Rectify

2

Letitia
Friday Night
Grocery Store

"Chips, Soda, Fruit, Cookies, Popcorn, Nachos, Meatballs, Guacamole, Salsa, Cheese, Crackers, Macaroni, Beer, Wine, Vodka, Champagne, and Juice," I went over my list.

Tomorrow is the hangout and I have to prepare everything. I picked up all of my items and checked out.

When I finally got all the groceries packed away, I realized I had a missed call from my mom. I called her back right away and she answered.

"Hello," she said. "Hi mom," I replied. "Your dad told me you wanted me to make mac and cheese," she said.

"Yes, yours is the best," I said. "Thank you, I'll drop it off tomorrow afternoon," she said.

"Thank you mom," I said. "No problem," she said.
"Love you honey, b-," I hung up.

* * *

Michael
Saturday Evening
His Apartment

"Stay away from that Madeleine girl, Mike," Chad said. "Why? She's... pretty," I said.

"Because she's dangerous and has a lot of dirt all over Detroit," I said. "What if i already saw her and spent a night?" I asked. "No," Chad said sternly.  "But she was so nice," I whined.

"Michael, you need to stop letting people walk all over you, stop being so nice," Chad said.

"My mom said being rude won't get me anywhere in life," I told him. "Okay Mike, I'm just looking out," he tied his laces.

I waited for him to finish. "You ready to go?" Chad asked. "Yeah," I answered. We hopped in his Lexus and drove off.

* * *

Nia
8:00 p.m.
Hangout

I'm not sure how I feel about this whole "hangout" thing. I'm really just standing in the corner as John converses with everyone.

"Nia, come on, have fun!" John said. Letitia finally made her way over to me.

"Nia, hi," she hugged me. "Hey Letitia, how are you?" I asked. "Good, how are you holding up?" she asked.

"I'm okay," I answered. She looked at John, "Um... Letitia, this is John, John this is Letitia," I said.

They smiled at each other and shook hands. "Do you want to get a drink?" John asked.

"Sure," Letitia blushed. "Okay, I'm gonna leave you two alone," I said. I started to walk backwards until I ran into something.

I thought it was furniture, but I turned around and looked up to see Michael, the guy from the other night.

"Sorry," I chuckled. "Uhmm it's okay," he said. "So...what are you doing here?" I asked.

"My best friend, uh, Chad...uh... invited me," he said. "Cool," I said. Another man came up to him and stood next to him.

"Nia, this is Chad, Chad, Nia," he introduced us. We shook hands, "Oh, you're the infamous Nia," he said.

"Um, yeah, I guess," I looked at Michael. "Okay, Nia, Mike, I'm going to leave you two alone," Chad walked away.

"Who'd you come with?" he asked. "My best friend John," I said.

"Cool," he said. "Well, it was nice seeing you again," I said. "Yes," Michael said. I started to turn around, but Michael called out my name, causing me to turn back.

"Ummmm...can i...have your.......number, it's okay if you don-"

"Michael, it's okay, you can have my number," I said. He handed me his phone and I put it in. "See you around," he waved.

I was going to walk back over to John, but him a Letitia were basically making googly eyes at each other.

* * *

Madeleine
9:30 p.m.
Hangout

One of my friends invited me to this thing. I'm not sure why I showed up, but here I am.

I saw some girl putting her number into Michael's phone and waited for her to walk away.

When she did, I walked up to Michael. "Who's that girl?" I asked. "Why?" Michael became defensive.

"Because I'm cute and you haven't called me yet," I said. "Madeleine, I don't really need any services, I'm looking for something else," he said.

Some guy walked up to us and put his arm around Mike. "You're Madeleine, right," the guy said.

"Yeah, why?" I asked. "Stay away from my brother or  we're going to have a problem," he said. I stormed off and left the party.

* * *

Michael
9:36 p.m.
Hangout

Nia had been standing by herself  for a while and I wanted to go up to her, but I don't know what to say. I'm pretty awkward if you couldn't tell.

Yes, I might be "handsome", but I'm not too confident. I let a girl know where I was insecure and it went left, leaving me completely heartbroken.

"Go up to her man," Chad said. "But, you know what my last girl did..." I said.

"Mike, you gotta be more confident," he said. "Okay," I agreed.

I walked up to her and awkwardly stood there. "Hi," I said. "Hey," she smiled.

"I saw that you were standing alone, so I was wondering if you'd like to talk," I said.

"Sure," she said. "What's your occupation?" I asked. "Um, I'm not really doing anything at the moment," she said.

"You should be a model, you're very beautiful," I said. "Thank you, I was a model, but..."

"Oh, okay," I said. "So, who invited you?" Nia asked. "Um, my boy Chad, but I think Letitia invited him," I said.

"Cool. Letitia's my half-sister," she explained. "Looks like her and John are having fun," I looked at them.

"I'll be surprised if they don't get married tonight," Nia joked. We both laughed and then it got kind of awkward again. We were both silent for a couple minutes until Nia broke the ice.

"So, what's your occupation?" I asked. "I'm a counselor for kids in the foster care system," I said.

"Wow, do you like it?" he asked. "I love it, I've always loved helping and taking care of people, " I said.

Chad came up to us, "Excuse me, me and Andre are going to head out now, you coming?" I asked.

"Do you want to come with us Nia?" I offered. "Nah, I'll just wait on John," she said.

"You can just ride with us, I think John and Letitia are going to take a while," I said.

"Okay, sure,"