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‘But I..’ Brad began but was cut off immediately.

‘You can’t change my mind, Brad. I’m going, I’ve packed all my stuff and I’m going to go back to my parents’,’ she picked up the bag at her feet and left without even saying goodbye.

The floor rose up and hit Brad hard on the ass, if the wall wasn’t behind him, he would probably have been laid down by now. He couldn’t believe what had just happened, she had just left. He thought Nina understood how important his job was to him, he thought she wanted him to follow his dreams. Obviously not every girl was as understanding as Chester’s Samantha or Mike’s Anna.

Tears slowly rolled down Brad’s face, as he sat remembering the past 9 months of his life. Nina had basically moved in with him straight away, they seemed so in love. He felt like she could be the one, ‘maybe they’d be together forever,’ had been a recurring thought in his head. They obviously weren’t meant to be.

He sat for God knows how long thinking about him and Nina and what had just happened. He continued to play with his hands and the many bracelets on his wrists as he sat in deep thought about their relationship.

Finally, he got up off his ass and went over to the couch. He flicked on MTV and lay down.

‘Ooooooh, a Real World marathon!’ this could quite possibly be the one thing to cheer him up.

He was as wrong about that thought as he had been about him and Nina being together forever. The marathon consisted of showing repeats of Real World: Hawaii. The episodes he caught were the most depressing of the whole series, the ones where Amaya spends every episode in the diary room in tears because everyone hated her.

‘Great, I’m depressed, she’s depressed, hell the entire world should be de-fucking-pressed,’ Brad complained out loud. He raised his wrist and checked out his watch, he’d been home four hours. He’d been single for four hours, but maybe just maybe, he thought rising up from the couch and running across his apartment to the bedroom.

He ran straight to the closet and threw it open, then he went through the drawers. He searched the entire room, then he searched the living room, the bathroom and ended up sat at his kitchen table with his head in his hands.

Nothing - everything had gone! All Nina’s clothes were gone, her shoes, her little knickknacks, even all her toiletries were gone. Every photo-frame that had contained a picture of the two of them or just her was empty. She had completely cleared out her presence from his home. This hurt even more than her leaving him because it made the end a reality, Brad was utterly devastated.

He was pulled out of his depressive thoughts by the sound of the phone ringing. He sat up and wiped his face, taking his time to answer the phone. He leaned backwards and picked up the phone from its holder on the wall.

‘Hey,’ Brad greeted his caller, trying his best to make his voice sound normal.

‘Dude, hey, it’s me,’ his best friend, Mike, told him. ‘I know we’ve only been home like, 5 hours, but me and Anna were wondering if you and Nina wanted to come out for a meal.’ Brad sighed down the phone but before he could answer, Mike started talking again. ‘Man, are you OK? You sound, I don’t know, real down or something.’

Mike always knew when something was up with Brad, he guessed it was the price you paid for being best friends.

‘No can do about the whole going out thing as there is no longer a me and Nina,’ Brad sighed again, he hated saying it out loud, that just made it even more real than reality.

‘Brad, man, I’m sorry. God, I don’t know what to say. How did she break it off?’ Mike asked, contradicting himself on not knowing what to say.

‘When I got home she was waiting for me and just told me she ‘couldn’t live this way.’ Brad was close to tears again.

‘Oh now man, that’s fucked up, that seriously is.’

‘Yeah,’ tears began to fall down Brad’s cheeks again.

‘I will just go speak to Anna and then I will be straight over. And before you object, I’m your best friend, I’m not letting you go through this alone. Later dude.’

Before Brad could respond there was an audible ‘click’ as Mike hung up.

‘Shit,’ Brad said aloud. The last thing he wanted was Mike sat telling him that life goes on, while he was wishing he was really at home with Anna. Brad chose not to move from his position in the kitchen until Mike arrived.

He began to ask himself the questions of whether it was really something else that had made Nina leave. Maybe she didn’t really like him, maybe there was someone else! Maybe Brad’s absence had made her run into the arms of another guy, maybe he’d done this!

‘STOP IT!’ Brad snapped at himself. ‘This isn’t your fault, it just didn’t work out. Look at the facts, it was never going to last forever, you rushed into things to start with. This is no one’s fault, it’s just the way things were destined to be.’

He felt better for that but he stayed sitting anyway. Finally there was the buzzing noise of someone wanting to come up to his apartment.

‘Yeah?’ Brad knew it was Mike but he wanted to be sure.

‘Mike here to rescue you from yourself and your head.’ Brad pushed the button and unlocked the door. Shortly afterwards there was a knock on his apartment door and he went to open it.

Stood infront of him was the whole band. Mike stood at the front with pizzas, Rob had some videos in his hands, Joe was carrying a paper bag which turned out to be filled with chips and dip, Phoenix held another paper bag and Chester stood holding beer which Phoenix had more of in his bag.

‘Hey, man!’ Rob cried walking through the door with everyone else.

‘Yo.’

‘Wassup dude!’

‘Hey.’

‘I got beer! It’s good beer too!’ Chester smiled, obviously dying to get drinking.

‘Why are you all here? Don’t you guys have homes and girlfriends to be with?’ asked Brad, surprised they’d all turned up.

‘Do you forget I have a wife?’ asked Chester, cracking open a cold one.

‘And that we’re single?’ Phoenix motioned to himself and Rob.

‘But I still don’t…’

‘Look, just accept it Big Bad. We’re here and we’re not going anywhere till all this food and beer is gone and all the movies have been watched. OK?’ Joe stated matter-of-factly.

‘We’re here cos we care, you’re stuck with us. We’ve told everyone where we are and that our services are needed, so quit complaining and getting drinking!’ Rob ordered.

‘Don’t forget to eat too, this stuff don’t come cheap!’ cried Mike.

‘We maybe famous rock stars but we can barely afford pizza,’ Phoenix mocked Mike, who stuck his tongue in response.

‘BEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!’ shouted Chester, swigging his Bud. ‘Tastes good. Have one’ Brad was tossed a beer and he sat down and dug into the pizza.

He may have lost the woman he loved tonight but at least he knew he had great friends who he loved and they loved him.

Life can only get better, Brad told himself before trying to forget everything and enjoying the guy’s night in.

THE END | Short Fics

Part 1