"Zach, thank goodness, Zach. You gotta help me." Mallory said as soon as he stepped in, coming over to his ex-girlfriend's place was weird but she'd sounded pretty bad over the phone. She led him into the house, then grabbed a piece of paper, handing it over to him. "I got fired!"
His eyes scanned the page, unsurprised at the number of tardy arrivals she had, but it didn't stop there. Four times she'd left on a lunch break only to call in and say she was sick, or at least that she wouldn't be returning. It was quite the list of infractions, then his eyes hit the bottom, a spark of hope for her there. The paper was dated two months ago, he'd heard about this sort of thing, companies ignoring stuff forever until some manager disliked you and dug up a reason to fire you. For a moment he thought maybe this was a way for her to argue for her job back, that they'd waited so long to confront her about her issues (Obvious or not.), ensuring she couldn't fix her problem. Then he saw her signature, it was dated two months ago too.
And he remembered who he this was.
"Mallory this is from two months ago." He pointed to both the company's printed date and the date next to where she'd signed. "What have you been doing this whole time?"
"Looking for another job," He knew that tone, she had been sitting at home doing nothing, maybe mopping over her lost job, but probably just being lazy. "I just couldn't find anything, I spent all my savings, plus my last check and some more."
"What does your mom think about this?" Mallory still lived with her mom, who was sort of the problem, she'd babied Mallory right up till bankruptcy. Since then there had been no credit cards to put all the bills on, mother had forced daughter to get a job, forced her to pay for part of the bills. Mallory frowned at his question, "She doesn't know? How have you been paying rent?"
"She knows... Now, the landlord called her at work today. I told her I was paying the rent. I took her half and used it to pay for gas and stuff. I thought I'd find another job, I was looking for a higher pay rate so I could pay everything back with the first check." Zach sighed, rolling his eyes.
He was glad he'd dragged himself out from under the train wreck that was Mallory, really glad. Staying as long as he did because he was dumb and she was SO damn hot. All the shit he'd put up with just to have the drop-dead beauty at his side, but it had finally gotten to be too much for too little. He'd had to dump her. Dump her or risk his sanity.
Knowing her she'd probably laid around the first month then only applied to 50k a year jobs after that, which she was in no way qualified for. He still didn't know if she was completely oblivious or completely certain there would be an escape because there had always been one for the beautiful girl. Thinking that a great job would land in her lap because she needed it, shitty market or not, instead of just taking the hundreds available. She could have found something.
"The landlord just called, he said if he didn't get his money he'd kick us out. Mom's going to freak when she gets home. She told me I had to think of something, to borrow it or earn it or whatever, but that I had to get it. It's not my fault! You gotta think of something." Of course, did she really think of him as that big of a sucker?
"How much do you owe?" Zach kept telling himself he would NOT loan her the money, because he knew she would never pay it back.
"Sixteen hundred, plus another four hundred for my half of next month's rent." Zach almost laughed, laughed and left, just then the door opened. Mallory immediately went to her mother, begging for forgiveness, both of them going back and forth for a good ten minutes. "Zach's here, he'll lend me the money, he's got it."
"You still owe me seven hundred from..." No, he thought, that was from when they were dating, he'd already chalked that up to complete a loss.
"YOU said you'd PAID that!" Mrs. Lark cried out, knowing exactly what the seven hundred had been for, debt that Mallory was solely responsible for incurring.
"I said I'd taken care of it and I did. Zach said he didn't care about it." That wasn't at all what he'd said, but Mallory had probably heard it that way.
"I can't lend you the money Mallory. I'm sorry, we're not dating anymore, we haven't even talked in weeks. Mrs. Lark, I'm sorry, I'm going to go." Mallory stood there in complete shock, in her world Zach had probably already promised to give her the money, probably when he'd agreed to come over.
"Zach," Mrs. Lark stepped in his way, looking down at the ground, looking as embarrassed as she had been when she'd admitted to bankruptcy. The look she threw at Mallory showed she realized how far she'd gone wrong with her daughter. "I'll make sure she pays you back, I'll make sure you get fifty bucks a month, even if SHE can't pay it. Do you have the money?"
"I have the money, but I have bills too, I can't just lose two thousand dollars for years." It was so hard, he'd always liked Mrs. Lark, despite that she'd spoiled Mallory senseless, but he wasn't attached to this family anymore.
"Mallory!" Mrs. Lark barked, making her daughter and Zach jump, she reached over and yanked her over. "Mallory, this is your fault! You BETTER convince Zach to lend us the money. You BETTER tell him you'll get two jobs to pay him back, two crappy fast food jobs if you have to. Convince him!"
"I..." Zach started, knowing Mallory better than that, then Mrs. Lark folded her hands. Pleading with him, looking desperately miserable.
"Give us a minute," Mrs. Lark asked, Zach sighed but nodded, she quickly hauled her daughter off to the side.
He was already doing the math, not just of how much he had in his savings, but of how much he could trust them. He'd have to get it in writing, old daytime judge shows taught him that much, but would that even help? Fifty bucks a month would already take almost three years to pay off, what if they missed a payment? How long could they drag it out? How much of a pain would it be to go by their place, keep track of the payments, to collect all his money? If he got a girlfriend how would she like the entire idea of the arrangement? As much as he wanted to be a nice guy, even though he was making good money and had little in the way of bills (Now that Mallory was gone.), this just seemed WAY to much work.
"WHAT? NO!" Mallory spoke above the hushed tones they'd been using for a good five minutes, the younger Lark shaking her head. Mrs. Lark pulled out her pocketbook, flipping through what looked like fifteen dollars, then went back to the whispered conversation. "MOM! He's... BUT... I can't..."
Even Mallory drifted back into a whisper again, either finally seeing the reality of their situation, or putting her mind to work. Maybe for the first time, thinking of some other way, to think of something besides whatever her mom was suggesting. Zach couldn't help but look at the door, wondering why he'd been so foolish as to come over, but he knew the answer. He'd been hoping for Mallory to be a complete mess without him. He'd already heard she'd had about twenty failed attempts at dating, that all the guys who asked her out because of her looks couldn't take her. It was a result of her beauty as to why they kept lining up, probably ignoring the warnings of others. Zach didn't know if he should be glad that they never lasted long or sad, which was better? Knowing that his ex-girlfriend was failing at love after him? Or that he'd stuck around more than any other sane person would?
"Okay, I know, I KNOW." Mallory pulled her arm free of her mother, both of them walking back over to Zach, his ex crossing her arms over her chest and looking away.
"Will you loan us the money?" Mrs. Lark asked, Zach tried to think of the nicest way of saying one of the meanest things, NO FUCKING WAY didn't seem appropriate. The look in his eyes must have told them his answer, Mrs. Lark held out a hand to forestall him, Mallory's pose was the same but suddenly her expression was worried. It was clear she saw he meant to say no too, that she was surprised over it, surprised and worried. "You really have the money?"
"I have it but..." Once more Mrs. Lark stopped him with a quick move of her hand, not rude though.
"You know we'll get evicted if you don't give us the money, you're the only person we know that even comes close to having that kind of cash, we'll be homeless." He should just leave, it felt clear they were going to pile on the guilt till he cracked, he might as well GIVE them the money if he broke down and said yes. Then he could move on with his life, not have to worry and bother with all this. He couldn't just lose that much money though. Plus what kind of fucking dipshit would they think him? What would he think of himself, giving his ex-girlfriend two grand? "Okay, I know that you and Mallory didn't end very well, she told me about it, some of it. But please, you two were together for two years! Don't we mean something to you?"
"Give us the money Zach you're not THAT big of a dick," Mallory growled, trying to act all angry about it, but he could see she was worried what not getting the money would mean. "Sure you dumped me because I couldn't give you blow jobs, Mom said that's probably why we broke up, but you were always such a great guy before that."
"Mallory you..!" He bit back a sharp reply, for a moment, until he saw the look on her mother's face. That HAD been the reason Mallory had told her, which he'd never mentioned in the break-up, not directly. All he'd said was she never seemed to want to have sex with him, during the most heated part of the fight, after that it seemed she'd heard nothing else. Not after and that fact had erased everything else before it. To try and clear the air he went on. "It was more complicated than blow jobs. But that is just another great piece of evidence on how you were always taking and never giving to our relationship. You wouldn't suck my dick because it made you drool a little, which didn't matter to me. If it wasn't that you cried about that it was demeaning. Which is total BS since you pretty much demanded I eat you out. You take. You don't give. You took from your mom until she was dry. You took from me until you broke me. I... No."
"Jeez Zach! I sucked your dick plenty of tim..." He cut her off with a laugh.
"You what? WHAT? You're really bull shitting yourself if you are going to claim that. You took my dick in your mouth twice in our whole relationship, TWICE." She opened her mouth, realized he was right, then snapped her mouth shut. Zach shook his head, laughing again but a lot less angrily, stepping away. "That wasn't the reason though, but I've already tried to go over this with you, you never listened. That is done. I'm not interested in you, your shitty blow-jobs, or rehashing the problems of our relationship. Right this moment my girlfriend is expecting me to call her, while I'm standing here getting guilt-tripped to cover another one of your dumbass mistakes, so no. I'm done. I'm out."
