FicWad

"Where the hell have you been, Nik?" a voice from the living room asked the second I walked through the door. I threw my apartment key down on the old counter and followed the soft sound of a TV to where the man's voice came from.

Jake sat on the couch in a lazy pose: his back leaning comfortably against the cushions, feet up on the coffee table, remote in one hand and beer can in the other. His soft brown curls were let loose and seemed messier than usual. The bright green eyes left the screen to look at me as I walked in and sat next to him.

He had been a very good friend of mine for as long as I could remember. Since high school, we did everything together. He was probably the only person that knew me very well. But who he knew was now the old me.

We both parted ways when we went to different colleges, and I hadn't gotten close to anyone after that. I ended up graduating and coming to live here, a small town not far from New York City. I had lived in this apartment for nearly a year when I had an unexpected encounter with my old buddy. Both of us, who were very close to being alcoholics, just happened to be in the same bar together one night.

It turned out that we were both struggling with financial problems. He lived in a small apartment in New York City, but was there to visit a friend. In hopes of finding someone to share rent with and break the silence around my apartment, I happily invited him to come stay with me. I've never regretted that decision.

"I've been around," I answered, not really wishing to tell him where I'd really been. I never told him every little thing like I used to in high school. I never talked to anyone that way anymore.

"We've been best friends for nearly ten years and you still can't tell me anything besides what you want for dinner?" he asked in a joking manner.

I shrugged. I didn't really know how to respond to that. I wasn't a very talkative person anymore. I didn't come home from work and start telling him all about my day. I didn't think it was important. But then again, not much is important to me anymore. I guess you could say that it was a symptom from living in this modernized world. "So what do you want for dinner?" I asked with a small grin on my face.

"I'm up for Chinese," he answered. "And make sure you get those fortune cookies. I love those."

I laughed. "Why would you need one? I can tell you your fortune right now," I replied, clearing my throat. "You will be awfully unsuccessful at becoming rich and will have to bum out on your best friend's couch for a lifetime."

"I do not bum out on your couch," he argued, turning away from the screen once more to show the sincerity on his face. "I bum out on our couch. Remember, I pay for half of the rent."

I smiled and rolled my eyes before reaching over and taking the remote out of his hand. "You can go get your Chinese. I'll stay here and eat an apple or something for dinner. I'm not that hungry."

Jake frowned as he saw that she had now changed the channel from some mafia movie to the History Channel. "Fine, I'll go. But only because I don't want to be tortured by watching /this/," he replied in a disgusted tone. I watched him get up from his seat and walk out and, for some reason, I felt glad to be alone. Jake was a great guy, but he sometimes could be a bit too much.

I grabbed the newspaper that was neatly laid on the coffee table. As the TV droned on about the medieval times, I started flipping through all the sections looking for one in particular. I finally came upon it under the Opinion section. It read:


Necessary or Not?
The crime rate in cities worldwide is increasing rapidly and the government will do nothing about it. Is this really how our country should be viewed? One that sits back and does nothing about law-breakers?

Our recent studies have shown that muggings and robberies have grown twice as much in New York City in the past two years. People roam around with guns in their jacket pockets and you would never even know it. Either you should start carrying a gun around yourself, or pressure the government to do something about.

If handguns were outlawed, most of these problems will be solved. If you don't believe me, keep these statistics in mind: most countries that have already outlawed guns have one-third of our crime rate. And those are only the countries besides ours that have the highest crime rates.

Many would argue that outlawing guns would be "unconstitutional." But is it really unconstitutional to protect our country? I'm pretty sure our founding fathers didn't think about present-day America when they wrote the Constitution. They didn't know that corruption and greed would soon be in the minds of gun-owners.

Do we really want guns to determine how rich and powerful people are? Is this really how we want our future to be? Would you really want your child robbing banks to become successful?


I read through the article again, this time picking out all the flaws. The ending was a bit faulty, the statistics seemed too vague, and it sounded way too demanding. Once again, I was not proud of the article I had written. I never was. I never end up putting all my effort into any of my articles anyways. They weren't topics I was too interested about. My job was for the money, not the experience of writing for some famous newspaper that everyone read.

I threw the paper back on the coffee table and got up to go into the kitchen. It was small, un-decorated room with only a few cabinets, refrigerator, microwave, coffee machine, and toaster. We didn't even use half of the cabinets, the fridge was always empty, and the coffee machine and toaster were used so much, I felt we needed a new one. There was nothing like living off of coffee and toast. To me, it was the most heavenly meal out there.

I grabbed a green apple from the basket on the counter and a bottle of water from the fridge. This was to be my dinner. I often wasn't a very hungry person, mostly because I was always too lazy to get something else.

As I sat back down on the sofa, I heard the door open and then shut again. As I had expected, in walked Jake with a bag in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other. He sat down next to me and gave me a pleading look as he saw the channel had not yet changed from when he left.

I laughed and threw him the remote. The good thing about us is that we always knew what the other was thinking without words. I knew he liked things his way, and he knew that I didn't care what happened as long as he didn't get his way. I never really enjoyed watching the History Channel anyways. It was only for his torture.

"So guess who I came across at the restaurant?" he asked as the screen flipped back to the mafia leader shooting everyone with his machine gun.

"A Chinese lady?" I asked smartly before biting into my apple.

"Well, that too. But I came across your boss. Kara Pierce, I think."

I almost choked on the apple as he said this. My boss wasn't exactly the nicest person in the world, and she almost always hit on Jake when she saw him. You could tell that I wasn't really her biggest fan.

"She told me to remind you about the article that's due tomorrow," he replied in an interested tone. "You never told me anything about another article due so soon. And I never once saw you working on it."

I shrugged. "I'll just do it tonight. Why does it matter anyways?" I asked, looking sideways at him. He never cared before what I did with my job. Why the sudden change?

"I wanted to help you out with it."

I almost laughed out loud at his response, but I held it in. He usually never helped me when it came to my articles. Even if he had ever tried, I wouldn't have allowed it. I was an independent person that liked to do things by myself. Asking for help was one of things that was against my code of behavior. "Why, exactly, would you like to help me?"

"Because your last article wasn't as impressive as your others. I think you're losing your touch."

I looked at him with a shocked expression. "You mean you actually read the newspaper?"

He glared at me for a second before turning back to the TV and simply replying, "Only the articles that are awful."

I smacked him lightly on the arm and rolled my eyes before letting them wander back to the TV screen.