It's you and me forever

“Melanie... hey... Meeeeeel.......” I heard a voice whisper in my ear. “Mel, wake up!” It was Nick.

“Uuuuugghhh......” I groaned. “Go away-oof!!” I suddenly felt a huge weight on my chest. I opened my eyes to see my cat, Carmen, plopped on my chest. “You dropped the cat on me?” I asked, exasperated and out of breath form the weight of my cat.

“Yes, and if you don’t get up now, I swear I will go get Whiskers and drop him on you next!” he joked.

“Okay, I’m getting up, calm down,” I laughed. “What’s the big deal anyway?” I asked, shooing Carmen off of me.

“It’s 12 in the afternoon, and you had work today,” he mock-scolded me, “you’re lucky I love you. I could’ve just let you get fired, but no, I called ahead of time and told them I needed you on a project, which I do.”

“Awww, Nicky, thank yoouuu!” I hugged him. “Now, what’s this project you needed my help with?”

“Nothing that special, I’m just coding a website layout for some band, but you’re the artsy one so you’ll be designing it,” he explained.

“Wow, yeah, make me do all the work while you just sit around typing your nerdy HTML codes. Great work ethic,” I tossed a pillow at him. “Whatever, it’s the least I could do to thank you for bailing me out of the whole not-going-to-work thing. I can’t believe I slept in so late.”

“Well, you crashed some time around 3 AM while we were watching Click. Good thing to, whenever we watch that you always get all sappy and sensitive and start crying,” I responded to this by sticking out my tongue and reaching for another pillow, “hey, only joking, I don’t need anymore run-ins with your freakish hard-as-rock pillows. Now get dressed, we’re going to lunch.”

I walked to my room, dragging my feet the whole way there. I quickly picked out a pair of denim skinny jeans and a green v-neck american apparel shirt from my bureau (damn their shirts are comfy). I also went to a dresser that had some extra clothes for Nick, since I knew him well enough to know that he was never prepared for the possibility of crashing at my place. “Nick,” I called out his name.

“What?” his reply was muffled and came from the bathroom, I assumed he was brushing his teeth.

“I’m leaving these clothes outside the bathroom door, don’t you dare try to wear those gross clothes two days in a row!” I could imagine him making a face at me through the door. I returned to my room and brushed my hair, tying it in a messy ponytail after I was done.

“Nick! Hurry up!” I banged on the bathroom door. Nick took so long in the bathroom that it occasionally made me question his sexuality. “I have to brush my teeth and do my makeup!”

Finally, Nick opened the door. “Geeze, I forgot how annoying you are when you wake up!” I punched him in the arm. “The bathroom’s all yours....” he whimpered in response, rubbing the spot where I punched him.

About 10 minutes later, I was out of the bathroom and Nick was dressed. “Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yup!” I replied cheerfully. “Where are we going anyway?”

“Eh, I dunno, I figured we’d go get some Chinese food and just hang out, eat outside, y’know. Enjoy that atmosphere or our city,” he deepened his voice on the last sentence, trying to sound deep and philosophical.

“Whatever you say, oh wise one,” we both laughed.

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I was around 3 o’clock now, and Nick and I were sitting on a bench outside a Chinese restaurant, enjoying some rice and sesame chicken and whatever else Nick had ordered.

“We should head back soon, you know, get working on the layout thing,” I suggested through a mouthful of white rice.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he yawned. “Ew, how can you eat plain white rice? Tt’s so dry and nasty.”

“Okay, the brown sauce or whatever that hell they use tastes like shit. You’re insane for eating it, it probably give you cancer,” I retorted, closing the box of rice and putting it back in the bag. “Now c’mon, let’s go.”

I grabbed the bag of our leftover food and stood up, waiting for Nick to follow.

“Hey, look at what I found!” he held his hand out. On it, a fat, black caterpillar was inching it’s way along his finger.

“Ew, put that thing down!” I yelled at him. I hated insect, all of them. Butterflies were the only bug I didn’t have a problem with.

“Aw, but look how cute he is!” Nick stood up and approached me with it.

“Nick, I swear to God, I will push you in front of a car!” He began chasing after me with the caterpillar. “Ohmigosh I am going to kill you!” I ran away, oblivious to the other people on the sidewalk. Apparently I had taken a wrong step, or tripped over some unseen object, whatever it was, it made me fall. I went flying forward, colliding with some innocent bystander. The Chinese food went flying into the air from the collision, and soon crashed down on our heads.

“I am so sorry!” I apologized frantically, trying to clean the white rice and noodles off of my clothes. “I wasn’t watching where I was going!” I could hear my brother laughing hysterically behind me. “Oh, and, sorry about my brother, you’ll have to excuse his ignorance and disrespect for all other human beings.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the person responded.

I finally got over my embarrassment, well, enough to look up at who I ran into. It was a guy, but I figured that much out from his voice. His hair was brown and fairly long. He seemed to be tall, but it was hard to tell since we were both on the ground covered in rice. He also looked extremely familiar, and it was driving me crazy. I suddenly realized that I was staring at him, so I quickly went back to the matter at hand.

“I’m really sorry, the food and all, it looks like most of it landed on you,” I stammered, not knowing what to do now. Here I was, covered in food, with a stranger who was covered in even more of my food. Nick sure as hell wasn’t helping, but he finally stopped laughing and came over.

“Melanie, I really can’t trust you not to get into trouble,” he shook his head, trying to act all high and mighty. “I apologize for my sister’s ignorance.”

“Funny, she just said the same thing about you,” the stranger laughed. Nick stared at me with a shocked but fake ‘I cannot believe you’ look. “Really though, it’s fine.” He stood up and brushed himself off. He then offered me his hand to help him up, I graciously took it. “My name is William, by the way,” he smiled.

“My name’s Melanie,” I smiled back. “Oh, and this moron is my brother, Nick,” I put my arm around Nick. “He’s a lovable moron though,” I added so he wouldn’t yell at me later.

“Well, it was nice uh... running into you, Melanie. But I’ve got somewhere to be,” William said while trying to shake rice out of his hair. “Maybe I’ll see you again sometime. My friends and I aren’t from New York, and we’re gonna be here for a while. It’d be nice to have someone show us around.”

“Well, I look forward to our next meeting then,” I laughed. “Nice running into you too.” After he left, I turned to Nick, “I’m going to kill you for that.”

“For what?” he tried to act innocent. “It’s not my fault that you don’t pay attention.”

“Whatever,” I gave up trying to yell at him. “I will get back at you for chasing me though. I’ll get you when you least expect it!”

“Haha, yeah, right,” he rolled his eyes. We both laughed at each other and went back to walking home.

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“I swear I recognized him from somewhere...” I muttered. Nick and I were back at my apartment and I was scribbling down ideas for this layout Nick needed to make.

“Who?” he asked.

“That William guy from earlier. I’ve definitely seen him before, and I can tell it’s really obvious. It’s driving me crazy!” I grabbed a pillow and screamed into it like I usually do when I’m frustrated. “I’m gonna wanna kill myself when I found out where I’ve seen him before. I just know it.”

“You really think it’s that obvious?” Nick laughed. “But, y’know... now that you mention it, he did seem familiar. I feel like I’ve seen him before, like... recently. I dunno...”

“Good, you recognize him too!” I exclaimed. “Thank God, now I know I’m not just being crazy.” I saw Nick’s eyes go wide. “You remembered, didn’t you! “ I squealed.

Nick nodded before responding, “I’m almost positive that he was one of those guys I saw at the airport.”

My jaw dropped, along with the pencil and notebook I was holding. I was right, it was obvious, and I was also right about how I would probably want to kill myself when I found out where I had seen him. “Shit... that was William Beckett...”