RENT (Lynnexa AU)

Take Me Or Leave Me

Brendon

Today was the day of Sarah and Hayley's engagement party. The two were sitting at a table with each of their parents, and we were sitting a table near them with the rest of us. Hayley's parents were standing in front of the room, both having a glass of champagne, and her father gently tapped his glass with a butter knife to give a toast

"I'd like to welcome everyone, and congratulate my daughter, Hayley--"

The whole room broke out into applause.

"On-- on her choice of a wonderful life partner, Sarah Orzechowski."

More applause. Then Hayley's mother started speaking.

"My husband and I would also like to welcome Sarah's parents to our family, Eddie and Nancy Orzechowski."

Everyone clapped again.

"Would everybody please stand up?"

Everyone stood up and held their glasses.

"And raise a glass to toast to the future of Hayley and Sarah."

Everyone clinked glasses with each other at our table, and then to Sarah and Hayley. We all gave hugs to them and congratulated them.

Sarah walked away and went over to the bar and started to talk to the lady there. Oh boy, I think I had an idea of what was going go happen. I turned my attention away from her, and talked with Hayley.

"Congratulations, Hayley. Oh, where's Sarah? I never got the chance to congratulate her yet."

"Oh, I'm not sure, I think she went..."

Hayley looked over where Sarah was, and she was chatting up with the bar lady. Most likely flirting.

"Could excuse me for a minute, Brendon?"

"Certainly."

She went over and talked with Sarah, and next thing we knew, we heard Hayley yell, "You were flirting with the woman in rubber!"

"Hayley, there will always be women in rubber flirting with me!"

Hayley became frustrated, and started walking away from Sarah. Sarah then stood up on a table with an ice sculpture on it and yelled, "Hayley, you have two choices! You can either take me for who I am, or leave me!"

"Guess I'm leaving! I'm gone!"

Hayley left the room, and Sarah followed. Lynn, Alexa, Max, Steven, and I followed after, and we saw that they weren't leaving together, just leaving each other.

We went back to our apartment of no furniture, only to find that furniture! Lynn walked in and said, "Hey, guys, our shit's back! And it looks like there's extra."

Jenna was sitting with a paper in her hand, and a little smile on her face.

"Jenna, why are you here?" Lynn asked.

"I'm here to put an end to this war."

"What made you change your mind?"

"Alexa did, actually. We hadn't seen each other in a while, and so we had dinner and she convinced me to rethink the situation. Look, I regret the unlucky circumstance--"

"'Circumstance?' Jenna, you padlocked our door and took all our stuff!"

"Right, which is why I'm offering a new lease, all right? Rent-free, courtesy of CyberArts. Get out your camera, Brendon, you might wanna film this."

"Oh, I get it, this is a photo opportunity."

"The benevolent god ushers the poor artists back to their flats, brought to you by your friendly neighborhood CyberArts, full story tonight on Buzzline," said Steven.

"It's not like that, Steven."

"Look," said I said while filling out a check and handing it to Jenna. "We don't need your charity. This should cover us for a little while."

"Where'd you get this?"

"It's my first advance."

"Okay... Congratulations."

Jenna left, and Lynn went into her room. Alexa followed shortly after.

Lynn

I went into my room and started to get my things out of boxes and looking to see if Jenna didn't forget anything. Alexa walked in afterwards and sat down on the table in my room.

"Lynn... nothing happened. Jenna and me, it's over. We had a thing once, but that was two years ago--"

"It doesn't matter."

"It was before I met you--"

She tried to put her hand on my shoulder, but I moved away.

"I don't care."

I walked out of my room, frustrated, and started looking through other boxes for my things.

Why didn't she tell me about her dinner with Jenna? If she told me, I wouldn't have cared, but because she didn't and even though she told me nothing happened, I was going to get suspicious, and question if she was lying all the time. I don't want that. I want to trust her, and I know I can. I just hope nothing like this happens again.