It was ten hours after their first class of the day, that Ezekiel could be found sitting in a club downtown with Michael and Nike, his girlfriend, in one of the back corners away from the main entrance to the building. Music was blasting and various sports games were played on televisions throughout the area. Their table had an assortment of glasses and bottles on it indicating just how many drinks they had all had.
Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around Ezekiel from behind as a slender figure came up from behind and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Even though he couldn’t see this person, Ezekiel knew who it was. He had long grown accustomed to this particular girl’s quirks. However, that’s not to say his face didn’t turn even more red as he blushed from something other than the alcohol he had been ingesting.
“Happy birthday Zeke. It’s about time you caught up to the rest of us. I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of times Michael’s been complaining that he couldn’t drag you out to the bar with him and his buddies.” Sara, let out a drunken giggle as she sauntered around the table to grab a seat across from Ezekiel. Nike scooched over as Sara pulled out the chair.
Looking at the two of them, you wouldn’t think they were best friends, almost sisters, with how they looked. On the right was the taller of the two, Nike, her real name is Natasha, but she never responds to it. She was dressed up in black leather and white make-up, combined with long straight black hair with short bangs, you’d think she were a try hard vampire noble if you didn’t know her personally.
On the left was a stark contrast. Dressed in a crop top and shorts, with light brown hair cut into a pixie bob style, was Sara, a slightly shorter but much sportier girl, who quickly ordered a beverage from the passing waitress.
These three people, Michael, Nike, and Sara were his closest friends. Michael was his oldest friend, having been next door neighbors since they were in pre-school. They had remained friends for the close to two decades that they had known each other, and although their interests and paths diverged, they were always there to help one another when it was needed. Usually in the form of Ezekiel helping with homework, and Michael helping with bullies, or dragging him out to the gym every now and then to keep fit.
It was through Michael that he met Natasha, ‘call me Nike’, the goth girl of Michael’s dreams. They had been dating for nearly two years at this point, and while their relationship was relatively short compared to some, anyone who knew these two could tell that they really cared for one another. They shared a number of interests, particularly in sports, which you wouldn’t be able to tell if you just looked at her appearance. When asked why she dressed the way she did, Nike would always reply, “Because I like the look, and it makes me look hot.” and she’d leave it at that.
Sara, on the other hand, was another old friend. One whom he had known for less time than Michael, but became fast friends within middle school. They both shared a fascination with archaeology and ancient relics. Though Ezekiel was more interested in the truth and history that such findings represented, whilst Sara was more interested in the actual field work of discovering these lost tombs and ancient mysteries. This shared interest was part of the reason Ezekiel had a large crush on her. Not that he’d ever had the guts to mention it before.
Seeing his closest friends seated around him, Ezekiel couldn’t help but let out a smile as he leaned back and enjoyed the company of his favorite people. Reminiscing as he gazed at Sara’s figure, as the waitress returned with Sara’s drink, he caught a wry grin out of the corner of his eye coming from Michael as he was caught staring at Sara.
The redness in his cheeks grew brighter from something other than alcohol before he quickly averted his attention elsewhere. Of course, Michael wasn’t going to let things drop just like that.
“Hey Zeke, are you feeling okay. You seem awfully focused on something right now. Care to share with the class?” Michael said as he wrapped his arm around Ezekiel’s shoulder. The tight squeeze on his shoulder told Ezekiel that Michael was mainly joking with him. But really Michael was trying to encourage him to say something, having long since known about Ezekiel’s interest in Sara.
Michael’s statement grabbed Sara and Nike’s attention. Ezekiel couldn’t help but shrink back slightly as he tried to come up with an excuse. Luckily, one came to him fairly quickly.
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing. Just thinking back to that damn dream is all.” Ezekiel said as he shrugged in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. Michael only sighed as he grasped Ezekiel’s shoulder harder.
“You’ve been having more of those dreams Zeke? I thought you said they stopped.” Sara said as a look of concern crossed her face. She had heard about Ezekiel’s dreams before, but he had said the week before that they had stopped after the fifth day they had occurred. “If it’s really that pendant, then maybe you should take it off.”
“They did, or rather, they stopped being the same thing, that’s all.” Ezekiel’s reply was half hearted and mostly quiet mutterings as he looked away. Seeing his crush so concerned for him made it had to look at her after he had technically lied to her. Subconsciously, he reached up and rolled the featureless face pendant in his fingers as it hung from his neck. “Look, I shouldn’t have to worry about it for much longer, okay. My grandpa said in his will that he wanted me to wear this thing for a month after he died. I’ve got two weeks left, and if all that’s gonna happen is a lack of sleep then that’s fine.”
Sara didn’t look happy with Ezekiel’s response but decided not to bring it up anymore. She was already upset that he had lied to her and didn’t want to make anything worse for them.
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An awkward quiet settled over the table as the group failed to think of a topic to change to. Until Michael decided he could deal with it any longer.
‘Sigh’ “Enough with the dreams. Look, he says he’ll get rid of it after two more weeks. I say we just let him wear it, he’ll put it back in a box after the month is over, and that’ll be that.” Michael said boisterously as he tried to get his friends more excited. “For now, however, we’ve got a birthday to celebrate, drinks to drinks, and maybe even get our young friend here a lady friend for the night.”
“Mike! This isn’t the time for that kind of stuff. How could you even think about getting Zeke laid all willie-nillie like that.” Sara almost stood up from her seat as her face flushed a bright red at Michael’s words.
“Oh my, someone sounds like they might be jealous. Perhaps our sporty shorty here wants to be the one that Zeke goes home with herself. Instead of it being some random chick at the bar.” Nike’s soft voice drifted across the table as she playfully smirked at Sara before taking a drink. Hearing this, all three of the other group members had different reactions.
Michael’s smile grew bigger as he gave a wink to his girl, Sara started sputtering as her face turned red, without the help of alcohol, and Ezekiel seemed to have something click in his brain as he looked at Sara’s face.
“Well... that’s... that’s...” Sara tried to reply, but just couldn’t bring herself to deny Nike’s implications as she bashfully looked towards Ezekiel. “I don’t think he’d be interested in a girl like me.”
Shrugging Michael’s arm off his shoulder, Ezekiel made to say something, anything, that would tell her otherwise. He had just opened his mouth to say he was very interested in her but lost his chance to as a loud and obnoxious laughter approached their table. The four of them turned their attention to the laughing man who was walking up to them with a posse of his own.
Overweight but dressed in expensive designer clothing, the man who was walking towards them was red in the face and extremely drunk. It seemed like he could barely stand, but he managed to totter towards Ezekiel and his friends table with the help of the people surrounding him.
“Heeeyyyy, well if it isn’t ‘hic’ my old friends. Your buddy, ‘hic’ Allen’s here to get a piece of the action.” The drunken Allen was waving around a half empty bottle of beer which was spilling onto the floor. Seeing this disgusting display of overindulgence, Ezekiel and his friends couldn’t keep looks of disdain from forming on their faces.
Several years before, Allen had attended high school with Ezekiel, Michael, and Sara. However, they were not friends, in any way. The term ‘mortal enemies’ could be applied as an understatement to describe their relationship.
Allen comes from a rich family background. But because of this, and the fact that his parents cared more for their business than they did him, Allen grew up believing that he could, and should, get anything he wants because he deserves to. This caused him to be generally hated by most of his classmates, and the only people who would hang out with him were the people who wanted to use him for his money. At some point, however, Allen found out about this, and tried to ruin the lives of his so-called friends. At one point, things got out of hand, and the people he was trying to punish decided to beat him until he listened to them and gave them the money that they wanted.
It was at this point that Allen was saved by Sara, who was always kind to everybody. She managed to get him out of trouble, and the bullies who hurt him were later punished. Unfortunately, Allen developed a crush on Sara, believing that she saved him because she loved him. As such, he tried to do everything he could to make her his. Including removing Ezekiel and Michael from the picture via threats and hiring other people to hurt them, forcing them to leave Sara alone.
When this was discovered, Sara confronted Allen regarding his actions, and in a very blunt way told him to fuck off and leave her alone if he was going to hurt her friends. Of course, this didn’t work, and he just became more obsessed with making her his. He even bought his way into the same university as them, out of town and away from his parents, just to try and get to her.
“Allen. What are you doing here. I didn’t think someone like you would be willing to grace us with your vast presence.” Michael said as he sarcastically alluded to Allen’s weight and the stench of alcohol coming off him. The three goons Allen had around him tensed up for a moment, before relaxing as he waved them down.
“Hahaha, Mikey, always a pleasure to see you. Still dating the leech are ya?” Allen’s slurred speech flowed out as he glared at Michael and Ezekiel, before leering at Nike and Sara. “Not that I wouldn’t mind spending a night with her myself. She might be good for a quick night of fun. How about it sweetheart. How much for the night.”
Nike scowled in disgust but didn’t say a word. While Allen was a disgusting and wretched example of the worst of humanity, he still had three fairly strong looking men watching his back. They might not be willing to start too much in public, but they’d be more than capable of finishing anything that did start.
Seeing that Nike wasn’t going to respond, Allen turned his gaze to Sara, and his eyes turned slightly gentler as he looked her up and down, licking his lips as he did.
“How about you Sara? Why don’t you ditch these losers and come with me?” Allen’s voice got deeper as he tried to hold back a belch while also sounding cool in his attempt to woo her. This failed spectacularly, and merely made him stumble over his words, barely coming out as a coherent sentence.
“Not even in a hundred million years you pig.” Sara said as she turned away from him. She had long since regretted saving Allen from those bullies back in high school, but it was too late for her to take it back, and there wasn’t much she could do in this situation. Allen was too well connected, even if he was an uncultured wretch, for her and her friends to do much about him.
“Oh, come on. It’s not like you’ve got a man to turn to anyway. Why don’t you just accept the fact that you want me, and that’s why you don’t got anyone else.” Allen started to approach the table again as spoke. Seeing him approaching the girl he’s like for over a decade, Ezekiel couldn’t stop himself from standing up and getting between Allen and Sara. Not wanting him to get any closer than they already were. This stopped Allen short, and his three patsies moved to both keep Allen from falling over, and make sure Ezekiel didn’t do anything to their money bag.
“Actually.” As Ezekiel stood up, words started to flow out from his mouth in a literal rush as he said the words he’d always wanted to but couldn’t out of fear and uncertainty. But the liquor in his system was edging him on, and his friends were there to, hopefully, back him up. “She was waiting for me to ask her out, not you, which I just did. We’ve got a date this weekend. Gonna take her out to dinner and minigolf. Planning on having a great time, specifically without you.”