Rot

Sometimes, when I eat certain things, it seems like I can feel my insides rotting. Eating greasy cheeseburgers and fries from dirty fast food restaurants makes me feel like my arteries are being clogged with every bite that I take, and this cappuccino made my teeth feel like they were deteriorating from the volume of sugar that passed through my lips with each sip. Still, it’s sweet, thick, creamy warmness slid easily down my throat, and settled at the bottom of my stomach with satisfaction.

I wasn’t much for conversation with new people, either, so having the cup in front of my face created a protective shield against this stranger, who’s eyes seemed to penetrate. I took long, slow sips, trying to make the drink last as long as possible while Haley stared. My mind raced with questions and insecurities related to her penetrating gaze, but I tried to keep my face as stolid as possible. Showing emotion was a weakness.

“You’re so pretty, you know that?” Haley said, finally breaking the silence barrier and placing her tiny hand gently on my freckled face, the way a mother does to a child.

I leaned backward in surprise, pressing my back hard against the vinyl, but she kept her hand there.

That crooked grin, that I had pinned as one of her trademarks, spread across her face, then turned into a deliberate pout.

“Jeez, it was a compliment. No homo or anything,” she said as she crossed her arms across her chest.

“I know, I know,” I replied, leaning forward again. “It was just…there was some space issues there. I’m over it now.”

“Space issues,” she muttered, pretending to write on the imaginary notebook that was the palm of her hand, “Got it.”

“You take notes,” I stated. There was something to say about people who do that stupid little note thing. It shows sarcasm, I think.

“Yes, as do you. I know, because you just did it. Mentally.”

She pointed at me with her gun finger as she spoke, as if trying to drill a point into my thick skull. I felt like I had become a child to her, and it would have been condescending if it weren’t for the fact that it was probably my fault.

She raised her hand again (a very child-like thing to do) and made eye contact with Chad, who got the hint and sauntered unhurriedly to our table.

“What?” he asked.

“Tell my sister that I’m leaving and thanks for the free shit.”

With that, she stood up, and began walking toward the door. When she realized that she was alone, she whipped herself back around.

“You coming, or what?” she asked, as if it were obvious that I was supposed to follow her the first time.

“Coming? Coming where?”

“Going where. Don’t say coming like that, it sounds dirty.”

“Alright, where are we going?”

“To my house. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

And with that, we were off. Riding in the car wasn’t awkward, because the music was so loud that I couldn’t talk even if I wanted to. She drove without regard for the rules of the road, maneuvering her car down the crowded roads with speed and throwing it around turns. The turn signal only came into play on occasions.

Eventually, and miraculously, we got to our destination, which was a very-upper-middle class house, situated just before The Town turned into The Hills. The yard was big and green and perfect for a traditional childhood summer, and the house itself was a respectable tan color with black shutters. The part of me that loved cliché images adored the house, and for a second I was jealous and wished I could have spent my childhood here, playing with my dolls in the dirt and reading under the willow tree in the back. I pushed that from my mind, though, because I knew that things were never how they seemed, so it would be unfair to Haley to imagine her childhood as superior to mine, because it would probably be the opposite. Her childhood would end up being tragic, and I didn’t want to do that to her.

“Do you drink?” she asked as we stepped out of the car and headed toward the front steps.

“Occasionally. Why?”

“Just wondering. I don’t drink,” she spoke as she took off her jacket, hanging it on the coat rack. She kicked her shoes off, and I followed suit as she continued. “I don’t do drugs either-“ she looked at me with a questioning look in her eye, then waved it off with her hand and began up the stairs “I’ll save that question for another time. Anyway, I don’t drink or do drugs. I’m bent on finding the natural limits of the human mind. I don’t want anything altering that path. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, just not for me, y’know?”

I nodded my head, agreeing that it was, in fact, an interesting way to look at sobriety.

Once we reached the top of the stairs – and after I had questioned what I was doing here for the first time since arriving – she swung open the second door on the left, to reveal a room that obviously belonged to a girl. The walls were painted a bright pink color, but they were scrawled all over in different colors of marker. There was a vanity against one of the walls that was covered in make up and pictures, and a queen sized bed situated in the middle. On top of this bed, there was Adam.

Adam was an interesting looking person. His face was all angles, from his cheeks to his nose to his lips, and his eyes were a pale, baby-blanket color of blue. His hair was a startling color of blonde, which was longer than most boys’ hair, and was currently swept back into a ponytail. The blonde shade of his eyebrows and eyelashes looked strange against his pale eyes and skin, making him seem ethereal.

He was drinking straight from what looked like a bottle of wine, and my eyes wandered to the clock on the bedside table, which indicated that it was, by most people’s standards, too early to drink.

We walked into the room, and Adam placed the bottle on the stand and lay down, placing his hand on his stomach as if he had just eaten a big meal.

“I bet myself five bucks that this is how I would find you,” Haley said, sitting on the bed next to him.

He closed his eyes and smiled, which was more of a drunken smirk, and gave a half-hearted thumbs up.

“Well,” she began again, “this is Alex. Alex, this is the drunken idiot that we lovingly call Adam.”

“Um, nice to meet you,” I muttered quietly.

“Well, howdy-doody to you, too,” he said with a wave of his hand, which he made seem very heavy.

I suppose he thought that was a good enough first impression, because with out another word, and with the grace of a true drunk, his hand fell to the firm bed beneath him, and just like that, his lights were completely out.