Aria's Mistake

13

Aria and Aiden had stopped in front of the café

"You don't have to come with us" she tried convincing him, she knew the apartment wouldn't be anything special and Aiden was used to high class apartment, she didn't want him to see how low-class or middle-class her apartment was just like Dena would have called it. She looked at the time; Blake was supposed to be here some five minutes ago.

"Of course I will come, we're friends now and I want to make sure you don't get ripped off" Aiden said while smiling at her. Aria couldn't do anything, she couldn't stop him. He was really taking the friendship thing to another level. Their awkward moment was broken as Blake came walking over from the other side of the street.

"Okay, I am here, are you ready?" Aria and Aiden looked fast away; Aria looked at Blake biting her lower lip.

"Yeah, we're ready" she said with a fake smile and they started walking. Aiden walked in the middle of Aria and Blake. They were walking in silence, an awkward silence. Happily Aiden was the one to break it.

"So have you seen the apartment before?" he asked, they walked around the corner and down on a new street.

"Well I have seen the building" she said thinking of the run down building they were on their way to see. As they got closer to the building she added

"I am sorry if this isn't nice, but this all I could find." Blake spoke calmly as they stopped in front of the building, Aria looked up at it, it had six floors, and the walls were painted grey, as if it was painted some twenty years ago, so most of the paint had been long gone, scattered shots of some dull liquid filled the walls. The windows were all really dirty. She gulped and turned to look at Aiden.

"You can just wait here" she tried again, not wanting him to see the inside of the train wreck.

"No, this I want to see" Aiden said and started to walk inside. Aria started to follow, but Blake grabbed her arm. Aria looked at her.

"What?" she asked whispering knowing it was something about Aiden, Blake looked to see that Aiden had gone inside.

"What is he doing here?" she asked, Aria rolled her eyes.

"He wanted to see the place" she said before she walked in after him. Blake shook her head and followed.

Aria looked around the apartment, her mouth open, this was worse than she had imagined. The walls looked like they were about to fall apart; there was only one window. It smelled like fifty drunken people had slept there and didn't bother to open the window for a week. The kitchen was in a corner; it had a dirty fry pan. In the opposite corner there was a half wall and behind it, it stood an old sprinkle bed. It looked like it was made for a jail cell not an apartment. Aria slowly walked over to the only door and opened it. She put her hand over her mouth and tried hard not to gag of the site of the small run down bathroom. The toilet was baby pink a dirty, plus it leaked water down in a bucket that was almost filled with water. The white dirty sink was placed so close to the toilet that you couldn't actually sit on the toilet without bumping into the sink. On the other wall was a showerhead nothing more. She turned around looking horrified at Blake and Aiden. Blake mouth a sorry to Aria as they all looked horrified around the room. Suddenly a voice interrupted the silence.

"So are you moving in?" The tree of them turned around to look at the man standing in the door. It was the landlord; he had given them the key to look around. He looked like the apartment, like a train wreck. He had almost no hair, he was huge and his clothes. His grey t-shirt had sweat stains under both arms and some kind of red sauce stains all over the front. His pants hung too low making the bottom of his stomach hang out to the whole world to see. After none of us answered him, he asked again.

"So?" before Aria got the chance to answer Aiden stepped in.

"No way you are living here Aria, I don't even think a place like this is healthy to live in" he said and started to walk over to the door, Blake nodded in agreement and walked after him, but Aria was still standing there.

"Wait you guys" she said looking down at the dirty floor. Aiden and Blake stopped shocked and turned around looking at her friend.

"I don't have a choice" Aria said. Aiden looked at the landlord who was now smiling, "The apartment is $800 a month" he said smirking. Aiden looked at Aria.

"Forget it Aria, I can get you an apartment, much nicer than this if you just come with me" he said looking at the landlord. Aria looked at Aiden.

"Where? There's no free apartments in my price range left" she said. Aiden smiled.

"My dad owns some university apartments, I'll get you a good deal" he said looking into Aria's sad eyes.

"Trust me" he said, and Aria nodded. She didn't really know Aiden that well, but she felt like trusting him on this was the best idea, she didn't actually want to spend all that money on a crappy apartment. She looked at the landlord again and gave him a fake smile.

"Sorry, I think I'll go with my friend here, but good luck renting it out"

"Ok fine, $600" the landlord tried, but we walked over to the door and left, it felt good saying no, but scary at the same time, she was still homeless. Aiden got up his phone and texted someone.