You passed out.

Arthur stepped out of the restaurant and went into his car. He brought out the piece of paper that was just given to him.

He took out his phone and dialed the phone number, but it didn’t go through.

“The number you dialed is unavailable at the moment. Please try again later.” A feminine voice permeating from the phone’s speakers announced.

Arthur bit his lips softly and rolled his eyes slowly, thinking of his next course of action.

There was no other way he could contact her. He would have to go to the address written on the piece of paper.

She definitely would not be coming back to the restaurant anymore, because it was clear that they fired her. So locating her address would be the last resort.

There was only one problem. The address on the piece of paper was located in the other part of town.

To be specific, the ‘rural’ part of town.

To be more specific, the ‘ghetto’ part of town.

Arthur had not been around there before. He has always lived in the metropolitan area.

He turned on his car ignition and drove towards the region that was written on the paper.

After about twenty minutes of driving, he was finally in the neighborhood.

The air was different. There were no skyscrapers towering into the clouds. The houses looked old and rickety.

He was in the trenches.

His car stood out among other low budget vehicles he was seeing around.

He slowed down and thought to ask for directions to where he was going.

He honked twice as a man walking by approached towards his vehicle.

“Hello sir, please can you give me directions to 16 Beyer street?” He said, slightly sticking his head out of the vehicle.

The man hesitated for a second, and then stopped to point the directions to where he was looking for.

“Just drive down a bit. The second Street by your right is Beyer street. So you can find number 16 there.”

“Alright, thank you.”

Arthur stepped on the gas and proceeded forward.

The man stared at the fancy car disappearing in the distance in admiration.

Arthur followed the directions and arrived in front of an old building. With the inscription ‘No. 16’ boldly plastered to the wall beside the door.

He got out of his car and walked to the front porch.

Knock! knock! knock!

There was no response.

He knocked again and again, but met with the same silence.

He waited a few more minutes and tried again, but it was still the same.

There was music coming out of the room, so there had to be someone inside.

He hesitantly twisted the doorknob. There was a click, and the door opened.

He slowly pushed the door open, causing the intensity of the music to be more prominent in his ears.

He put a step in and caught a glimpse of the house.

The whole place looked scattered and disorganized. It was like the house was being inhabited by a clowder of cats.

There were clothes scattered everywhere, a few empty bottles of wine laying on the table, a broken flower vase on the floor.

Arthur was snooping around. He went through the door leading to a passage where the bedroom was. The bedroom door was slightly ajar.

He pushed it open and found a woman with a flushed complexion laying seemingly lifeless on the floor.

Her bath towel was almost completely loosened from her body, revealing her lush, smooth body that was only covered by the red bikinis she was putting on.

Arthur went inside and squatted close to the half naked lady on the floor to examine her.

Upon a closer look, he noticed the face was familiar. He suddenly recognized her to be Aria, the waiter he was looking for.

She had been drinking all night after she got fired, in an effort to numb the pain of her whole life crumbling upon itself.

Unfortunately, she’s very light-headed, and becomes useless whenever she drinks.

Arthur properly covered up her body with her towel and carried her into the bed.

She was passed out, and it seemed like she was living alone, so he couldn’t leave her all by herself. For all he knew, she probably turned the house upside-down in her drunk state and could have seriously hurt herself.

He went back to the living room and stumbled on some heaps of clothes on the floor. He turned down the music and picked up the clothes and folded them neatly and then he impulsively started cleaning.

He tidied up the place, picked up the pieces of the broken ceramic vase from the floor, put away the bottles of alcohol and the glasses they were drunk on safely.

He went back to the bedroom occasionally to check up on her. When he got there, he would stare at her from the door a while before going back.

After cleaning up the house, he sat on the couch. In an attempt to wait for her to wake up, he fell asleep. It was already evening and almost sundown.

She eventually woke up with a serious hangover and looked around. Still confused and unaware of her surroundings, she staggered to the living room to find a stranger in her house, sleeping on her couch.

Startled, she screamed.

“Who are you?”

“What are you doing here?”

Her loud voice caused Arthur to wake up.

He tried to calm her down and explained everything to her. But as he attempted to approach, she screamed even louder.

He retreated to the door. Even he knew it was definitely weird being a stranger in somebody's house uninvited.

“Calm down.” Athur said, moving his hands up and down with his palms facing the ground in gesticulations.

“You passed out.” He added.

“What did you do to me?” She asked, trembling. She had picked up the remote control and held it up towards Arthur to prepare for defence against any potential attack. Like seriously, a remote.

“Nothing.” Arthur said, raising his hands up in the air innocently.

“You were on the floor when I came in, so I helped you get up on the bed.”

“You were pretty wasted.” He added.

A sharp pain surged through her head, so she held her hand on her head and tried to sit down, wincing in pain.

“Are you okay?” Arthur said, moving forward hastily in an attempt to help her.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“I’m the customer whom you attended to yesterday at the restaurant... You spilled some wine on my girlfriend and then she slapped you. You remember?” Arthur explained.

“What? You?”

“You and your obnoxious girlfriend are the reason I’m in this mess right now.”

“So What do you want to do now? Throw me in jail for accidentally spilling wine on your girlfriend? Is that why you’re here? You came to finish it up?” She said, almost tearing up.

She whimpered in pain. Tears were already forming at the base of her eyes at the thought of her current predicament, and in no time they came trickling down her cheeks..

“No no no no...”

He rushed to her in compassion and spread his hands around her back to give her solace.

“I’m not here to do any of that.”

“It was not your fault at all. It was an accident, and I understand that.”

After a few minutes of consoling her, she finally stopped sobbing and raised up her head to look at his face.

“I’m so sorry about all that.” he started, in a warm soothing voice.

“She was totally wrong to hit you, and I take full responsibility for that.”

“I also heard about your job, and I’m sorry about that too.”

“And I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to make it up to you.” Arthur said with more intensity in his voice.

“That job was the only thing I had,” she said.

You could see the pain in her blood-red eyes.

She was scared because she didn’t know what to do. It was at a dead end for her. She had a lot of student loans to pay and she was an orphan with nobody to assist her since her dad died.

“Don’t worry Aria. We’ll find you a new job.”

“How did you know my name?” she asked, staring deep into his eyes, shocked.

He chuckled lightly and said, “Don’t worry about that. I’ll tell you everything, but for now, you need to take an aspirin and have a cold shower to help with your hangover.”

“Alright.”

“You’re a nice guy.” she said, forcing a smile on her lips.

She stood up and got an aspirin from the cabinet. She swallowed it and gulped down a bottle of water afterwards, before heading to the bathroom.