To Caress My Day

The very next morning, Simone was interrupted from making her coffee by the sound of someone knocking on her apartment door. Letting out an irritated sigh at not having the chance to sip any of her caffeine because of its current hot temperature, Simone decided on the last minute to take a small sip, and risk burning her tongue. “Shit! Shit!” She cursed as the scalding hot liquid scorched her tongue. Placing the cup down on the kitchen table, she hurried over to unlock the front door, and pulled it open.

Standing on the other side of the door was her roommate’s cheating boyfriend looking all remorseful. Simone was taken aback with surprise at his sudden visit, but her expression quickly shifted to one of anger and distaste. She scoffed at him as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Jesus Christ, why the fuck are you here, huh? Haven’t you done enough damage already?”

Seth didn’t appear at all intimidate by Simone’s aggressive greeting, and wasn’t offended by her rudeness either. Instead, he stood there looking at her with hurt in his eyes. “I came to see Tahliah.”

Simone rolled her eyes, and scoffed once again. She couldn’t believe that he really thought she would let him enter her apartment after all he’d done to her friend. “Motherfucker please, after the shit I heard about last night?! As far as I’m concerned you don’t deserve to see her EVER again!”

Seth felt like he came to Twig’s apartment appearing like a man that had an unbreakable wall surrounding him that kept all his emotions contained, and he had preferred to stay that way, but when Simone mentioned something about never seeing the woman he loved ever again the very thought caused all the blood to drain from his face and his eyes to glisten with the same unshed tears from last night. He ignored Simone’s look of surprise at the sight of his vulnerability, and tried to hide them by looking down at his feet so she wouldn’t have to look at him with pity that he didn’t want nor need.

Even though the sight of this grown man in tears pulled at Simone’s heartstrings a little bit, she banished the thought of showing him any sympathy. Reminding herself of what he did to her close friend, and roommate who was asleep in her bedroom, Simone’s eyes narrowed right back into slits again as she kept her voice as low as she could to demand an answer from him for all the things he’s done without waking Twigs up. “Damnit Seth, what the fuck were you thinking hooking up with some skinny ass college girl that is the daughter of your own maid!? I mean, come the fuck on, man!”

Seth looked up at her incredulously, and frantically shook his head in denial. “No, I wasn’t hooking up with anybody! I swear to god Twigs walked in at the wrong time, and coincidentally caught me in a fucked up situation that I admit, looked a hell of a lot like I was cheating, but wasn’t what really happened! She just jumped to conclusions, and assumed that I was sleeping with Rebecca, but that’s not true. That’s far from it.”

Rolling her eyes at his story, and then giving him a look of disbelief, Simone decided she would go ahead and play along with his tale, for now. In preparation, she tried to calm down, and convinced herself to listen as closely and as fairly as she could. “Alright fine, I’ll play your stupid little game. If Twigs really did walk in at the wrong time, and mistaken you for cheating as you so put it, then pray tell what the hell really happened in that house since you claim you’re the innocent in all this. Now, I’m warning you do not waste my time with this, and you better not try and play me cause I don’t have time for that either.”

Seth closed his eyes for a minute in relief that she agreed to hear him out. As he ran his hands over his face, he quickly gathered all the memories of that terrible night. “Fuck me, this is gonna sound completely made up, and just a bunch of bullshit but…” He let out a heavy sigh, pulled his hands away from his face, and strongly encouraged himself to just go on with his side of the story. “After I got back from California I found out Tahliah wasn’t home because of some party she went to. I got in contact with her, and found out she was out with you ladies. I told her not to rush home, but to instead take her time since I’d be around for a few days longer than the usual one or two, and Neon Jungle might not. I planned on spending the evening alone by myself until Tahliah came back when out of nowhere Rebecca knocked on my front door so wasted it was almost funny. She asked if she could stay in one of the guest bedroom I have upstairs until the morning so that her mother wouldn’t see her drunk.”

“And let me guess, you just let the kid in without even thinking.” Simone predicted while shaking her head in disappointment.

“Well, I mean yeah. Rebecca has NEVER came on to me until now! Look, I’ll admit I knew she had a schoolgirl crush on me, but that’s all that I took it as, as a GIRL’S CRUSH! I didn’t take any of it serious the whole time she was growing up!” Seth attempted to calm himself down, and lower his voice so he wouldn’t get kicked out of the building for being too defensively loud. He impatiently ran his fingers through his hair, let out a sigh and began counting off with his fingers what he was really guilty of, and what he wasn’t guilty of. “Look, I did let Rebecca stay in one of the guest rooms for the night. Did I flirt with her? No. Did she flirt with me? Yes, but I chose to ignored her when she wouldn’t stop. Did I invite her to hop up in my bed in the middle of the night? No, but somewhere in her stupid drunken mind she was certain I had. Did I proceed to get it on with her? No, I didn’t! Once I figured out that she wasn’t Tahliah coming in late from that party, I hopped off the bed and demanded to know what the hell was going on. Tahliah she…” Seth stopped himself there and forced himself to look off to the side as the memory of her heart breaking before his eyes made his eye fill with tears again.”…she walked in right after that.” Swallowing the tears back, Seth returned his gaze to hers. “Simone, Rebecca isn’t like the kind of person Tahliah saw last night, she’s NEVER been. Last night was my first time seeing her intoxicated ever, so I wasn’t familiar with what kind of drunk she was. I had no idea she would have the balls to crawl into my bed to try and have sex with me. If I did, I swear I wouldn’t have ever let her in in the first place.”

Simone thought it over in her mind as silence rested between the two of them. Seth’s story did sound pretty ridiculous and lame for sure, but it was how he told it that was slowly making her doubt that he was lying. There was so much anger, pain, and sorrow in his voice. A part of her really wanted to believe him, but it was also too small of a part compared to the one where she had to see the agony that her friend suffered through in the short span of two hours. Simone’s hard glare slowly disappeared, and was replaced by a small hint of pity for the poor guy. “Seth, I’m…I’m sorry. If what you’re telling me is the god honest truth, I truly am sorry. I want to believe you, I do, but…I can’t, not after seeing how heartbroken Tahliah was over you. I’ve never seen her so devastated over a guy before. It was honestly terrifying.”

Seth winced at the reminder of the pain he had caused Twigs, but he did manage a slow nod of understanding as he looked back down at his feet. He didn’t know what else to say other to plead for her to let him in and see Twigs, but he knew she wouldn’t. All he could do was stand there like a lost puppy, not knowing what to do or where to go.

Simone let out a soft sigh as she lowered her arms from her chest. “You should go home, Seth. You need to give Tahliah some time to work through this ordeal first before she can take the next step in forgiving you.” She ignored how quick his eyes snapped up in pain when she tried to close the door on him as fast as she could so she wouldn’t have to hear him beg like she knew he would. She was, however, stopped by a huge strong hand slamming itself right on the door to prevent it from closing all the way.

“Damnit, I’ve already tried to give her time! What, you think last night was easy for me too?” Seth argued as shook his head with tears threatening to spill from his eyes. “I could barely last the first ten minutes she was gone! I had to sit there, and tell myself not to take off after her, and went as far as to handcuff myself to my bedframe, but that didn’t do shit, but fuck up my wrists. I can’t give her anymore time, Simone, especially when I don’t know if she’s going to come back to me, or if I’m ever gonna see her again.”

Fighting back the lump in his throat, Seth continued on, despite his voice breaking every now and again. “Simone, this…this really fucking hurts. It hurts worse than anything I’ve ever been through before with all those other useless women I wasted my life with.” His voice started to break again and so he paused for a minute to restrain himself before continuing on. “Look, I’m no stranger when it comes to love, you know. I’ve dated countless starlets before, and obviously those relationships didn’t work out. But Tahliah…I have never come across a woman like her. I have never come across a woman that could literally bring me to my weakest like this.”

Seth paused one more time as he let one tear stray and trail down his cheek. “I’m scared to death of the possibility that I might have just lost her for good. The first time I screw it up, and it just might be what ends all the happiness she’s given me in such a short time.” Wiping his tear away, he lifted his eyes to Simone who was staring at him with wide eyes brimming with tears. “I can’t lose her, Simone. I just…I can’t.”

There was no denying that Simone felt bad for Seth. She had tried not to, but he was damn good at convincing her that he was heartbroken himself. Seth was a mess without Twigs, and though his clothes look as casual and neat like it always did before, HE was clearly a mess. Seth usually presented himself clean shaven and well-groomed whenever they were around him, but today he had stubbles coming in which was a strange sight to see. His usually dark shiny well combed hair was mussed around as if he just got out of bed, and his eyes were slightly bloodshot. She hadn’t noticed the evidence that he had cried recently, but now that she was actually studying him, she could see that he wasn’t doing so well. Simone let out a slow even breathe as she closed her eyes, and prepared herself to send him off a second time, or else she’d end up crying with him for the rest of her morning. “Seth that still doesn’t change the fact that Tahliah needs some time. She won’t be able to hear what you have to say even if you planned on barging past me to explain everything to her, she’s too fragile and irrational right now. Like I said, I truly feel sorry for you, I do, but you owe Tahliah some time to think things through before you to go trying to defend yourself to her, okay? If you really feel like your side of the story deserves to be told, you need to wait until she can give you courtesy to hear you out.”

Seth closed his eyes and dropped his head for a moment to accept her suggestion, and gather his composure together. When he felt more stable again, he covered his face with his hands, and let out a long defeated sigh. After a minute he pulled his hands away, and gave her a simple nod all the while averting eye contact. “Alright. I uh, I-I hear you. Thank you anyway for…listening to me.”

Simone gave him a nod and a sympathetic smile.

Seth was about to turn and walk off down the hall, but stopped himself before he could take a step forward. “Can you take care of Tahliah for me? Just…make sure that she’s gonna be okay.”

Simone let out a small laugh. “Dude, you don’t have to ask me that. She’s one of my closest friends and roommate, remember?”

Seth let out a weak chuckle and nodded his head. “Yeah, you’re right.” He lingered for a second. “Have a good day, Simone.” With that he turned and walked down the hall and inevitably back to his lonely empty mansion.