Chapter 3 "Can't live with em, Can't live without em"

The phone sticks out of his back pocket of his gray-khaki cargo pants and he messes with his wife beater, soon focusing on the grass. He begins to pull hand-fulls out of the ground and blowing it all over the sidewalk. He laughs at himself in boredom.

******

Theresa hangs up the phone and sighs deeply as if a refreshing burst of water she splashed her on the face. She realizes she's suppose to be over at his house and grabs her purse heading for the door. She grabs her coat for the rack near the front door and throws it open only to spill all the mail on the floor. She kicks it out of her way saying, "Fuck it!" loudly. She turns to see her elderly neighbor starring oddly while holding her white fluffy poodle on it's leesh. Theresa pays no attention and hops in the car heading for AJ's place.

*****

Meanwhile, AJ fumbles with his fingers ever-so-hopeful looking down the road once in a while hopping to see her car pull up. When finally, she arrives. He hops to his feet and smiles as she pulls into the drive.\par \par "Hey!" he yells walking to the car to help her out. "Long time no chat, huh?" he gives off a wide smile and hugs her kissing her on both cheeks just to play stupid. "So whats new girl?" he walks slowly fiddling with his back pockets as if he lost something in them.

"You ok?"

"Nah, I'm fine girl" he smiles trying to play it off as if he was a big man. "But how are you" he says placing his arm across her shoulders and poking her in the stomach as he says you, to set the mood in a light tone.

Teresa laughed softly. "I'm fine your present is in the car, I gotta go back and get it."

"Ok" he shruggs letting her go, waiting for her still standing in the same place. He follows her with his eyes as she walks back to get the gift. He shakes his head slowly back and forth bitting his bottom lip as he watches her hips sway back and forth. "Damn you fine, girl." he mumbles to himself being the chop-licking-AJ he is.

Teresa walked back to the car, opened the back door on the driver's side and retrieved a cake box, then shut the door back. "Got it."

Aj nodded and raised his eyebrows lowering his sunglasses to the middle of his nose to get a better look of Teresa. "Kind of a big box isn't it?" trying to make it look like he was only looking at the size of his present.\par \par "Not really. Standard cake box."

Grunts at his dumb mistake, "oh yeah, I forgot!" Aj opens the door to the house helping her in. "You got it ok," placing his hand underneath the bottom of the box making sure she was ok.

"I got it" She walks into the house, through the living room and into the kitchen, then sets the cake box down on the kitchen table. "You wanna open this?"

Aj follows her into the kitchen and looks at the box, nodding his head he says, "Sure! You wanna help?" he says looking at her untying the bow at the top. He eyeballs her out of the corner of his eye. "C'mon" he edges...

"Oh alright..I'll help.." She grabs a pair of scissors and cuts around the tape that sealed the edges of the box.

"Thanks" Aj mumbles watching her at work under his dark sunglasses. Aj helps to lift the lid of the box looking at the cake in a delightful manner. "Damn, thats the right thing to bring, and I was hungry too!" he smiled at her, "Thanks" he says pleased and kisses her on the cheek lightly, "I really appreciate what you're doing, babe." He smiles at her, walking to the drawer to get a big butcher knife to cut the cake. "And I KNOW you want a piece!" he walks to the cabinets and gets two plates and two forks for them. "Black forest cake..."

"Ok, so it's not really a Christmas cake but it's chocolate you love chocolate. Anything from you I love. Especially food!" he laughs at his random comment about loving her everything. He cuts into the cake carefully bringing out a piece and setting it on the plate handing it to her.

"There ya go, beer is in the fridge" he says cutting himself a piece.

"Not really in the mood to get drunk off my ass. I'm here to keep you sane. I can't do that if I'm drunk."

He laughs loudly, "got that one down to a shoe," he says walking to the fridge to grab a bottle of beer. One for him and one for his lady. "But ya can have just one, I promise I won't make you drink another one!" He hands it to her, "just one." He smiles popping the cap off his.

Teresa looked suspiciously at AJ. "Alright..just ONE."

Aj nods in delights and leads her over to the couch sitting down and placing his beer on the coffee table. He takes a bit of his cake and takes his sunglasses off setting them next to his beer. "Damn it's cold in here. You cold?" he shivers rubbing his bare arms and reaches behind the couch to grab a blanket. He puts it around him and spreads it out for her to use too.

"A little."

He looks at Teresa and squints just a little showing his liveliness. He bangs his plate down on the glass coffee table almost breaking it. He scoots away breathing havock and begins to yell bursting into tears. Teresa sits in silence watching him scream trying to understand what he's saying through his sobs and breaths of air. He puts his hands over his eyes and begins to cry in silence. "God damnit..." he groans out beginning to cry so he can be heard. "What the fuck was I thinking?" he turns to Teresa with a wet face and evil eyes, "huh?! What the fuck was I thinking? I can't fucking leave her now man! She can't fucking leave me!" he screams as if he really wanted an answer, yet he knew that if she did the truth would come back to hurt him.

Teresa sat back and looked at AJ, completely stunned, speechless and slightly scared. He rested his head in his hands trying to hide his soft side from her.

"I'm sorry" he said trying to pull it together. "She's just tearin' my up inside," he motioned for his beer then stopped, then motioned again and this time He grabbed his beer moving it to his lips with tears running down his cheeks and chugged the whole thing not thinking about his own actions. He positioned himself on the couch to face Teresa. "You have to help me, please," he said as his eyes filled with tears once more. "I can't stand myself. What am I doing wrong? Please tell me. I don't care if it hurts, just tell me the truth, please."The salty tears trickled down his cheeks. He took Teresa's hands in his and scooted closer to her once more. "Please for real," he said to her, begging her to tell him.\

Teresa dropped her head in silence and looked off to the side for a quick glance of the empty beer bottle and the uneaten cake, which was spilled all over the table and white carpet. She looked back and him and looked into his eyes crossing her eyebrows she replied to Aj in a blunt yet soft spoken mannor. "The only thing you're doing wrong is staying with Amanda."\r

Aj flinched at her reaction to his words. "But, I don't think you understand," he said standing up and beginning to pace back and forth, "I love her so much its hard to explain. I mean, the only reason I spoil her is because I want her to be happy, and I'm unhappy because she is unhappy! And I want that to be the case between her and me. I wanna make her happy when she is sad, and I wanna be able to feel her pain. But when she makes things so difficult it's hard to know what the fuck is going on, you know?" he looks at her with sympathetic eyes.

Teresa's heart sank. All she wanted was for AJ to finally realize that Amanda purposely hurts him with the intent to guilt trip him into thinking that he is the problem and not her. "No. I don't."

He sighed and groaned at himself, "what the fuck am I doing wrong?" he sat down on the couch again. "What can I do to make her happy?" he was talking to himself at this point for Aj had sunk into depression and rubbed his nose in it. He closed his eyes and could see himself in the white room again, yet this time there was another person but he couldn\rquote t see who it was. He opened his eyes quickly and leaned back on the couch putting his head back and looking up in a sheer feeling of guilt and loss.

Teresa put her hand on her head and wiped it down her face in shame. She looked at Aj all hurt and torn up. "Listen to me Aj!" she looked at him and scooted right next to him, grabbing him by the chin and making him look at her, "listen to me damnit!" she said in an angry tone, trying to grab his attention, but then said calmly so it would sink in to him, "You're not doing anything wrong, AJ. Manda is fucking with your head and making you feel guilty for shit that is and always will be her damn fault."

Aj swipes her hand away from his mouth and gives a devilish grin and walks over to the refrigerator and pulling out a beer, he soon finishes three of them and pops open another one only to run out of the room and come back fiddling around with his brown leather coat, trying not to spill his beer."What the hell," he says right before he downs another beer, and throws the bottle behind him letting it shatter on the ground. He dropped his coat and pulled out a pack of ciggs trying to open them but his hands are too shaky. He rips them with his teeth and they splatter all over the floor rolling every-which-way. He drops to his knees and grabs hand-fulls of the cigarettes shoving them into his pocket and one in his mouth. Before lighting up he walks into the kitchen, opens the door to the garage and brings in two 24 packs of Miller Light Draft. He rips open the packs and begins chugging beer after beer. He looks at her and drops to the floor spilling a half full can. "Fuck," he mumbles standing drowzily to pop open another one. "Are you sure you don't want one sweety? I've got plenty!" he says with a drunk grin wiped across his face. He tosses the 13th can aside and looks at her with bloodshot eyes and beer all down his shirt. "C'mon sweety-pie, join the party!" he tosses a beer off to his side, making like it was really suppose to reach her, when the can barely rolls 3 feet ahead of him.

"Ok..AJ, you're wasted off your ass. You need to stop."

"Stop!? Stop!?" he shrieks at her in a girly tone making himself laugh, "stop for what?!? the on-coming semi truck!?" he says as he sits down on the hard wood floor and opens another can. "Dude, look at all the naked girls," he mumbles to himself acting dumb.

Teresa tugged at AJ's arm, trying to pull him up. "AJ..get UP. Now."

Aj lit a cigarrette, "awe come on babe the fun has just begun," he chuckled evily. "This is awesome!" he yelled obnoxiously as if Teresa was deaf. He looked at her and rolled onto his side almost choking on his cigarette.

Teresa knelt down beside AJ and helped him sit up. "AJ STOP. You're scaring me."

"Oh I am???" he mumbles drunkly dropping the cigarette out of his mouth and leaning towards her and kissing her passionatley as he begins to unbutton her shirt. "Don't you want to join all the naked ladies baby?" he asks in a dumbfounded manner. "C'mon please get nakey for me! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE? I'll get nakey too!" he comments as he unzips his pants and fubbles with his belt.\

Teresa punched AJ in the jaw. "Don't make me do that again."

Aj sits back and rubs his mouth and whippers at her, "Owie... baby that hurt. Now look what you made me do..." he points at the spilt beer on the floor. He shruggs it off and rubs his jaw again repeating himself, "Owie..." says in a soft drunken baby voice.

"You need to go take your drunken ass to bed." She pointed down the hallway to his room.

"I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN MAKE IT UP THE STAIRS!" he yells in a crude manner burping loudly. "THEY ARE A FAR WAY UP AND THE OXYGEN GETS REAL THIN SOMETIMES!" he leans back on the floor again and begins to sing John Mellencamp "I want you to dance naked, so I can see you. If you'd like I will join you, but only if you want to. Spin around and round..." he fades off into the distance and spins his fingers and taps his toes as unevenly balanced to the beat in his head as possible. He grunts and makes un-profound noises every once in a while signaling Teresa that he is still alive and breathing. He burps once more and begins to sing the second verse of John Mellencamp.

"Goodnight, AJ," Teresa whispers.