The Punchline

Chapter 2.

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-Callie-

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"Thank you, Grayson."

A little bit after he moved away to his own bed, I got covered up in the blankets, enjoying the euphoric feeling of heat, warmth, hearth, and kindness as I laid my head down on the pillow.

My name is Callison Farrow. I'm twenty two. I never went to college. I only graduated highschool just in time for my parents to kick me out of their home. I've been homeless for five years. At least... at least until tonight.

Most of my life, people have called me 'cute'. Which I hate. Cute is a thing a guy says to you when he wants to be polite, but doesn't really think you're all that beautiful or hot. My grandparents and the boyfriends I had in highschool always told me I was beautiful, though. I have really long jet black hair, pale skin, and kind of big blue eyes. I've kept an athletic and lean figure since my freshman year in highschool. And for those wondering, I have average B to C cup tits.

I didn't have an easy life growing up. My father was an alcoholic and my mother was a very angry person. They used to fight almost every single day and then my mother would take it out on me while my father wouldn't do anything about it. Sometimes I would get yelled at and called names... other times I was beaten. I hated being at home. However, my father wasn't a bad man. In fact, he was quite good to me when my mother wasn't around. He'd always try and do his best, but when she showed up, he turned into a cowardly, sad, drunk.

I was a quiet child when I was growing up. Occasionally I would get into trouble because I would backtalk a teacher, but that was a rare occasion since I mostly liked my teachers during school. My grandparents would call me a lawyer in training because I really liked to argue. It's why I did so well on the debate team. My GPA was 4.0 and I even did things like basketball and soccer. Anything to keep from going home for a little while, really.

But after I graduated, despite being accepted into several colleges, my mother would not let me go. I never knew her reasoning, but she said a bunch of times that I'd get stuck with some fuck up drunk who wouldn't know his way around a woman if you gave him a fucking GPS. She was a charming woman. But I became so angry with that, that I blew up at her. I think I swore at her for maybe a good hour before she tried to slap me, but I didn't let her and, in fact, slapped her back.

My mother kicked me out then and of course, my father did nothing. Ever since then, I've been homeless and stuck in our hometown, hoping to god to never see the likes of them around. I went to the local homeless youth center for the most part, but eventually, I stopped going about two weeks before this happened. No reason why, really. I just couldn't find the energy to go anymore.

Then... well... this happened. This guy I never talked to and was not friends with, (in fact, I remember my friends and I during highschool calling him a nerdy shit several times) just came into my life and offered me a place to stay. Just like that. With almost no hesitation.

I really thought he would turn out to be some pervert, but, he just seems like he's trying to be nice and is trying to do something right. He let me shower and get clean, he gave me a bed, a home... everything I wanted, this guy had no hesitation to do so. And I knew barely anything about him.

But when I woke up the next morning, quite early so that it was still dark out, he was still asleep. I wanted to go make breakfast for him, but I hadn't used a stove in half a decade, I'd rather just give him a hug or something instead of possibly burning the place down. I just decided to go through my things in the meantime.

I noticed, however, he still hadn't woken up several hours later. So I got up then and I walked to his bedroom door and opened it softly. I went in to check in on him and he was still sleeping. But there was... an odd air about the place. The same kind of air that would be present if someone who stumbled upon a guy doing drugs.

So I closed the door and sat back on the bed. And as I sat down, I began to think. When was the last time I was able to have a long sleep?

So, in realization that it had been very literally years, I pulled the blankets over myself and closed my eyes, and fell asleep.

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I woke up a few hours later, reaching my arms up to rub my eyes when I looked to see him standing in the kitchen, hunched over the counter, not realizing that I was awake as of yet, having not made any noise. I shifted myself downwards and watched, curious as to what he was doing.

Grayson had fixed himself some tea and was standing over it, his hands placed on either side of the counter. He was taking deep breaths, as if he had almost been drowned minutes ago. He was just staring off into space, his eyes almost looking as if they were glazed over. I watched him for maybe a minute before he shook his head, grabbing the cup of tea and taking a big swig of it.

As he put the cup down, I decided that it was then to actually wake up and make my presence known. I pushed myself up on the bed and stretched outwardly. He calmly looked over to me as if he expected me to wake up at this exact time.

"Hey." He said in a monotone voice, slightly smiling as he turned to me.

"Hey," I replied casually, leaning on my hand. He walked over to me and set his cup on the coffee table he moved out of the way to accommodate my bed and sat on the couch.

Grayson was wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt, his hair slightly messed up, and his stubble particularly present as well. He looked kind of gruff, to be honest. Last night he was wearing nice clothes and glasses and had almost a professional air about him. Now he... almost looked sad.

"I uh..." I tried to find the words to begin a talk but he found them for me.

"You probably want to know what the arrangement is going to be, right? How long I'm allowing you to stay, what the conditions are, etc.?"

I nodded slowly, kind of surprised he knew exactly what I was thinking. He cleared his throat and then coughed.

"Well... I thought about this long and hard... heh... but I've come to a pretty easy conclusion. You can stay as long as you like. No strings attached," He told me flatly, taking a sip of his tea.

I blinked several times in shock. "Uh... are you serious?"

"Yeah. I mean, I do expect you to help around. And it would be nice if you eventually got a job to help out with the finances, but yeah. If you want, you can be my roommate for as long as you need to," He told me again, taking another sip as he finished speaking.

"This is... I..." I couldn't find the words. Honestly, this guy seemed like Jesus to me right now. Incredibly selfless and super casual about it. "Thank you."

"It's only the right thing to do. People shouldn't have to be thanked for acting like decent human beings," He replied curtly, with a short half-smile, before another sip punctuated what he said like a period.

I looked over him for a moment. He seemed... colder than he did last night. He was making jokes and fooling around, while now he just seemed uncaring. Lost, even.

"Now, you have the living room as your bedroom, so you have the biggest TV in the house as your own. The remote is on the coffee table and you can watch and record whatever you want. But uh... I'll unplug the game consoles sometime tonight or tomorrow. Or maybe in a few minutes. Depends if I want to play."

"Oh. O-okay," I said, wondering if he was mad at me or something. Another big sip of his tea and it looked like he finished it. He stood up and walked to the kitchen.

"I work pretty short shifts at the comedy club at night, so if you need anything until then, I'm there. In fact, I'll put my number on the counter so you can call me if on the home phone. Okay?"

Again, I was... a little astounded that he was this generous to me. But he then retreated back into his room, almost as if he was a ghost.

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For the next several weeks, life changed tremendously for me. For one, I now had a home. I almost never left the house to go out, really. I just stayed inside, kept warm, helped around the house, and talked to Grayson.

One of the times that I did go out is when he took me to a local clothes shop and he bought me almost a completely new wardrobe. He got me everything from casual clothes to even a dress that I was looking at. While it wasn't super expensive at the end of the day, it was still him spending a good amount of money on me, almost a complete stranger. Again, I could not believe his generosity, but he did it for me. I now usually wear at home a combination of tanktops and sweatpants.

Grayson was an interesting guy. He was really nice and thoughtful, yet curt and almost cold at times. He would sometimes just drift off when I talked to him and sometimes do it in the middle of doing something. It was as if he was having a flashback. But yet he was very mindful of me when I was around, always asking if there was something he could do for me. Always cracking a joke to make me laugh.

I spent a lot of my days then just watching TV and helping around the house. He would often wake up late, get up, get showered, help out a little, and then disappear to do something in his room or somewhere else for the rest of the day until he had to go work. Then he'd work until about ten or eleven and then come home and sleep. All the while, he looked... tired.

When he was around, we spent time actually talking and getting to know each other. I found that since highschool, he went to college right afterward and began to study writing and the English language and graduated about two years ago, a bit earlier than his other class. He began to write novels after he graduated. Eventually he found stand up comedy and turned to that instead. Something I found odd was he mentioned during his first year of college, he met a girl that had his same nerdy tastes and the two began dating. When I asked her where she was now, he declined to answer, getting another far off look in his eye.

A couple of times when I went out were to try and get to know the town, as now I was a person with a home and could pay for my own wares and utilities. It looked like I was going to make some friends at a few points, but I always found that I preferred my own or Grayson's company to the people I met. So often I would at least try to hang around him, but you can see how that's a bit hard, as he would often seclude himself from the world.

Finally, about four weeks after I had moved in, Grayson had a day off. And for some reason, he woke up early, almost around the same time that I had. He walked out of his room in his usual mood, wearing a baggy t-shirt and plaid pajama pants as he shuffled over to the kitchen.

"Hey," I called out to him with a smile as I stood up and walked over ot the kitchen as well.

He turned to me and then went back to making tea. "Hey."

"You're up early. What's the occasion?" I asked him as I started looking around for something to eat.

He sighed. "I couldn't sleep."

I looked over to him and leaned on the counter with one arm, watching as he poured boiling water into his cup and dunked his tea bag inside. "Why?"

"I... was just thinking a lot. Kept myself up," He told me as he waited for the tea to settle and imbue itself into the water.

"About?"

Grayson looked over to me and smiled in such a wistful way that looked almost more depressing than if he was frowning. "Obviously about how to beat the Penetrator in Dark Souls. Jeez Callie. You'd think you'd know me by now."

You'd think, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to get to know someone who won't let you in.

"Come on, tell me. We've been living with each other for almost three months now. You can talk to me about things, you know," I told him and the smile vanished off his face as he reached over to grab sugar.

"Look, Callie, there's some things about me it would be best for you not to know. Let's just leave it at that, okay?" He replied in such a way it almost seemed like he was snapping the words at me. I nearly recoiled.

"I uh... yeah. Sorry," I replied.

And then the weeks went on. He secluded himself like I knew he would and I found myself sitting on my bed, holding my knees as I began to think. What was it that kept me coming back to try and speak with him? Even though he tried to hard to push me away? It had been weeks now.

Hell, it seemed like he tried to push everyone away. While he wouldn't talk to me about important things like that, he seemed to not talk to anyone. I never saw him bring any friends around. I never heard him talk to anyone on the phone. He seemed... lonely. Yet it also seemed like that was of his doing.

So later that day, during the early evening, he came out again and showered. As he walked out, I caught him before he could go back to his room.

"Hey, I just recorded some wrestling. You wanna watch?" I asked him. "We can get snacks out and stuff."

He looked cautiously over to me. "Is it TNA? If it's any of that bullshit, no."

I laughed, but was able to shake my head. "No, it's WWE."

Grayson then agreed and I found myself almost giddy. And I thought that was just... odd. He sat down on the edge of my bed and I went to go grab some chips and some drinks for the two of us. I sat down next to him and I brought up the recording of Monday Night Raw and we both sat down to watch it.

Throughout the show, Grayson began to unwind a bit. He was making comments and jokes and actually seemed pretty relaxed. We eventually both found ourselves leaning against the back of the bed as we watched.

"Heh... that AJ Lee chick looks a whole lot like my ex," He commented during the Divas match. I turned to him and his smile sort of faded.

"You never told me what happened with her?" I said in a questioning way. He looked down at his lap and sighed.

"What is there to say? I loved this girl more than... anything in the entire world. I wanted nothing more than to marry her, have kids, and die as fat old people together. It would have been great. We were both nerdy, we loved to play games, we both wrote, and we both loved stupid things. Like when anime gets mistranslated, we just loved those things and would laugh for hours about them,"

I turned to him, pausing the episode of Raw on the television as he got that far off look in his eye. But instead of going silent this time around, he just kept talking. I was frowning in concern at this point. I've never really seen him like this before.

"She was beautiful. Long red hair, fair skin, and big green eyes. Natural blonde. Plump lips and everything. She was athletic and had one hell of a body. I never thought that I'd get someone who looked amazing as well as being a nerd. We both laughed with each other all the time. But then... then she ha-had to... go off with Danny and..."

The realization of what happened struck me. I watched as he then grew silent, his face contorted as if he had just been punched in the stomach repeatedly.

"Danny was an old friend of mine and a really good friend of hers. I trusted him. He knew everyone in my social group... then he... then when she and Danny happened... they all began to call me a cuckold. They humiliated me. I forgave her. I tried to see past it. I... I tried to make it work. I really did. And then... sh-she... she ended it..."

It all started to make sense now as I watched this guy's eyes well up in tears. The far off looks, segregating himself, cutting himself off from things, staying inside and playing games and writing all day until he had to work. Sleeping as much as he can... it started to make sense. This man was broken. This man was depressed.

I don't know when it happened, but he disappeared back into his room shortly afterward and went to bed. I just sat there on the bed, thinking about how lost and alone this man must feel on a daily basis. It almost broke my heart just thinking about it.

I tried to go to bed then, but I couldn't. So I just laid there... thinking.

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It was about 3:00 AM when I began to hear a noise. It wasn't just the wind or something, it was a human noise. It startled me at first, my mind immediately going the conclusion that it was an intruder, but then it just continued on at the same distance, at the same volume. I couldn't make it out at first, but I realized it was sort of high pitched.

I got out of bed and began to move around, turning on the kitchen light and trying to find where it was coming from, and as I started to move closer to Grayson's bedroom door, the noise grew louder and more clear. It was coming from his room.

So I mustered up my courage and opened the door, the light from the kitchen shining through to reveal what seemed to be a normal scene of Grayson sleeping on his bed. But then I realized, as the outline of his hand clutching the stained pillow and the constant quivering of his body came into view, what the noise was.

Grayson was crying.

At this point, my body reacted almost instinctively. Before I could even think about what I was really doing, I had moved over to his side of the bed and sat on the edge of it, hearing very clearly his choked sobs and that high pitched noise he would make. It was the saddest sound I've ever heard in my entire life.

It was an odd feeling, really. My body moved my arms for me, grabbing his side and shaking him. Grayson did nothing at first, still lying there, crying. So I shook harder. He then turned back to me, his face wet and stained with his tears, twisted into a wretched sob. My heart immediately shattered as I saw this.

My arms grabbed his head and ever so softly, pulled him over so he was lying in my lap as I cradled him. His soft crying begun to grow into body-wracking sobs and loud wails. I hunched over him, holding his head and shoulders as he cried.

Then I realized why I kept coming back to him. Why I bothered with trying to make him reach out to me. Why I'm still here as he howls in pain into my arms. Somewhere along the way, I had found this broken man and fallen for him. I'd fallen head over heels.

So I let him cry. I let him sob. I let him wail. And I was there to hold him.

To Be Continued in Chapter 3...