Chapter 1

  Full story or half story

  After my mothers call I decided to take some “drugs” and soon drifted to sleep.

  “Listen here you little shit” I heard my mothers voice.

  “I’m sorry…” that was my voice.

  “You and your disgusting actions led to that little girl's death!”

  “I’m sorry”

  “Clearly not!. Tell me why you haven’t cleaned your sheets yet?!”

  “I…”

  “I don’t care if you apologize or not, you could've saved her yet instead you decided to run away!”

  I didn’t say anything that time.

  “You and your sister sure as hell give me a reason to drink alcohol”

  I could hear footsteps get further and further away.

  I remember that day. She would always drink even before that day. She’d just use constant excuses in order to keep drinking. She is a pathetic old woman.

  I woke up.

  The time was 2 PM. I slept for quite a while.

  I checked my phone and saw some calls from Alex.

  I can’t be bothered with this right now.

  I decided to ignore the missed calls and instead go to the kitchen and open up a bag of chips I had in my drawer. I sat on the couch and turned the tv on.

  Nothing really happened. I turned the Tv on in order to watch something, yet I didn’t really pay attention to what I was watching, instead I looked outside my apartment window while listening to some stuff going on in the show.

  The time was 5 PM, time can pass by quite quickly. I decided to make a call, not to Alex though. Instead I decided to call in sick. I also decided to send a text to Lia

  The time was now 6 PM. A sudden knock came from my apartment door. I looked through the peephole and it was Alex waiting outside

  Sigh… I opened the door.

  “Can I come in?” Alex spoke up first

  “Sure thing, I’m so happy you’d come here unannounced.”

  “Yeah, well it’s important”

  “It’s fine, since mi casa es tu casa”

  “Yeah…” Alex seemed to have understood that what I’ve said is sarcasm.

  “What do you want?” Alex made his way over to my couch and took a seat. He then began to talk.

  “It’s important…”

  “Am I talking to a parrot?”

  “Huh?”

  “All you’ve said is “it’s important, it’s important” how about you start talking about what’s important instead of “warning me””

  “Is this a bad time”

  “No, I’ve just called in sick even though I’m not, stayed in my home, and watched tv all by myself…” I took a look at Alex, he seemed extremely uncomfortable “Do these symptoms sound like someone who wants some company?”

  “I’m gonna go” Alex began making his way out towards the door.

  The closer he got towards the door the more difficult it was for me to just let him go. Maybe I was too harsh?

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  “Listen Liam…” He stopped in front of the door, I didn’t have to stop him. “When I was young I was in my grandmother's house, while there my mother and father died in a tragic accident. Some drunk guy killed them. I was pissed, I wanted to kill the guy who did this.”

  “…” I didn’t say anything, situations like this make me feel bad.

  “My grandmother was a therapist, despite that guy killing my family she decided to talk to him. I hated her, however I believed that time was the best time to kill that guy.”

  “So you killed him?”

  “No, my grandma knew I was gonna do something reckless, so she had a guard stop me. That guard made me look through the window into the room they were in”

  “What did they say?”

  “She had a chat with him, I learnt about his past and how he had an abusive family. It led to him drinking absurd amounts of alcohol which would soon lead to him killing my parents.”

  “You ended up forgiving him?”

  “Of course not, I would never forgive someone who’d do something to someone I love, instead it made me learn something. Everyone has some sort of soft spot”

  “I see..” I walked up to Alex and began slowly pushing him outside. “It was a nice talk” I began closing the door.

  “Wait!” He yelled.

  “Listen Liam, I want to know your soft spot. something tells me that you are broken”

  “…” something about that sentence… it made me feel angry towards him

  “I won’t leave if you don’t tell me, I will stay here until you decide to finally open up”

  “Let’s see about that” I closed the door in front of his face. The weather is quite cold. I doubt he’d last.

  I layed back on the couch and turned on the TV, Some psychic playing as a detective. Once the show was over the time was 8 PM.

  I went over to the door and took a look through the peep hole.

  He was still there.

  “It’s not what you think” I opened the door seeing Alex smile slowly fade away after I said that.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I’m going to work”

  “But you called in sick”

  “Duty calls”

  I walked passed Alex and began making my way towards my car, Alex started to jog a bit and caught up to me.

  “That means you need me right?”

  “No, I can do it by myself today”

  Alex seemed like he wasn’t backing down, as I sat down in the driver's seat Alex to my surprise decided to sit down in the passenger seat.

  “Your car?”

  “You can drop me off once we finish”

  Nothing much I can do, it seems like he’s not going to back down, so I must deal with this annoyance.

  I started up the car and began making my way towards the bar.

  To my surprise Alex didn’t say a thing during the trip. Does he want me to be the one to bring up the topic?

  We exited out of the car and made our way over to the bar.

  “Well I’ll be in the room with a customer, please don’t interrupt us” I quickly opened and closed the door in hopes that Alex won’t see that nobody was inside.

  “I know nobody’s in there!”

  Great.

  I opened the door and made my way over to some customers who were drinking. “Come here” I grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him into the room “Sorry my customer seemed to have gotten himself lost” I smiled.

  I closed the door and the man I brought in here was none other than my best mate Mark. I met him while I was trying to get clues on Alex’s girlfriend.

  I’ve actually never told him I’m psychic, I wonder how he’ll take the news. Will he be heartbroken? I’ve been hiding such a big secret, he might cry.

  “Hey Mark, I’m a psychic”

  “So you can read my mind?!”

  I like how he didn’t question much about me pulling him out of his group, that’s true friendship.

  “Yeah”

  “Wow” Mark’s face got a little red.

  “No need to get so embarrassed about it”

  Mark stayed silent, now all that is needed is to wait it out till Alex gets bored and calls his girlfriend to pick him up. Unfortunately…

  “Hey I don’t have any booze left”

  My friend seems to be a bit too in love with the alcohol.

  “You know alcohol isn’t good for you, it can actually kill you or kill someone’s family, it can land you in jail” I didn’t expect this to change his mind, I just thought It’d be fun to hear what he says.

  “Yeah man” he says as he shakes his empty cup around.

  Well… That’s my plan gone.

  “Go out and don’t come back here” I pushed him out the door. True friendship doesn’t last forever it seems.

  It was fun while it lasted, we got drunk together, talked about the ladies, and he got to learn that I’m a psychic.

  It wasn’t long till Alex entered the room, he must’ve noticed that my customer had left.

  Seems like I have nothing else to do, I was planning to reveal this to Lia… I thought back to what we talked about in my apartment, maybe it would be better to talk about it with Alex rather than Lia.

  I quickly deleted the message I had sent to Lia.

  “You want to talk? Let’s talk then” I closed the door behind Alex and made my way to the seat, he sat on the opposite side. Feels like a normal day, however this time I’m not going to be the psychic, instead I’m the customer.

  Alex hadn’t said anything, it seems like he wants me to speak about it without any interruptions.

  “When I was little I had an abusive mother, she used to hit both me and my sister for the smallest of things. I remember once I didn’t wash my sheets and she got quite angry at me, she’d result to alcohol at any moment. The more I grew up the more I’ve also relied on a certain something, it’s not alcohol, but instead drugs.”

  His expression didn’t change, he was fully engaged.

  “Alex… I want you to tell me that I’m going to be okay. I don’t want to be a bad guy like her, I want to be good. Even if I have similarities to her I want you to tell me that I’m not going to become her. I need you to tell me that I’m a good person. “Someone like you shouldn’t be compared to the likes of her” that’s what I want to hear coming out of your mouth… please”

  He didn’t open his mouth… He stayed silent for what felt like ages.

  “I’m sorry to hear that” You want to learn my soft spot yet you can’t even muster up simple words that I want you to say. Words that could save me.

  I know I haven’t given you the full story… Yet the least you can do is say the words. Simple words that would make me feel better about myself.

  Was Lia the better option? Probably not. This was the best chance I had yet.

  A sudden knock came from my door, Alex stood up and looked towards the peephole.

  “It seems like it’s a customer, I’ll leave it up to you” Alex opened the door and allowed the man to enter before he left.

  He failed the job of a psychic, he’s watched me be the psychic multiple times. Help others who are down by bringing up their morale up, yet he couldn’t do that to his customer.

  The customer took a seat, before I could speak to him I got a sudden call from Lia.

  “Give me a sec, I’ll be right back”

  I left the room and the bar. I answered the call and Lia spoke up first.

  “You still want to have that chat? I noticed it awhile ago, but I was too busy to respond”

  She saw the message…

  “I’m good, I meant to send it to someone else”

  “Are you sure? I’m happy to have a chat with you y'know”

  “I’m glad to hear that, however it truly was just a mistake by me”

  “Do you have too many women's numbers you forget who is who?”

  “I don’t tend to put a name when I get someone’s phone number, bad habit of mine”

  “That’s… pretty weird” she seemed at a loss for words.

  “I’ll stop doing that, I’ll start of with putting your name on my phone”

  “Yeah that’d be a good start”

  “Well… bye”

  “Yeah, bye”

  She ended the call first. “What a pathetic excuse” I muttered to myself, even she probably knew that was an excuse. Maybe I want her to know that’s what it was? She’d then feel intrigued and sorry for me, we can get closer from this… what am I even thinking right now?

  Chapter 2

  Pathological Liar

  I went back to the room to notice the customer standing up fiddling with the conditioner.

  “Don’t do that” I told him as I sat down.

  “Don’t do what?” He said as he too sat down

  “Never mind”

  My crystal ball… where is it?

  “Where’d you put my ball at?”

  “I didn’t touch anything”

  What is wrong with this dude…

  “Did someone come in here then?”

  “Yeah… it was the same dude who opened the door for me when I entered”

  Alex? Why has he done this?

  “What shoes did the person have on?”

  “Black”

  The most common color shoes for someone wearing all black are either white or black. Not impressive that he got it right. He could’ve saw them, though such a random question and the fact that they didn’t even last a second in the same room makes me doubt that.

  Something about this just feels wrong, and with that said just what exactly is going on here?