I pick up a tiny lacy lavender cloth and hold it up in the air. My mouth waters. “Does this come with a bra?”
“Put it back!” she shouts.
“You should hold on to them.” For later. When she’s ready for me to tear it off her.
I stuff it back and close the drawer. I notice now that the dresser’s the same color as the opposite wall. I’ve picked up through the years that she likes green.
“What color is this?” I tap a finger on the dresser.
“Dulux Wicked Witch.” She answers without hesitation. That’s rather specific. “My favorite.” Good to know.
“It’s nice.”
“It should be, it’s the color of – ” she brakes herself and looks away. “Apples,” she whispers then. But I’m sure it’s not what she was going to say. “Fresh apples.”
I walk to the open cupboard and something grabs my attention. There on a hanger is a black leather jacket with the Monster and Reaper logo on its sleeve. My jacket. The one from years ago. She kept that too.
“So … you and Ren had a fight?”
“What’s it to you?” She crosses her arms and glares at me as if contemplating doing something to me that will hurt. Badly.
“Just curious.”
I watch the expressions on her beautiful face. She regroups herself and then says casually. “He just wants different things.”
“Like?” I expect her to be stubborn and not answer.
“Marriage. A family.” No way in hell. “Hell, I’m not even legal to drink, and he wants me to be a mommy.” Shit no. The only baby she’s ever going to have will be mine. Someday.
“What do YOU want?” I turn to face her from across the room. “Really.”
She tops for a bit. “I don’t know what I want?”
“I think you want a love that engulfs you. With someone real. Someone who understands your soul.” Like me. My voice breaks. Fuck I’m so hexed.
She tops some more. “Do you know someone like that?”
Yes. “Maybe.” I stopped breathing.
“I’m not sure you can find it all in one person.” My heart drops. I’m sure someday I can be that person to her. But it’s going to take some convincing for her to trust me.
I slowly make my way over to where she’s sitting. Very slowly. And with each step, her eyes grow wider.
“If you trust, you can.”
I bend down, placing my hands on the couch backside either side of her, leaving only inches between our faces.
“What are you doing?” Her voice croaks with anticipation, maybe a little fear. She’s not blinking.
“I’m trying not to kiss you.” She smells like flowery soap – and fudge. Her bottom lip quivers just ever so slightly. Moving away is one of the most difficult things I’ve done. I stand up straight and gaze down. She looks as thrown as I feel.
“I brought pizza.”
Date = 7 November
Place = San Francisco (Mel’s house) (Scoma’s Restaurant)
POV – Melaena
“Ouch,” I grimace as I lift the razor. Blood trickles from just below my knee where I nicked myself with the blade. I hate shaving my legs, but I hate waxing even more. Carefully I glide the razor over my knee, removing the last bit of golden hair. I rinse it away under the tap.
Now for under my arms.
I wipe the steam from the mirror and stare at myself. My intestines pull into a knot as I look into my own eyes, trying to ignore the message my ‘windows to the soul’ portray back to me. My deepest, darkest secrets; the ones I’m desperately hiding from everybody – including myself – I have more feelings in my right tiny toenail for the devil I hate, than I have for the guy who is picking me up later.
How messed up is that? And what’s more, I want that devilish naked body sprawled over mine. That there is not just messed up, it’s juiced up crazy.
And even worse is that the devil was right. I do want a love that engulfs me, with someone real, that understands my soul.
The problem is that, if I let him, he can probably engulf me, and yeah, he seems to understand my soul, but – and there’s always a but – he’s not real.
I shake the thoughts of him from my head and meticulously scrape the baby-blue Gillette Venus under each arm before I walk into my room to get dressed.
A single red balloon hangs from my ceiling, an envelope with my name on, attached to the string.
“Fuck!” Terror grips me by the throat and between one heartbeat and the next, I’m transported to another place and another time.
I was almost eight. There was a carnival, and as you entered the haunted house, you were given a red balloon and told to follow the path. Somehow, I took a wrong turn and got separated from my brothers. Three fuck-ass ugly clowns, with sharp teeth, bloody knives, and eerie voices stormed me all at once.
Run. I told my feet. But they were stuck.
I watched them creep closer and closer.
Then BANG!
My red balloon popped. It unstuck my feet and I ran. I’ve always been fast, but that day I broke all records.
Afterward, my brothers went looking for the clowns. I don’t know if they ever found them. But I do know that I hated clowns ever since. They scare me shitless.