some odd fiction

She lies naked on the ugly plaid sofa, stretched out languorously and unashamedly. Her ribs stick out on the side, and her hips are sharp edges of provocativeness. She wriggles her toes. You look at her calves.

There is such a huge, gaping difference between the two of you. You're dumpy. Your breasts may be big, but they sag a bit. Have little acne dots all over your face. Little cigarettes marks all over your skin.

"Hey."

Hey, she breathes, white trails of smoke rising from her mouth. She puts down the pipe.

"What's wrong?"

You want to say everything, but it's so stupid and melodramatic. A lot of things are fine, actually. She's fine. You're sort of okay. So instead you stroke the small of her back and run your hands through her messy, tangled brown hair.

But then you start crying. Sobbing soundlessly, round tears dripping down your face. The small roll of fat around your waist moves as you suck at the air, push it out, suck it in again desperately. She wraps her arm around you but it doesn't help it doesn't help. You don't want to cry. You don't and there's no reason to cry but you can't stop you can't stop can't stop can't stop.

There are no spaces for sentences in the cavity of sadness inside your chest. Everything runs together in one line and you're so ANGRY. So angry so frustrated that you just can't stop fucking crying. You hate it you hate everything you hate the people who scooped out your centre.

She lays her head on your shoulders, moving off the sofa, and murmurs, "It's okay, it's okay." And she starts crying too, her brown eyes filling up and crystal tears sticking her lashes together, and you know she's crying for you, for your sadness, for your emptiness for everything that's happened to you except for her.

She's the only BIG good thing that's ever happened to you. There are little ones like babies smiling at you and people complimenting your makeup and salesgirls giving you extra ice cream but only SHE. Only she is permanent. And you want to stop crying for her, but you can't and hearing her be sad for you makes you even sadder and you cry, wrapped around her and she wraps around you and she kisses you through your ugly tears.

"Sorry, s-sorry," you blubber, but her skinny fingers find their way to the back of your bra and she takes it off, presses her hand against your skin, shifts even closer to you. She kisses you again, again, harder, again.

It stops hurting. You can breathe. The tears go away, and you look into her brown eyes, brown brown brown. She kisses you. You kiss back. It stops hurting.