She hates the girl. Despises, loathes, and all manner of synonyms associated. Annoyed by the carelessness. Girl that sucks the life out of everyone she touches. But she needs to feel something, needs to know. Waits until they’ve both had quite a bit to drink. Leans in. A quick peck. The girl is surprised, laughs, kisses back. It’s not nice, not sweet. Just there. Experiment. She’s unimpressed. Failure.She loves the next girl. Like a sister. Can’t bring herself to feel anything else. Still confused, still waiting. The girl is hurt when her feelings aren’t returned. Anger, yelling, venomous words slicing like whips. She puts red lines in her flesh to dull the pain and forgets the girl.Third and final. Perfection. She touches the skin and feels a warmth. Something in her belly she’s never felt before. A twitch, a spark, a calling. She kisses the lips and it’s like ice cream, cranberries, coming home for Christmas. It’s a feeling like the sky is about to burst open and rain down brimstone and daffodils. And she knows it’s wrong. Not wrong and dirty like the preacher-man says, but wrong still. Wrong because there are expectations. Wrong because she has people to please, people to promise, people to pacify. Wrong because Ken and Barbie belong together. Two point five kids, a dog, mortgage, white picket fence, oversized SUV. Wrong because there just aren’t enough minutes in the day to explain what’s wrong with it.Wrong because it feels so right.It ends before it’s begun. The girl doesn’t love her. Can’t, won’t. Sleeps with her best friend, brags, laughs. Hurts her, unintentionally perhaps. The girl goes back to the boys, the curious girls who don’t care if she’s gone in the morning. Hiding herself in others.But pain fades and she moves on. Gives up the girls…for a while. Girls come back. In her head, flowing through her like blood. Fire. Crashing waves upon the shore. Craving, like chocolate for PMS.
So she waits. So she’s still waiting.
by Veruca Shy
