Beautiful/Terrible

That night I slept at Allen’s house. I didn’t bother calling my parents or texting them a little note. They would think I was staying over at Courtney’s another night.
In the morning I woke up in Allen’s strong arms, his bare chest pressed up against my back. I felt his hard chest rise and fall like a balloon being filled with air, expanding, and then being let go, retracting. It felt like the swell of the ocean, sea levels rising to touch me for just a moment, before lowering away from the shore.
I was an ice cube in the hot sun and I melted into his ocean, rising and falling with him. We stayed like this for a while until my bones were dust and my heart was rock and my flesh was dirt. We lay there until the end of time, so it seemed.
However, when his alarm clock rang I was brought back to the harsh reality that it was 9:00 in the morning.
I felt his ocean crash against me as he heaved himself up wards into a sitting position. I looked at him. He looked at me. I sat up and let the blanket fall back, revealing my breasts, and we sat like that staring at each other.
At some point one of us got the bright idea to turn off the alarm clock, which was still ringing incessantly.
Allen walked over to it and pushed in the small button, silencing its cries. Then, he walked over to his closet and pulled on some clothes.
I watched him as his muscles rippled and flexed with each movement, how they glided over bone. It was fascinating, and so I kept staring at his perfection, his naked body as he continued to search for something to wear. When he found some underwear I saw his spine reveal itself as he bent over to put them on. When he found a t-shirt I gazed open-mouthed as his shoulder blades sharply flew upwards to heave the black garment over his head, deltoids flexing and pulling across his shoulders. When he found a pair of skinny jeans in his closet I watched him put those on, too. He was a beautiful mechanical creature and it hurt.
He glanced at me and smirked, catching me staring. He didn’t say anything about it. He was like that sometimes. You never knew what he was thinking until we were in the field. In the field there were no secrets; there were no thoughts, only feelings; but outside of the field he was a complex mystery that I had yet to unravel, even though it seemed like he had unraveled me the first time we met. That was three years ago at freshman orientation of high school. Two and a half of those years together were spent dating each other, and yet he was still surprising me with every word that came out of his candy mouth.
I put on my bra and underwear from last night and Allen threw me a drug rug and shorts. The shorts hung a little loosely on my hips but I managed.
Allen led me downstairs, where his parents greeted us good morning and we sat down for breakfast. Allen’s mom, Shirley, was cooking bacon while his dad, Arthur, was making waffles. The joint aroma filled my insides with their morning glow and I closed my eyes and smiled. Closed my eyes and smiled.
A few minutes later breakfast was served and we all sat around the dining room table, hungry and ready to eat. I tried to concentrate on the conversation but I soon found that the sight of a glorious god sitting in front of me insisted on stealing my attention.
I watched as Allen piled food into his mouth and chuckled to myself at the maple syrup that had collected in the corner of his mouth. I watched, fascinated, as his jaw clenched and unclenched with every bite, two small mountain peaks forming over and over again. I stared, mesmerized, as his throat moved up and down in attempt to swallow the hunks of nourishing delectables. I gazed, captivated, as his temple swerved in and out with each swing of his jaw.
He was a terrifying creature of love and lust.
In my desperate plea to stargaze at his spectacular matter, I carelessly choked on the hazardous meal. I heaved for a moment before hacking up the now disgusting food. I bashfully looked up at the rest of the table to see them all staring at me in worry.
After reassuring them of my safety, we continued our meal.
“How was the concert?” Shirley asked us.
“Pretty bangin’,” said Allen. I nodded my head in agreement.
“Any drugs?” Arthur pitched in.
“Not really, most of the people in the back were smoking cigarettes but I think I saw a few people shooting up heroin,” Allen answered the question casually. Breakfast conversation of the Whitby family often went this way.
“Cool, cool,” Arthur said in response. A moment later he added, as if just realizing it was his responsibility to say so, “Stay safe, by the way.”
Shirley nodded in approval as she happily munched on her bacon.
I loved Allen’s family because of their dynamic. His parents totally used to be pot-heads and they didn’t bother hiding it, but then again they didn’t bother hiding anything. They were basically the chilliest people on earth.
As we finished up our meal, I silently excused myself to the kitchen and began cleaning my plate. I checked my phone to see a text message from my mother.
Mom: Don’t forget today you have a one-on-one session with Dr. Weiss at 12, followed by group at 1! :)
I groaned.
I really liked Dr. Weiss and I looked forward to our sessions, but I hated group. Who would like a collection of weird gangly teens with personality disorders and post-traumatic stress disorders? Not to mention the self-loathing anorexics.
The whole lot frustrated me mostly because they reminded me of myself but that didn’t mean I was going to hate them any less.
I tried to enjoy the rest of my morning, but the foreshadowing of group seemed to darken any chance of light. Eventually, I excused myself from the table and began to gather my things.
II made my way upstairs and hung a right into Allen’s room. The overnight bag I had taken to Courtney’s house was sitting by his bookshelf, lined with rows and rows of comics. I took the bag and hurled it over my shoulder, heading back downstairs. I told everyone of my departure and Shirley warmly hugged my goodbye. Arthur gave me a noogie and Allen stepped out with me.
Away from his parents, he now leaned in to kiss me goodbye. I felt his soft, tender lips caress my own. I pulled away and looked into his eyes. One was icy and blue, while the other was warm and brown. Just like me, I thought, reminded of what Allen had told me earlier.
Moments later I departed after a brief goodbye, and I walked for I while before I saw my mother’s car speeding towards me.
We rode in silence.
Finally, when we arrived at the office building of Dr. Weiss, I kissed my mother on the cheek and she smiled at me, a warm smile. Smile.
“Have fun!” she called out to me as she sped away, leaving me in her disastrous wake.
“Sure,” I muttered to myself.
I walked up the grey stone steps and I felt the frigid air brush past me. Goosebumps. I looked down and remember I was only wearing a drug rug and shorts. Oh, well. I continued into the building, I watched as my arms flexed against the weight of the cold, heavy door. As I drew it in closer to my body my breath formed on the cool glass and I continued. Respiration. It is life in exact essence.
I pushed the elevator button, not bothering to check the sign with all the doctor’s names on it for his floor- I had been here enough times already to have it figured out.
The doors squealed open and I stepped inside the shaft, lit up only by a dim light in the center of the roof. I pushed the button for floor three, and felt a small lurch as it hummed, back in business and ascending to the stars.
When the doors opened I confidently strut into the narrow hallway, better lit now, though a gross green tinge. When a light wooden door appeared in front of me I threw it open nonchalantly, and continued into the vicinity. This was Dr. Weiss’ office.
I rang the button to let him know I was here, there was no receptionist, and I sat back down into the hard chairs. Waiting.
After a few minutes he came in and I looked up at his stooped figure. He reminded me of a bird because he was very slender with a puffed out chest. He also had a prominent nose. He nodded at me and I stood.
“Good afternoon, Leda, and how are you today?” his ever so nasally voice rang out. Despite his wretched appearance and sound, he was actually a very nice man.
“Drab,” I said drably.
He led me into his office and sat down in his chair, I sat down in the loveseat across from it. It was patent leather and made you slide everywhere if you sat in it the wrong way.
He began with asking me the usual questions, checking up, and investigating everything about me to try and find out the cause of my depression. This took the entire session. At the end of the session, he asked me the same question he always did:
“Is there anything else you would like to tell me?”
Usually there wasn’t anything I had to tell him, he pried and poked through my brain enough there was never anything left by the end of the session, but this time I had one thing I wanted to tell him.
“I feel like a cannibal.”
“And how is that?” He asked, perplexed.
“I feel like there are things that I want, that I crave, and if I were ever to have them it would be taboo, unacceptable. I feel like a cannibal because sometimes I have those things, and it’s still not enough. I feed on them until they die in my arms and I stay stuck to them like a leech, a vulture. I suck out their every being and it will never be enough, and when I look around everyone is watching me, horrified, and I am horrified, too, by what I have become.”
“What are these things?” He asked me.