Pretty Little Thing.

The boy, no more than a kid himself, watched as the heavy waitress, his aunt, carried plate after plate to the small girl’s table. He watched as the girl’s eyes darkened and darted around the café, and he watched as she pushed each meal as far away as possible with a disgusted look on her face.

Why had she ordered all that food if she hadn’t wanted it? He didn’t understand. She looked hungry; she had seemed hungry when she shuffled in, so why did she push it away now? He watched her a bit longer as she hungrily gulped down her coffee. None of this made a bit of sense to the boy, and finally, he had enough of the curiosity and talked himself into walking over to her.

His long legs had him there and scooting in across from her before she could say anything in protest. However, the booth had no problem speaking its mind; the red leather moaned in discomfort as the boy’s gangly figure squeezed into the tight space.

The girl watched cautiously while this scene played out, she could see the nerves dancing across the boy’s face.
Maybe this was a mistake.

“Hi, I’m Noah,” the boy said, extending his hand to the thin girl.

“Cara.” She answered him with a quick nod and met his hand half way before returning to her coffee. She really couldn’t do much more; she could feel the tall beauty’s eyes staring impatiently at hers. In Noah’s attempt to woo her he had shoved the beauty against the cold window and she wasn’t happy. Coming here had pissed her off enough, this was just icing on the fucking cake.

“I better go,” Cara said as she scooped up the ticket and started towards the bar.

“Uh, wait. Aren’t you going to eat any of this? They went through all that work to…”

“Have it,” she said flipping her hand carelessly in the air.

As quickly as possible, Cara signed the receipt and let herself out of the door, leaving an optimistic ding! in her wake.

Cara began walking back to her apartment in a daze. The rain had finally stopped and the sun was peeking out smugly from behind a thin wall of clouds. The city was alive around her; it swarmed with men on small cell phones and shopping bag clad ladies. Everything about this city screamed life and normalcy, until the sun went down.

Cara moved to New York when she first turned eighteen, she was still a child and her mind was full of dreams and brightly lit streets. New York was her dream come true. She had plans and goals; she was going to take the whole city by storm. She was a strong little girl, but a little girl all the same, and no little girl belongs in a big, big city like New York. Cara quickly found the downfall of her lack of experience; she was living from paycheck to paycheck and had to ask for help quite frequently. Things weren’t going as planned.

It was then that the monster found its home deep inside her mind. She learned to live off of little to no food, spending that money on a gym card and new clothes that flattered her new figure. The monster grew and grew inside of Cara until there was nothing left, nothing but a set of solid cheekbones and a cage of cracking ribs.

Some days Cara woke up feeling like her old self again. She went to class and did her work. On other days, Cara walked around like a zombie, her limbs took her from place to place as her mind went into a nauseating hibernation. On those days, the sun could peek out, the skies could shine a bright blue, the air could be filled with smiles and happy chatter, but still Cara bore her teeth and took a bite out of the world.

The monster living inside of Cara had taken over, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.