What happens: Ellis and Amani hang out together, they get coffee and walk around a little, though not too much because Florida is very unwalkable. Amani has a driving license and Ellis doesn't so let's say they're about to leave whatever little café they're at and then they go drive somewhere else. Ellis is noticeably in a bad mood, though he doesn't talk about it -- not that Amani prompts him to. Ellis is very closed off and for many reasons mortified and ashamed to confront his own emotions, both because those emotions and the memories and experiences associated with them are often times humiliating and because's ashamed of the fact that those experiences have affected him in such a negative way at all. Amani meanwhile is really bad at consoling people. She isn't the kind of person people open up to, and for what it's worth: she is a pretty guarded person herself. Amani doesn't feel like there is any room for or consideration of her feelings, that het feelings and emotions are entirely unimportant, and thus doesn't open herself up to people. Hence why people don't open up to her either. The car ride is tense, because both of them are aware of 'something' being off, but neither of them wants to acknowledge this tension in favor of upkeeping a civil but rather shallow friendship; despite their many grievances. The dialogue between them is almost unapologetically awkward(they continue being awkward and don't bother to acknowledge it or talk about it, because they don't want to confront the source of the awkwardness), tense and cringe inducing because of their reticence to the point you start wondering why or how they're such close friends in the first place. (They are comfortable in eachothers presence and each provide, to some extent, what the other lacks and craves (but might not need). Ellis needs someone who acts equally as superficial as he does, someone who he can judge others with but doesn't judge him to a hypocritical extent. Someone who'll console him, only when he does something wrong and wont ask questions when he's wronged. Amani needs someone who can vouch for her. Someone who can defend her and lift her up and save her from awkward situations. Someone who makes her look cool by association, cool enough that they can both get away with punch down on others with.) This is around lets say 2008, so pre Ovid relationship. Short story beats: 1. They're both at a café or at least some place you can eat. Ellis only has a glass of water. Amani got a scone that she hasn't even picked at. When Ellis calls a waitress over so they can pay, the waitress asks Amani if she wants her pastry to go, because she hasn't even touched it. She considers against it, but Ellis tells her that she might as well get it to go, because if she doesn't want it he'll take it. He didn't get himself anything after all. Amani looks at him, a little confused, because if so: why didn't he get anything himself, or rather: why is he acting like he's going to finish her food later. She knows it's because he doesn't want to look anorexic in front of this waitress, she doesn't seem to be as impressed as some other women are by how skinny he is. She reprimands herself for thinking this and wonders if he might've said that so that she doesn't look like a fatty for getting takeout. She ends up getting it to go anyways and tells the waitress that her boyfriend might want it or something. Ellis gasps in feigned offense and cries out asking if she's cheating on him as he hands the waitress the money and looks at her. Amani, caught off guard for a second stumbles, before she giggles and rolls her eyes. She doesn't say anything, she can't think of a witty comeback. Instead, she gets up and tells the waitress the food was awesome, handing her over a 5 dollar bill, and then they leave. 2. The both of them get back to the car. Neither of them want to hang out at the mall anymore, Amani thinks she's too old for this, even though they did something as sophisticated as catch up at a café, just being at the mall is so juvenile, she thinks. They'd rather be in Miami right now -- Ellis agrees. They get in her car and while Amani struggles to leave the parking lot, Ellis puts on a mixtape he got from someone. "Oh my got turn it off that's so ghetto!", Amani yells, trying to tap the eject button all while looking in her rear-view mirror. Ellis laughs, he purses his lips indignantly and tells her that she can't say that and that it's not politically correct for her to call hip hop ghetto. She responds by asking him where he got that from and he responds by saying Malik. That he's a total hotep and that he's morrocan and that he thinks it's weird he's so gung ho about all this 'african black liberation' stuff, because he's not even black. Amani looks at him, "what?", she asks, genuinely confused by his comment, and Ellis quickly backtracks saying that he's North African, so he's not 'like dark and shit'. Amani scoffs, nearly chuckles at his comment but ignores it. "PC much", she says as she finally, succesfully ejects the cd. Ellis asks her why she doesn't like hiphop and that he thinks this stuff is pretty tame compared to the stuff his other friends 'bump sometimes' and Amani says that she doesn't want to be seen listening to vulgar, shallow music about sex, money and murder. That she honestly doesn't get why Ellis is into it and that she doesn't think it sounds good anyways, musically speaking. She likes rnb way more. Ellis rolls his eyes and says whatever, he comments that it must be hard for her to hang around their friends then, because this is all they listen to. Francis as well, probably. "No Francis likes the stuff I like", Amani retorts, not bothering to correct the assumption more than that. "Like what like Britney Spears? God i'd be sick if I had to listen to white girl music like all the time", he comments. This conversation continues for a while.

not finished :P
"Cute or what?", Ellis asked sarcastically, stretching his leg out towards Amani's side of the table to show off an entirely unremarkable sneaker. They were a stark contrast to his usual choice of footwear: flashy, bordering on clashing heels or some other unconventional shoe. Ellis had shown up to their dinner date wearing a plain blue t-shirt, a pair of mud-washed levi's and those really ugly tennis shoes; Amani noticed pretty much immediately, and consequently couldn't stop noticing how boyish he looked. Like a guy, a little bit. "Yea I was literally thinking the entire time about why you're so butch today", she absentmindedly pressed her pastry fork against her stale, untouched scone. It's prongs barely penetrating the crusted surface, which caused it to slip across her plate. The sound of her fork subsequently scraping against the plate made her flinch and she looked down at the table, at her uneaten pastry, only to quickly look back up at Ellis. "Are they yours?"

"I just like wanted to wear something comfortable today. Something whatever", Ellis was nibbling a lock of hair he had pinched between his fingers. He occassionaly tugged on it, picking attentively at the worst looking dead ends. "Also they're like not mine obviously", he muttered between gritted teeth. He'd now switched his attention to his index fingernail and was scraping it against the gaps between his teeth or biting down and pulling on it. "I'm so out of it right now! Fuck!" His press-on nail was on the verge of breaking off and judging by the other four fingers, he'd been biting his nails for a while. "Just get a coffee or something", Amani watched as Ellis tore the press-on off completely and cringed at the sound of the plastic squeaking as it tore. She really wanted to tell him off. He looked like such a weirdo and it made her a little uncomfortable, but he was obviously doing bad and she didn't want to add insult to injury, so she averted her gaze back to his shoes instead. They made his feet look really big, she thought now that she really looked at them, or maybe he just had big feet, which made her wonder how he got his feet to fit into his heels or where he'd managed to find size ten and a half stiletto's.

Neither of them spoke. Ellis too preoccupied with "Hi there, you guys doing good?", the waitress asked as she stared down at the two of them, "do you want anything else? Something to eat", she asked Ellis, "or drink?", she then asked Amani. Ellis, who had corrected his posture now that someone else had joined them, quickly shook his head, "No actually can we get the bill?" He then promptly turned towards Amani and shrugged his shoulder at her, smiling sheepishly while his brows furrowed, "I kinda want to leave anyways, right?"

Dialogue between friends 1