The Innocence is Gone

played

April's POV

"What are you doing here Marcus?" Alex asked Marcus.

"I'm I not allowed to be here?" Marcus asked Alex with with a smirk.

"You are supposed to be getting the party....."Alex was in the middle of talking when Marcus interrupted him. I noticed he had a habit of interrupting people when they are speaking.

"I know but I have a friend who wants your help. I had to drop her here first." Marcus said looking at me and that made Alex look at me too.

He looked at me from my head to my toe then rested his eyes on my face. "How came I do not know this friend of yours? I know all of your friends."Alex asked mit averting his gaze from my face and that was making me feel even more nervous.

"It is because she is.....different." I heard Marcus say. " Anyway, she is here to ask you to share your apartment with her."Marcus added and just like that, Alex averted his gaze away from me. He glared at Marcus.

"Who told you I want to share my apartment with anyone?"he asked Marcus.

I sighed knowing this would happen.

"Look man, she has nowhere to sleep and you have a free big apartment all to yourself. Can you help her?"Marcus told Alex.

"I do not care that your 'different' friend has nowhere to sleep. That sounds like her problem."Alex said staring at me with so much coldness I almost felt a shiver down my spine. He was scary. "If that is all, you can leave. I have things I need to get back to."Alex added with finality.

I sighed feeling like it was over for me. I was sleeping outside, god knows where tonight. This was the worst day of my college life.

Alex shut his door. Correction, he slammed his door on us. Marcus and I stood in front of the door with blank faces. After fully registering I was sleeping outside tonight, I finally faced Marcus. He did not look concerned or remorseful towards me. It was his fault, well, partly his fault that I was about to spend a night outside. I trusted him to speak to Alex so that he could agree to share his room with me. Look how that ended. I wished I did not trust him and I went on with my search for a roommate when he asked me not to. Who knows. Maybe I could have gotten lucky but I let Marcus's selfishness win me over. I felt dumb for trusting him. Marcus probably did not care that I would be sleeping outside. He just said anything to make me contribute to the stupid group project fast enough so that he could leave and go to his party thing.

"Too much for you convincing Alex to let him share his apartment with me huh?"I told Marcus. He just shrugged. I scoffed in disbelief. He had the audacity to just shrug. Wow, he played me. How stupid of me. "Thank you so much jerk."I lushed at him angrily.

"Welcome I guess."he said and I blinked. Was he so slow to catch up on my sarcasm? "Look April, I need to leave. This party is really an emergency."he added checking his phone distressed.

I nodded making a face. "Of course it is an emergency and me sleeping outside is not."I told him.

"If you ran out of options, you can come to the party. It is a better option than sleeping outside. You will be having fun for once in your life at least."he told me and just like that, he was gone. Was he actually serious? Run out of option he said. I had no options. Alex was my only option and now he was not my option anymore.

I sighed for the millionth time today. Could I handle sleeping outside? I had never slept outside ever in my life. But how bad could it be right? No, I was not okay with sleeping outside at all and going to Marcus's stupid party was not an option. I had never set foot in a party before, I was not about to start today. But what options did I have?

I looked at the closed door of Alex's apartment and I thought maybe I should try talking to him one last time. Trying has never hurt anyone right? I was never the person to persuade people. Not to brag but I had it easy in life but at the moment I was desperate, maybe a little too desperate.

Before I could think about knocking on Alex's door again, I was already knocking. I even forgot about the doorbell. I waited for a while but when he did not open, I rung the bell this time. After waiting for a few seconds, I was about to ring the bell again when the door was opened to reveal a very grumpy Alex. He must have been annoyed by my disturbance.

" What is it Marcus's different friend? Didn't you hear what I told your friend?"Alex asked me angrily.

"My name is April not Marcus's different friend."I corrected him.

Alex stared at me now still angry. "I do not care."he told me.

I blinked confused. "You don't?"I asked him but he did not reply. "Okay, I just thought I should at least tell you my name so that you can get it right instead of calling me......"

"You are wasting my time June. I already said I am not sharing my apartment with you."he told me. Instead of saying my name right, he just called me another name of his own. That was very rude of him and I did not like it.

"You know, being kind does not cost you much so stop calling me names."I told him with refrained anger.

Alex sighed rolling his eyes. "Whatever you say February."

"Okay, now you are just making fun of my name. I know it is a month but you do not have to call me every month of the year. I am April. Just April."I angrily told him. He was already getting on my nerves and I had not even spent more than ten minutes with him. How bad would it be if I was to be his roommate? What problems were these in my way? I felt like screaming.

"Actually, I can call you every month of the year, August."he said and I chuckled. He was a little hilarious, I had to give him that.

"If you can call me every single month of the year, then you can also offer me a place to sleep tonight. Just tonight before I figure things out tomorrow. It is an emergency."I decided to use his statement against him. I hoped it would get me somewhere.