Lost Battles

“I got a couple of new video games you might be interested in.” Terrence said upon entering.

“I guess I'll be leaving now.” Joel exits the apartment. Terrence puts in a video game and turns on the television set.

Terrence and Brandon begin to play a zombie video game together. As Brandon reached the second level of the game, he found it difficult pass it. His first thought was the game console not working properly but then hears the sound of a rifle from a different direction. It was coming from the T.V.

“Turn it off.” Brandon said looking at Terrence disappointed. He then turns off the game.

The next two hours, Joel takes a flight out of the city to visit Ralph in the hospital. When he arrived at the hospital, he sees Frank waiting in the hallway.

“Frank, what's going on?”

“I'm visiting one of our own.” Frank spoke of a soldier who was injured during the raid.

“I'm here for the sake of Ralph.” Joel replied.

Joel then enters Ralph’s hospital room. He noticed that he was awake, ready to speak to Joel.

“I’m guessing you want my pudding.” Ralph joked.

“No, it's about Catherine. She knows you lunch with someone else.”

Ralph looked distraught after Joel said that, knowing he would have to explain to Catherine about what happened that day. Ralph flew home, expecting to be welcome by Catherine, but she had a unhappy look on her face.

“I can't believe you would do this.” She said before going to the room to tend to Jade.

“I only had lunch with her.” He said after following her.

“How long have you been seeing her?”

“A month.” That escalated into a long argument between the two and during the middle of the fight, Jade can be heard screaming. Catherine picks up Jade to comfort her and placed her back in her crib. At that moment Catherine quickly packs Ralph's belongings and tells him to leave. He does and then goes to Frank’s house around nighttime. Frank had given Ralph a spare key a couple of years before and he used it to enter the house.

While Ralph is sleeping on Frank's couch, the

eldest daughter of Frank, Danielle sees Ralph and screams. That woke up Ralph and Frank, who walks downstairs to see what the commotion is about. He realized that Ralph was sleeping on his couch.

“Ralph, what is going on here?”

“Cathy kicked me out.” Ralph said after yawning.

The next morning, Ralph explained to Frank about what happened between him and Catherine. Frank begin to cook pancakes while listening to the story.

“In the past five months, I kept seeing the same thing in my sleep. I don't feel anything.” Frank said holding a plate of pancakes.

Ralph ate his breakfast and left to go a bar. A few days later, he is driving to another city but he hears police sirens behind him and he pulls over. A police officer approached his car. Ralph exits the car and the officer tried to calm down a drunk Ralph who punches the officer. Another officer pins Ralph to the ground and put handcuffs on him. While sleeping, Joel gets a call from Ralph who had been taken to a police precinct. Joel then arrives at the precinct, getting Ralph out.

Joel looked upset but in a way he didn't felt mad. On the car ride home, Ralph stood silently as Joel stared at him while driving.

“How does Catherine feels about what you did?”

“She doesn't know because she kicked me out of the house last week. Hadn't spoke to her since. I'm pretty sure Frank doesn't want me in his home. Can I stay at your place?”