It's Your Baby (2)

"That model?"

"Right. And guess what? Penny said that she's only slept with me this year. Can you believe it? Jason, isn't that a joke?" I knocked on the table loudly with my fingers. I was so angry.

"Such things can't happen to me. Besides, it's just a few hundred dollars. Last month, she got all the shootings of the promotional posters of our department store, and she got almost 2,000 dollars from that..."

I scoffed at Jason and interrupted him. "Don't you know how much she spends each month? Can two thousand dollars support her for a month? She has a baby with some bastard and has no money to clean up the mess. Well, she came to me again... I'm fucking cheap. I shouldn't have kindly introduced her to our company. She's made money from us, but then she tricks me. How can she be like this?"

Jason didn't care about my emotions and asked me in a low voice, "Did you use protection when you made love?"

I thought about it for a long time. However, I was too drunk at that time and I really couldn't remember. After a while, I said, "Yeah... That's why I said I was tricked!"

Jason looked at me with doubt. After a long time, he sighed and said, "Howard, we have known each other for almost ten years. Sometimes I really want to say something to you. I knew that breaking up with Jane dealt a heavy blow to you, but it has been two years. You really don't have to humiliate yourself in this way... Time waits for no one. Find a good girlfriend and start a family, okay?"

When I heard the name "Jane", I paused and said, "Don't worry about me. I'm fine!"

"Are you?"

...

Jason continued talking, and I was too impatient to listen. In the end, he only cursed, "You deserve it!" Then he left with dissatisfaction and forgot to throw a few hundred dollars on the table.

I walked out of the bar, held an umbrella, and stepped on the wet street. At that moment, I felt like there was only me in this world. How lonely! I had worked in this city for two years, but what I gained were emptiness and loneliness. To get rid of such feelings, I had to wear a mask to cover up my shame. With this mask, I could live freely.

But no matter how much pain I felt, Jane would never come back!

...

I passed a few bus stops before returning to my neighborhood. It was an old, rundown place, so old that there was not even a security company willing to manage it. During my first year here, I heard from the neighbors that the buildings here were all built in the early 90s. It didn't resist the erosion of time and every building looked depressed. However, the buildings were always stuck to each other, as if they were afraid of being lonely. This way, it seemed that each building had a life. I always thought, "At the dead of the night, they might whisper a few words to each other to chase off their loneliness."

With a cigarette in my mouth, I took out a key from my pocket and walked to the building I lived in. This building was the only one with creepers over the wall in this neighborhood. Every summer, the wall facing south would turn green. If buildings were gendered, this building would undoubtedly be a woman. More exactly, a cold woman.

It often made people feel sad for her!

...

To my surprise, there was a red fancy car parked downstairs. I had lived here for two years but had never seen a car over 80,000 dollars in this place.

I no longer thought about it. I whistled and walked along the corridor to my own apartment. When I reached the top floor, only to see that the door of my house was ajar. I locked the door before I left. Was there a thief? I calmed down a bit and remembered that I hadn't paid rent to Larry for two months. It must be Larry!

Pushing the door open, I saw my landlord Larry and a strange woman sitting on the sofa. A car key was on the tea table. The car downstairs must be hers.

Then, a question flashed in my mind, "Isn't Larry just an ordinary loser? How could he bring such a noble-looking and unapproachable woman into this simple and dilapidated place? Weird!"

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