenly, his phone rang.
The young man stirred once again. He seemed to ponder his surroundings for a bit, then sighed and, once again, lay prone on the couch. The answering machine’s prerecorded message played. “Yo, this is Bradley. I can’t come to the phone right now, but you can leave a message at the beep.” BEEEEEP
“Hey Brad this is Emeka. I know you’re there, but I also know you’re goin’ through some stuff right now. Listen, you can’t get too worked up about Denise. She was nothin’ but a ho, man. And Jan, poor guy, he was the only one of us who went for her, and now look at him, he’s got the herpes! You didn’t want any part of that, man.”
“Anyway, Coach said if you miss another practice he’s gonna have to suspend you, so you’d better get yo’ ass up and be there in a few hours.”
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