I'm not always an easy man to get along with. I'm arrogant, I'm self-assured, I'm unapologetic and even worse, I'm almost always right. For people that like to argue or want me to see things differently, this is frustrating all to hell. Then again, if I'm already right, why do I want to become wrong? To couple with my superior attitude, I'm not the most empathetic person. I don't feel other people's pain. I just want them to stop feeling sorry for themselves and get out of my way. In short, I have been called a total bastard.

   I lived up that reputation for a while. My complete refusal to accept some guy that had himself surgically altered to look like a woman won me no friends in Austin. I told the guy that his DNA still said he was a man, so he was a man. I would referred to the guy as 'he', even though he demanded to be called 'she'. I wouldn't budge, he wasn't a she, he was a he. No amount of self denial was going to change that. If I have myself surgically altered to look like Jacques Cousteau doesn't make me French I told him. He didn't need my understanding, he needed the number to a psychiatrist. Cutting your privates off doesn't make you a woman, it makes you a eunuch. For that I earned the nickname of the Green Eyed Monster up in our state capital. I was asked to move on as I wasn't welcome in those digs. So I packed my bags. Didn't change the fact the guy was still a guy.

   So I found myself back in Houston for a third time. It was like Michael Corleoni said, when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. This city is a black hole, you can't leave it easily. I've tried. One day I was getting ready for work and there was a curious email in my folder. Someone wanted to know if I was really engaged to a certain woman. It was a decade since I had last seen my ex, and then it didn't end well because I didn't have my head screwed on straight. But yes, I had been engaged.

   I'm not the most trusting person. I've had too many people promise to help me and walk away. I've loaned out a month's pay to various people and never saw them again. My words were frequently twisted by others and used against me. When somebody I don't know comes out of the blue and says they are looking for a woman I dated, my ears go up. My ex had married a man that turned out to be less than pleasant. He tried to manipulate me to hurt her, so I was very suspicious. But something about this letter was different. She was almost pleading in nature, so my armor cracked. Just once.

   Vil sent me her biography. She was my ex's half sister, after their dad divorced he got remarried years later. Vil came along not knowing she had a brother and a sister until her father died. On his death bed he told her about his previous family. Vil decided to track down her missing siblings. The story I wrote about Charatsang and my grandfather's funeral was already published, and that's how Vil found me. Charatsang isn't exactly a very common name. But Vil had her contact.

   After several weeks of correspondence she convinced me she was on the up and up. She sent me a large amount of documents, photographs and personal information to give to her sister. Two problems, I wasn't the most popular person with her family and I hadn't seen the woman in a decade. Any attempt to get Chara the proof I was afraid would be construed as stalking or harassment. I knew her aunt had a curio shop in Humble. I decided to just drop it off and wipe my hands clean.

   I walked into a buzzsaw. Her aunt was deeply distrustful of me, even when I just wanted to drop the envelope and leave. I had to try and sell her that I wasn't stalking her niece. I was just trying to do my one good deed of the century. Her employees could see I wasn't being malicious, I just wanted to help a woman find her sister. I left the envelope and walked out sure that it was going straight into the trash.

   I told Vil about my apparent failure and she took it well. She was going to try and contact her brother who I didn't know very well at all. We kept in touch for a while, but kind of drifted apart after a few months. A few months after the entire affair I found another curious message in my inbox. My ex sent me an email thanking me for helping her sister. She then said she always knew I wasn't the bad man her family thought I was. That was three years ago. Haven't seen her since, but at least I know I'm not as much as a bastard as I thought I was.