Eat.

I sat at biology and watched the teacher drone on about the different stages of mitosis as I aimlessly took notes on the subject. I looked at the seat next to me and sighed sadly. Brian wouldn’t be back until Monday and I was happy that he was finally coming back because I needed someone to suffer through this with me. I took a breath of relief when the bell rang, smiling lightly to myself, I stuffed all my things in my bag and and walked out the room. I winced internally when I saw Mario standing next to the door, his lip still busted open and his nose still broken. I smiled at him lightly as he wrapped his arm around my waist tightly. It was the end of the day and all I wanted was to go home and do nothing but my school work. But I had a feeling that Mario had something different planned.

“So you and me,” He began to whisper in my ear, “A nice, quick sesh in the car?”

I shook my head, “Not today.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I’m tired.” I lied

“Right after we can go to my place and sleep. I saw that you’ve gotten a new body since the last time I saw you and I want to give the new car a ride.”

I gritted my teeth, the fact that he compared me to an inanimate object disgusted me, “Not today, Mario.” I said more firmly.

“Don’t be such a prude.” He grabbed my arm as I began walking away, “Why don’t you be a good girl and do what I tell you?”

“You better get your hand off her before I re-open that cut my good ol’ friend gave you.” Matt growled

I turned around to see him towering Mario, even when his hands were in his jacket pockets I could tell that they were curled and white knuckled. Val looked at me worriedly as she did her best to calm her boyfriend down. I saw that Mario’s jaw tightened as he gave me scowl before leaving.

“You okay?” Matt asked after he had left

I nodded, rubbing the red marks that my boyfriend had left on my wrists, “I’ll be fine.”

“You know, you really shouldn’t take that shit from him.” Val told me

I let out a sad laugh, “It’s like another Brian.”

“You do know he’s right, right?” Matt asked,
I let out an exasperated sigh, “But what am I going to do?”

“Dump him.” Val said under her breath

“It’s not that easy, he wasn’t always like this. It’ll all be over soon and he’ll go back to normal.”

“How do you know that the beginning wasn’t a show and this is his normal behavior?” She asked me

I raised my hand to mouth as I began to chew on my fingernail, they had a point. But I couldn’t just leave him, I couldn’t give up on him. At least, not yet.

“We’ll go now,” Matt sighs, putting his large hands on Val’s shoulders, “Changing the subject entirely, you should go visit Jimmy soon, he really wants you to meet Emili.”

“I might go see her today after I drop off Brian’s homework.”

“Okay, take care, okay? I don’t want anything happening to you.” She says, putting her small hands on my shoulders as she pulled me into a hug.

I laughed when I saw Matt roll his eyes as I hugged her back, “I’ll be fine. Really.”



After Brian’s dad let me in through the front door, I walked up the familiar set of stairs and knock loudly on his his bedroom door.

“What do you want?” He groaned.

“I have homework.”

“Come back never.” I heard him say, his voice muffled by his pillow. I rolled my eyes and opened the door to see that he was shirtless in bed, his pillow over his head and his arms under it, “Sorry, I’m dead, I can’t do any homework.”

“You better do this homework dead or not because your homework is a study guide and the test is Monday.” I smirked, dropping the books on his butt, making him grunt in pain.

“Well why don’t you just drop a boulder on me instead?” He groans, flipping over and sitting up so that the books fell to his side, “What the fuck, I have to do all of this?!”

“Maybe if you hadn’t ignored my calls from the past three days this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I was busy.” He shrugs

“Doing what? Sleeping with girls?”

“Sleeping, yes. With girls, no.”

“Have you finally convinced yourself that you really are gay and that you and Zacky have a thing?” I laughed

“Haha.” Brian rolled his eyes and grabbed the pre calculus book first, “Can you stay over and help me with this?”

“I would but I promised Jimmy that I would go see him and Emili.”

“You can see them tomorrow! Please Ellie, please help me with this?” He pouted, his hands folding themselves as he began to beg

I sighed and looked at the alarm clock on the side of his bed, “Fine. I’ll stay for a while.”

“Good because I have no idea what the hell is going on here.” He sighed, flipping through the endless pages of pre calculus homework.

“Let’s start with this one, Graph an Equation of an Ellipse.”

“Fun, fun, fun.” He sighed



“Okay, if I do anymore work I might kill myself.”

I rolled my eyes, “Drama queen.”

Brian fell back on the bed and threw up his hand, “I think you mean drama king.”

“Well, excuse me.”

“Come lay down next to me and nap.”

“I have to go visit Jimmy’s baby.”

“How are you going to do that if visiting hours are over?” He asked, propping himself up on his elbows as he smirked at me.

“You devious bastard, you planned this from the beginning, didn’t you?” I laughed

“Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. You’ll never know, so come here.”

I laughed as he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me down on top of him. My heart pounded against my chest as his arms removed themselves from my waist so that his fingertips were lightly touching my hips. Neither one of us were saying but what happened next was completely involuntary, or at least that’s what I told myself.



But it wasn’t a normal accident. I knew deep in my mind that it wasn’t an accident because I wanted this to happen. I wanted him to kiss me back and that’s exactly what he did. But he kissed me like...like, he shouldn’t have. Not full of saliva and lust like Mario but he kissed me like he almost...loved me.

I pulled away breathlessly, my forehead against his own as his fingers traced up and down my side, “I have to go.”

“You don’t have to.” He said softly

I swallowed hard as I felt tears rimming my eyes while I grabbed my bag, “No actually, I really do. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Brian sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he smiled at me lightly, “Tomorrow.”

I nodded and pressed my lip in a tight line before closing the door and running out the front door and into my car. The whole drive home consisted of me wiping the tears away from my eyes and cursing at myself for doing what I did. I kissed him and the worst fucking part of this whole drama was that I liked it, I wanted to keep going. I sat parked in my driveway, my head in my hands sobbing my heart out.

I looked at the glove department and then to my phone. I bit my lip as I reached over to grab the blue sliver of paper inside an envelope. I punched the number into my phone and hoped that it would ring out. More tears fell down my face when I heard three rings and someone answer.

“Hello?” A woman on the other side said

“Mommy?” I asked shakily

“Elizabeth?”