Hey, Ally, it's Wednesday in case you forgot. Lunch at 1?

It was half an hour past 1 as I stood bitterly outside the vegan café, one of my hands clutching the umbrella and the other my phone as I blinked at the screen. She had left me on seen, yet I hoped that she would show up because of the goodness in her big heart. She didn't, she wasn't going to. She would never forgive me for I had killed all the goodness in her.

I sighed audibly, slipping the phone in my pocket and hating to break the tradition of lunching with Ally. I looked longingly through the glass-sheathed walls of the café, people in cardigans huddled together with warm plates of food in front of them. I was tempted to get away from this cold rain and step inside, but I knew that once I settled on the cosy chairs, I would be dourly reminded of the absence of a certain blonde head girl in front of me.

Instead, I resolutely strode towards Sam's dad's humble restaurant for a bowl of cheap beef noodles and perhaps a lucky glimpse of Sam.

"The regular," I said with a little smile to Sam's dad who stood behind the counter vigorously wiping a bowl which looked clean enough.

"Are you looking for Sam?" he asked knowingly in his sombre voice, the kind of voice which never wavered according to emotions. "He left just five minutes ago."

"Oh." I could feel the disappointment seep in me as I tried to stop it from consuming. "Never mind, I'll talk to him later."

Lies. I went on texting him, but like Ally, he too left me on read. I could sense an entire army of haters meticulously forming against me.

Sam's dad imperceptibly nodded and commanded my order to one of his workers. The restaurant, if I could take the liberty to call that, was a little shack on the corner of the street serving the best noodles in the entire town. The wafting aroma always pulled in the unsuspecting people casually strolling on the sidewalk and that was how the restaurant built up its reputation. Now this place was busy the entire day with not an inch of space visible because of the hungry crowd. I could feel the breath of the person behind me on my hair and it wasn't a pleasant feeling.

It was hot inside and one didn't get out without being drenched in sweat. Sam's dad had permanent pit stains on his white undershirt and there were rare moments where I had seen him in a clean, decent shirt. The last was on Sam's parents-teachers meet six months back.

He had fresh scars now and that made him avoid eye-contact with any customers, including me. Sometimes, I prayed for his monster of a wife to be dead. The restaurant would have been much bigger with all the money that was being spent on her and Sam and his dad would have been happier. The thought of how the death of a person could bring happiness astonished me.

Will the death of me bring---?

The big bowl of beef noodles was placed in front of me with a deliberate noise. That was sort of their style, to generate the noise of the bowl striking against the counter. The steam rose from the piping hot soup in which the meat and the noodles were getting more cooked.

It was the steam, I swear it was the steam that made my eyes watery and caused a drop to fall in the soup and create a gentle ripple.

"Whatever she's having, make one!" I heard the person beside me slur as he sat on the dented steel stool. These stools were the kind which would creak horribly if moved, hence nobody moved them. They stayed at their spots every day which made me wonder if their rust had penetrated into the floor like the roots of the tree. Goddamn, it was so hot and the steam. The steam made more water to dribble down my eyes. "And quick!"

I flinched at his yell and mumbled, "Everyone hates me."

"Same!" The man beside me exclaimed, feigning enthusiasm.

"My father hates me, my friends hate me." I didn't know why, but I couldn't help. I wanted to unburden myself on a stranger because I wouldn't see him again. I didn't mind him judging me because he would carry my burden for a few hours and forget.

Plus, he was drunk.

"They're good people you know," I continued shamelessly. "They're good."

"Well . . . " the stranger began, his tone light. "My parents divorced when I was five, got new, additional ones at eight who also divorced when I was ten . . . Twelve . . . Was it fifteen? Fuck it."

He received his order in the same noisy fashion as I did and we both stirred our soups with the spoons.

"Then I got married and divorced, both at twenty-one. Who gets divorced at twenty-one?" He laughed hysterically at his own question. "Then I got married some more again years later, don't remember, don't care. Had a kid. Then got divorced."

All I could hear was divorce, divorce, divorce and it amused me thoroughly. The water had stopped flowing from eyes and the steam had vaporized. Knew that it was the steam, the bloody steam was to be blamed for. 

"High five, everyone hates me." He indifferently slurped his noodles, chewing hurriedly as if he feared the noodles would become alive and slither away like slimy snakes. With his mouth full, he added, "Even my kid."

"How?" I asked, to add on to my own amusement.

"He's five and tells everyone that I died in a drink and drive accident. He could have been more creative, but he's just like his dad. Plain and an obvious sob story." There was a sudden rueful undertone in his seemingly cheerful voice. "Hey, at least you have good ones mad at you. Here I have the bad ones mad at me."

"What's the point? I'd rather have bad ones being mad at me because my badness and theirs could match." I sucked in my noodles and swallowed them completely before rambling on, "With good people, I can't match. I feel like they have every right to be mad at me and stay like that forever. But I don't want them to stay like that forever, you know. Anger like that will make them like me, horrible."

My eyes slyly averted to him in a desperate attempt to gain some sympathy, some reassurance. However, he simply shifted on his dented stool and licked the corner of his lips. For the first time, I noticed the stranger properly. Under the soft glow of the dim lights, his large, sweaty forehead shone and there were huge bags underneath his drunken, red-rimmed eyes. The first few buttons of his shirt were undone and his curly chest hair peeked from within.

"Good people are like candles," he began. "You give them a bit of light and they'll melt. They'll melt and melt till you have taken everything from them and they're left with nothing."

I found my gaze innately fall on Sam's dad and his numerous scars, both old and new.

The stranger scratched his chest and drank some of the soup, the liquid trickling down his chin. "Do that, show your good friends a bit of light. A bit of kindness. They'll be back to being good."

"Then what? I'll take and take till I shred them to pieces?"

"You could do that or blow off the candle flame when you have taken enough." He swiped the back of his hand across his wet chin. "Enough is never but."

"So to win them back, I'll have to be kind till they---"

"Man, this was great!" He interrupted and stretched himself. "Best. Fucking. Noodles. Ever. EVEEEEEER!"

That shout earned him disapproving looks from everyone in the restaurant who were hungry, hot and bothered.

The stranger got up from the stool and swayed a little, before steadying himself and fishing out coins from his breast pocket. "Fuck, fuck. There's supposed to be more."

"I'll cover," I offered readily, having found new reverence for this drunken loser.

He gave me a long look as if having forgotten that he spoke to me just a few minutes back. Then he smiled, pleased with me and placed his hand on my head. He ruffled my hair which was still damp from the rain a little, stopped, then stumbled forward, nearly knocking a fat man's fifth bowl of noodles on his way out.