"A person who truly loves you is someone who sees the pain in your eyes while everyone else believes in the smile on your face."
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"Oh my God!" You screamed to Jesse on the phone while you were driving home. "Fuck today."
"Woah, hormones are running a little wildly today!" He said.
"Why, thank you." You said sarcastically. "I threw up this morning by the way."
"I was just kidding about the whole hormone thing (Y/N)." He said. "Now, tell Jesse what's wrong."
"I fucking stayed up watching twenty episodes of "Game of Thrones"." You said. "And I had to work today and I have to deal with all the other shit that's going on so I think that I've literally gone down the shithole."
"It could be worse." Jesse said.
"How could it possibly be any worse?" You asked.
"Well, you could be dead." He said. "It doesn't get much worse than that."
You felt Jesse hit a nerve upon saying that you could be dead. Honestly, a part of you wanted to be dead. That part of you yearned to be with Mark. But the other part of you wanted to stay alive, for the sake of the baby. Right now, you wanted to stay alive. But you didn't know how long you would actually want that.
"Not really a good time to be saying that." You said, trying to stop the tears from falling.
"You're right." He said. "I'm sorry (Y/N). Why don't I make it up to you? Come over and we can hang out for a while."
"I hope you mean just as friends." You said as you took a turn that went in the direction towards his house.
"Of course I mean just as friends." He said. "You think that I would make it a date when we literally just met?"
"I don't know." You said. "You seem like that type of guy."
"Well, I'm not." He said. "We can do whatever you want by the way."
"I'm in the mood for some Pokémon." You said.
"You got it." Jesse said. "I've got a 3DS just for you to play. I got it from one of my friends that didn't really need it anymore."
"Oh good." You said. "Because I don't have mine with me."

*****

"Dude, are you like a Pokémon noob or something?" You asked while you were battling Jesse. "Everyone knows that Normal types can't be affected my Ghost types and vice versa."
"Well, excuse me Princess!" He said. "Besides, I pushed the wrong button!"
"Well, I'm not switching out if that's what you think." You said.
"Fine, I'll switch out my Gengar then." Jesse said.
"Thank you." You said as you watched as the Gengar left the field. Lucario replaced him and he did a Close Combat, which resulted in your Pokémon fainting.
"There we go." You said. "Now things are getting intense."
You sent out your Togekiss and did the move Fly, which came very close to killing the Lucario.
"Oh, damn it!" You said. "I thought that I would kill you!"
"Good boy Lucario!" Jesse said. "Not so much of a Pokémon noob, am I?"
"No, you still kinda are." You said. "How many Pokémon are there?"
"One-hundred and fifty-one." He said. "Duh."
"Oh my God." You said. "Every Pokémon fan in the world just facepalmed at this very moment."
"Okay! I'm a Pokémon noob!" He said. "There, I admit it! Are you happy now?"
"Yes." You said, taking out the Lucario. "I am. And to prove my point, I just won the battle."
"We should do this again at some point." He said. "That was actually pretty fun."
"I told you that it was fun." You said. "But you didn't believe me."
"Well, I do now." He said. He paused and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm glad to see that you're having fun for once."
"What do you mean "for once"?" You snapped. "I've had plenty of fun in my day, thank you."
"You're going to have fun once you start playing Cards Against Humanity with my friends as well." Jesse said. The doorbell rang right after she said that. "Well, looks like someone's here."
You watched as he went over to the door and a tall guy with long black hair walked in.
"I didn't know your girlfriend was coming." The guy said, looking at you.
"She's not my girlfriend Ryan!" Jesse said. He sighed and added, "(Y/N), Ryan. Ryan, (Y/N)."
"Nice to meet you!" You said, extending your hand to Ryan. He shook it.
"You too." He said after the handshake.
The doorbell rang again a few moments later and Jesse opened the door once more and two more guys came in. One of them had brown hair that covered one of his eyes and the other one had black hair like Ryan, except that it wasn't long.
"Dude, your girlfriend's hot." The guy with the brown hair said.
"Not my girlfriend." Jesse said, sighing. "(Y/N), Chester and Chad. Chester and Chad, (Y/N)."
"Chester and Chad sounds like a comedic act." You said.
"We're working on it." Chester said. "Wanna hear a joke?"
"Sure." You said.
"What did the hurricane say to the coconut palm tree?" Chester asked.
"Hold on to your nuts, this is no ordinary blow job." Chad responded.
"Well, shit dudes." Ryan said, a smile on his face. "That was pretty good."
"Agreed." Jesse said.
"I guess I agree too." You said.
"Sweet!" Chester said. "Now, who wants to play some Cards Against Humanity and get fucking wasted?"
"While I would love to get fucking wasted and forget about some things, sadly I cannot." You said.
"Aw, why not?" Ryan whined. "Are you one of those people?"
"No." You said. "I'm pregnant and I don't want to put stuff in my body that's going to harm the baby."
"You're pregnant?" Chester asked. "Who's the baby daddy?"
Suddenly, a flashback occurred.

"I think you're beautiful."
"Is that it? Just beautiful?"
"You are more than beautiful."

"(Y/N)?" Chester asked, looking at you with a concerned look on his face. "Are you okay?"
"Y-yeah." You said. "Sorry. I was just...remembering someone."
"Who?" He asked.
"Nobody important really." You said. The lie stung but you really didn't feel like talking about Mark tonight.
"Oh, um, okay." He said, not really sounding convinced. "Let's just play the game and pretend that none of this ever even happened."
"Yeah." You said as you walked into the kitchen where the game was sitting on the table.

Right before you sat down, you swore that you could feel someone, or maybe even something wrap its arms around you. You shook off the feeling, thinking that you were just imagining things again.
If only it were that easy to forget that a piece of me is dead.