The Day I Kissed An Older Man by Cher the Cherished

"He's a waste of oxygen. From the looks of it, he's probably done it countless times," Rita said. She had already grabbed a brick just in case the homeless man had not come to her aid. If he had not struck the drunkard on the back, it might have been his head that was in jeopardy.

When they relocated to another spot, Rita finally remarked, "Ah, so you can speak. I thought you'd keep quiet forever."

The man did not respond to Rita's jibe. He draped a thin blanket over himself and wrapped a torn cotton jacket around his neck.

"You haven't been through what I have," the man muttered.

Rita knew what he meant by that. He was implying that she had not gone through what he had and was thus unable to understand the reasoning for his choices. However, she did not understand why he was so reluctant to share what he went through with the reporters since it had already happened to him.

speak out rather than just remaining homeless on that soon-to-be-repurposed land. Rita frowned and wondered

lost

reporters, but she did not expect that the profession itself had such a detrimental impact

might not

understand what transpired on this land, such as why the developers appear to be at no fault whatsoever. Some even hail them as the kind of benevolent and rare developers. Why would such a well-regarded developer have such a contentious issue with you and your family? There must

pause, the homeless man offered a bitter smile. "Me and my family, you say? I don't have a family now..t don't even know why still have this grudge when others have moved on. Perhaps I should've just left like everyone else. Then I won't have to face everything that happened after that. I was naive, and I thought that collective resistance would prevail. In the end, it was all just

'them', are you referring to the developers? Did they force everyone to leave?" Rita's heart raced as she sensed