The slate blue condo stood right across the bank. It stood high and splendorous under the nebulous blue sky, among its many balconies and small neoteric windows. It was amassed by the small shops and restaurants that cornered it. A panoply of people in the city took their excursive, vicelike residence in Smallstone Condominiums. Some to get away, some to have adulterated sex, and many to have a reason not to be in the pupil-induced hell they called a university. 

A slur of a memory pricked Nick's head. He had once lived here. And the question that arose, the one he came to search for like a scarred bounty hunter was what truly went wrong?

The cursed number was Apartment C3. Nick entered the elevator until he arrived at the hollow silence of the third floor. Its lights were eerily bright and sibilant, and it smelled of puffy lavender and warm baby tissues. Nick sloped his way to door C3 and knocked. A firm yet modest knock. The door creaked wide open.

"Nick!" The svelte figure stood in a silky pink bathrobe, legs crossed. Her grin was resplendent along her cheeky dimples, tawdry and unexpected. Her tender brown eyes shone and her large golden hoop earrings danced threateningly. You couldn't forget about her hips and the tiny diamond clips that she tied to her hair. This was Stephanie, the solipsistic girl that had stolen Nick's heart.

Nick hoped his return would be fruitful. He could still taste the memory of how he used to fuck her. How he used to melt her, and how her pussy would fart every time he inserted his fleshly rod. But the words couldn't be forgotten in the ethereal dalliance. How in the midst of their muddy messed up sex, she would moan, "Nick, I want you..." His thrusts would gain speed. This was what life was all about. Well, was.

"What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean? I'm here to see you, dummy." Nick stared. There was a stain on the bathrobe.

Stephanie leaned her body in. Her beautiful natural bangs almost kissed his chin. "Nick, we broke up, remember?"

"No, I left."

"I kicked you out." Stephanie's pillowy voice started to elevate. "Look, Nick, not that I don't want to see you, but what are you doing here?" That was girl talk for seriously, I don't want to see you. Nick was privy to the lingo, having been rejected so many times. It made it the reason why he even fell in love with Stephanie. That fact that a girl in such a sybarite league would fall for him was impressive. Her dad owned a huge major league baseball company and her mother was the CEO of a bank. What had she seen in him?

It didn't matter because the longer Nick stood there with her, the harder he found it to take his eyes off that stain. Maybe if he got lucky he could score some white color. Nick sniffed, it wasn't too strong of a sniff. But the amorphous scent came through. Bathwater and soap.

Nick forced a grin. A sly, treacherous grin that couldn't seem to stop dancing on his face. "Is someone in there?"

"What?" Stephanie gaped, eyes quaking. "No. No, of course not."

"You sure?"

"I'm fucking positive! Quit shit testing me!"

The apartment creaked with footsteps and a second figure approached the light. A burly sculpture of a man with strong broad shoulders, a morass of chest hair, and a jawline to tackle any oncoming quarterback, entered the quagmire of a stage. He was all jeans and no shirt.

"I've got the bath bubbled up, you ready?" the chiseled man blinked at Nick. "Who's this pimple?"

"Who am I?" said Nick, finding the grit in his voice. "The real head scratcher is why the hell you're sleeping with my girlfriend, motherfucker!" There was a loud echo. Several doors opened. Most of them remained closed.

The man laughed, grasping the gayety of the situation. "Are you sure you can even afford those words?" He swiped an amused look at Stephanie. "Where does he even stay? His mothers?"

"Wyatt..." Stephanie hung her head. Whether she was ashamed of herself or of Nick, it was hard to tell by the shadows blocking her eyes.

But Nick heard generations of laughter ringing in his ears. Kids and high schoolers from every walk of life taunted him because he never had any money, wore the best clothes, or banged the best girls. The dam had cracked. A palpable fury known as Samael leeched inside of him and he tackled Wyatt.

Stephanie screamed. Wyatt stumbled backward but didn't fall. Dazed and unprepared, a fistful slur met his face, knocking him backward. Wyatt retaliated and bulldozed Nick against the wall, banging him with his fists and kneeling him in the groin. A potent chain of punches attacked Nick's stomach, compelling a coughing fit of oozing sticky red. Nick elbowed the giant's face and put a vehement force in the kick from whatever draining strength he had left in his legs.

Wyatt dug his hands into his jeans and slipped out a switchblade. Nick grinned, spit bloody tooth to the ground, and held his sharp knuckles out. "You think you're ready for that big boy?" 

He wasn't defaced by the knife. He had taken martial arts since he was five and Jonathan had a tasty knack for them. Nick's collected a few moves from him from his days carving up pimps, drug dealers, and alleyway men.

With utmost celerity, Stephanie ran in between them. "Stop it! Nick," she sighed exasperatedly, gulping down a draft of air. She was tired of all the melodrama. All the empty theatrics of Nick's gestures. She either wanted Nick to disappear or for her to disappear. "Nick, I think you should go."

"Me? Me?" Nick gawked, incredulous. A red smile carved up his bruised face. "I should be the one to go? When you were the one getting dicked down by this rock?"

"And she loved every inch of it!" Wyatt shook with fervor. The knife danced and rattled, still facing Nick.

Stephanie's frown grew more solid. Her eyebrows furrowed. "I can't be with you Nick, that's the truth. Everything's always been a game to you, and I can't be with a man who treats everything like a game. You have to learn to wake up and grow up. Maybe when you take responsibility for your life..."

"Maybe," Nick sputtered mockingly, "this isn't about me. This is about you and your money. It was never about me, just own the fucking balls to say it." He sniffed, wiping his nose. "Fuck you, Stephanie."

Nick turned and left, a hot trickling of tears refusing to be stifled.

Wyatt and Stephanie watched the defeated figure slope away into the pensive. Stephanie looked as if she was about to say something and tried to go after Nick, but Wyatt held her back.

"Leave him. You have better fish to fry."

Choked with words, and completely nonplussed, Stephanie ran into her apartment, hands covering her face.

Nick returned to the parking garage, forced himself into the car, slammed the door, and drove off. The tears were dry but that didn't stop the taunting voices of Mickey and Jonathan in his head. "You did what? SIMP," said Mickey. "And after all that we talked about? FUCKING SIMP. Hand over my DVDs." Jonathan just stood like a disappointed father, arms crossed. "You didn't even get the damn job like I told you to. What are you good for?"

Nick arrived at Jimmy's Beer and Liquor store. He sat parked there banging his head on the steering wheel. Ten minutes passed. Why was his life so pathetic? He had no money, no proper job, shitty friends, and girls were always evading him. Twenty minutes passed. What dick did he have to suck to be able to turn a nickel? Thirty minutes. What had he done wrong?

It had been one whole hour and Mickey and his erotic DVDs were nowhere to be found. Mickey had lied to him.

Nick drove back home, mind blinkingly numb. Heart sunken and stale. It was safe to say that at the very least, he would come back home and play some more Grand Force Five to cloud the shitty, murky day. When he arrived and entered the house, he was surprised to find the living room was still cavelike dark and his mother still crying. His feet had met the stairs when he heard a strange coughing sound. An uninvited racking, coming from an eldritch coarse voice.

"Nick," his mother gasped, hoarse. Nick turned nervously. She began to breathe heavily, hands stapled to her chest. "Nick, I love you."

The silence blanketed the room.

"Mom?" Nick said, inching closer to the body. Hardly daring to believe it.

Her words were not revived. And they never would be.