Love Among the Pizza Boxes

My one-room studio apartment may be small, but it’s home. To both me, and Sketch, my very colorful parrot. He’s really the only color in my whole apartment. My favorite color is white, even though it’s supposedly the presence of all color. My best friend Benjamin told me that, and argues that my favorite color is every color. But if I liked every color then my room would be colorful, not all white. That made him fall silent.
I’ve lived here since I was eighteen, which is only two years ago. I moved from my parents’ house the day of my birthday, much to their disliking. I just couldn’t take it in the big city anymore. I needed something more quiet. So I came here, to the mainland, a much slower-paced city than New York. I came here for psychology, which is my major in college, and I heard that Destiny Islands Community College has a very good psychology program.
“Rah!” guffaws Sketch. “Where’s the douche bag?”
He learned naughty words from the bird keeper I got him from. Not me. I don’t like to speak that kind of language. It makes me feel dirty and gross inside. Outside, too.
“Now, Sketch, I told you – he’s a nice guy,” I scold him gently.
“Douche bag, douche bag!” he chided.
There’s a knock on my front door.
I look at the door a little frantically, then give Sketch a stern, hard stare. “You behave yourself now, Sketch. That’s him.”
Taking a deep breath, I smooth out the skirt of my white babydoll dress and fix my light yellow short cardigan, tug at my hair to perfect it even though it does nothing, then I open the door.
There stands a fine specimen of the human race, with tousled blond hair and a crooked nose – Lance.
“Hello, Lance,” I say to him with a smile on my lips.
“Hey, baby,” he huskily replies, then lets himself in.
I blush. No one has ever called me ‘baby’ before. But, then again, I’ve never had a serious boyfriend before.
“Nice place you got here,” Lance comments apprehensively as he looks around my small apartment. He picks up a book of mine – Interview with a Vampire by Stephen King (My all-time favorite book by my all-time favorite author) – and makes a face at it. He tosses the book back on my clean white desk and smiles back up at me.
“Thank you,” I say sincerely.
“Liar! Liar!” squawks Sketch, ruffling up his feathers and showing off his not-so-impressive wingspan.
Lance jumps back, his eyes wide. “What the – “
“That’s Sketch, my parrot,” I explain to him for the third time. “You’ve… met before.”
“We have?” Lance doesn’t seem to register that fact for a while. “Oh… right.”
The first time I had ever met Lance, I was at Petsmart with Sketch, getting him some more bedding for his cage. Lance works there, and he checked me out – in more ways than one, he admits. Just thought of it makes me blush. Lance hit on me, Sketch called him a sleaze-bag Mc Doucher Face. Lance asked me out, Sketch pouted the whole way home.
“So, you ready to go?” Lance asks.
I nod and smile. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

He decided to take me to a movie. So we got to the theatre, and he held my hand in line for concessions. When we got up there, it was a boy a year or so younger than us. He smiled at me and Lance. I smiled back, being polite; Lance protectively wrapped his arm around my waist.
Inside the actual theatre, once the house lights were down, he set the popcorn down in the empty seat beside him and moved the drink over there as well so he could move the arm rest into its upright position.
I just brushed it off and continued to watch the movie.
Halfway through the movie, I soon felt his hand on my back, rubbing it in small, simple motions, slowly venturing down, dangerously close to my… behind.
Once again, I assumed it was nothing because he stopped just as soon as he started.