Girl Dinner

by A. M. Larouche

Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:

The first time we met, you were leaving the coffee shop, leaving work.

I had just left the hospital. I could not return home since I do not have one and have not had one since crawling onto the riverbank as a newly minted orphan. In the space between the mud packed beneath my fingernails and my discharge papers hung a lifeless galaxy, a graveyard of dead stars. Light arrived only in aborted blips—the scream of a car as it dodged my crossing, the chug of the impending train as I leaned toward the tracks. The whine of the electric pedestrian signal in the rain.

But then you stepped out into the parking lot across the street, the shop bell ringing as the door shut behind you. A man approached you, mumbling. You shook your head, he stepped closer, and you lunged, hissing, your teeth bared and your fist curling in his shirt before you shoved him back. The cold air struck me. A star exploded to life.

To be clear, it was not your appearance—I have never found interest in any person’s facade—and you are, at best, an exceedingly average human being in every superficial category. It was instead the flicker of violence in your eyes, like the look of a hungry dog when one’s hand hovers over its meal. When the wolf beneath its fur is disturbed.

We didn’t exchange words. We didn’t need to. I knew I needed you to kill me. I knew my home would be beneath your feet.

The coffee shop is busy today; I have waited approximately five minutes too long for you to take my order. You gesture to the next customer in line, and I step forward, only feet from you now, on the precipice of my seventy-second ritual in which you unknowingly participate. The five-dollar bill soaks up the sweat from my palm.

“Big plans today?” you ask the man in front of you. An irritatingly false curiosity twinkles in your eye.

“Nah,” he says, and then chooses to waste both of our days by continuing his sentence, “going to head to the park and people watch.”

I suppose my plans aren’t too different from his in that regard.

“Well, have fun,” you say, ringing him up. “Let me know if you see anything interesting. I think I’ve run out of interesting things here!”

A cackle explodes out of your throat, real and hearty.

To be frank with you, I can’t decide which I hate more: watching you cry or watching you laugh.

Tears are always painful to observe. I have watched you with the knowledge that they are spilled in solitude, that you have no known witness to your agony, that around you there is not a single person to bear whatever ails you. Your body stretches like taffy over your tiny kitchen table, surrounded by emptiness: the bare walls, the hopeful pegboard decorated with hooks but without a single pot or pan to hang. Your muscles shake to restrain the dammed mass of pain. Your face—a face already cursed by genetics—twists and tightens into this terrible amalgam of emotion.

Perhaps it’s better no one else is there. They might find the expression a bit off-putting. Either way, it is awful.

But watching you laugh, now that I consider it, is worse.

Your joy is like a disease. It leaps around you, person to person, bringing each one that hiccupping laughter, that fevered glow—like a blood illness boiling beneath their flesh. There is no inoculation, no way one can become inured to it. It is perpetually pestilential. And to behold it from my distance, to be barred from its inclusion, to feel its venom but be denied the bite of the snake—

The man laughs with you. He does not know you. Does not know you could peel him like sunburned skin.

What does he find so funny?

“Have a good day,” you say to him, and then your gaze finally lights upon me, and my heart races toward its grave. “Hey there, long time no see.”

I stare. I do not remember what I say to you because I never remember what I say to you. The things that leave my mouth are utterly devoid of truth, meaning, or consequence. They serve only to invite you to speak again.

“God, I don’t even know,” you say. “Maybe take my car for an oil change. I don’t even remember the last time I got it changed. That probably means it’s time.” You tap your temple with the heel of your palm. “Girl math.”

I do not respond because I don’t know what girl math means and don’t want to know. You laugh off the awkward pause and ask for my order. I slide my bill across the counter to avoid your touch and give you the same order I always give you. At this point, it’s very frustrating you don’t remember it.

“Right, right,” you reply. “Ugh. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I can’t remember that. But hey, I’m just a girl.”

I’m just a girl.

This may as well be your refrain. It leaves your mouth dozens of times each day, like an excuse, or worse: an explanation. There is nothing that girl cannot wave away, whether that be the milk puddling at your feet when you miss the coffee cup, the unbalanced register at the end of your shift, the unlocked door of your apartment. As if all girls are like you, as if your behavior is nothing but girlish and not calculated negligence.

I could kill you for it.

Tonight I will sit in the corner of your room, observe the inevitable rise and fall of your chest, imagine your fat, needy heart thumping beneath it—if I took your throat between my fingers, would you plead with me? Would you beg and insist that you are just a girl? Or would the girlish, ghoulish beast within you fissure through your flesh?

“Excuse me?” you ask with a tinge of hurt.

I must have said something. Oh well. I stare.

“That’s rude,” you continue, and I see it—that delicious, delightful flicker of rage, like the strike of flint on steel. My stomach flips. “That’s not what I meant. It means, like—whatever.” You push my drink toward me. “See you.”

I give an inane response and offer whatever smile will fail to reach my eyes. I take my drink and settle into the corner of the shop with a book I’ve never read open in front of me.

How far will girlishness go to excuse your foisting of control? On a chilly February morning, I deflate a tire before you wake, comfortable in my ability to observe you, as in the past seventy-two days, you have never noticed anyone hiding between the streetlights outside your apartment, have never caught the shadow shifting to watch your car clunk its way into the street.

You shuffle outside, shoulders falling with an instant realization.

“No,” you say, racing to your car, perhaps hoping that the truth will disappear upon closer examination. “No, no, no—no way!”

The starved air eats your racing feet, your heaving breath, your desperate pleas as you check each tire. Yes, one is completely flat. You will be late to work. You may not even make it. A rideshare would be expensive, and you just paid rent. An absence could negatively impact your employment. It could even get you fired. If only you could change it yourself.

I revel in the burn over my cheeks as you curse your car and then the sky. I don’t resist the somersault in my chest as you growl, angry tears at the edge of your voice. And I find I cannot stop my approach when you take your purse and wallop it in wide unpracticed swings against the hood of your sabotaged vehicle.

“Dammit!” you scream, and then you turn at the sound of my footsteps, eyes wide. “Oh, oh, hey. Hey, you live here, right?” You don’t recognize me. It is a brief dagger to the carotid. “Do you have a car? Can you give me a ride?”

I should not be so near to you—the first time we touch must be of your design.

Blood sings in your veins, and I can hear it. Whatever I say forces you into intelligent retreat.

“Wait. Aren’t you from the cafe?” You gesture to the building. “You live here?”

I shake my head. Being this close to you—so close, no counter between us, no pretense of employee and customer—is like being served a slice of fresh, moist cake. I cannot eat. I want to devour.

“Then what are you doing here?” You step closer to your vehicle. “Where’s your car?”

I don’t have a car and in fact have not been behind the wheel in years. The last time I drove was before the family van tumbled into the river and before the water swallowed everyone but me. Yet even in the face of the current sloshing against the windows, I did not despair as you do about a tire you could fix, a tire you have the savagery to conquer. All it would take is a simple hoist of the car, a break of the bolts, a tear of the tire and a reverse of the process.

But you cannot do that. You refuse to.

You flinch. “I’m not refusing,” you reply, strangling the shoulder strap of your purse.

How much of that had I said aloud? I stare at your pudgy hands—your palms soft and smooth, your fingers plump little worms. It would be a shame for you to sully them with road dust and the slush from the winter storms.

“What’s your problem?” You push your hands into your jacket pockets. I cannot do anything but stare, my heart skipping. “Please leave.”

My heart beats faster. I can’t help it. I imagine a knife in your hidden, girlish grip. Imagine the blade plunging into me—anywhere, anywhere—imagine the grapeshot of agony—

You bare your girlish teeth, and I hold my breath.

“Get out of here,” you say, stepping toward me, “before I call the fucking police.”

For a moment, I think you’ll actually pounce. But all you do is sneer and push past me, retreating to the safety of your apartment. The sun crests high into the sky before you leave again to meet a friend in the parking lot, casting your gaze around the grounds in search of me. But I am no longer there.

That night, I dream of an ocean, of arcing whitewater swells crashing into us, again, again, again. And we are trapped in your car, we are drowning, and I am kissing you until we both run out of air.

I remember so little of the time before you. The days spent in your presence are the most vibrant I’ve had in years, perhaps decades, perhaps centuries, since I cannot remember how old I am or even when I was born. I remember the unfriendly routine of life—revoltingly bright and sticky—painted to the backs of my eyes, small eyes, the eyes of a child, but when those eyes open, there is nothing to greet them. Even within a furnished room busy with people.

My first memory starts in the backyard. I do not know how I know it is the backyard, but that is what it is; the backyard and the filthy mud puddles sprinkled into the grass. It is still raining.

In one of these puddles, or many of these puddles, there is a mouse: having scurried above the ground, it seeks a home untouched by rain, finds none despite its efforts. It darts from puddle to puddle before beginning to sink—its tail is trapped in the thickened slurry.

It thrashes in the water, sinks deeper, kicking up a cloud of silt that camouflages its fur. A squeak, a squeal, it twists and twists until it has kicked itself a hole in the puddle, a hole that opens up to eat it. Little bubbles gurgle to the surface; its little black eyes bulge in panic; its little lungs flood with dirty water. Seconds, maybe minutes pass. The rain has stopped.

Eventually, it drifts like a feather to settle in the mud. I release its tail and wipe my hand on my thighs.

That was before the van. Before you.

In my last memory before meeting your eyes, I stand on a dock at the marina. The cabled ropes that moor the ships look like snakes that have coiled up to sleep. I have always admired the surprisingly smooth, cool stone of their bodies. Have always wondered what it would feel like to have that stone curl around my stomach, my chest—what it would feel like for the air to exist before me, but for my body to deny it entry.

I must have made some noise, some disturbance as I wrapped myself in layers of rope. The boat drifted from the dock, the world went blissfully black, and I next opened my eyes into bleak, white sterility, to machines beside me signaling the only objective evidence of my beating heart.

I had found it irritating at the time. I realize now I had invited myself to the wrong solution. I had attempted to circumvent my destiny, the destiny that awaited me the moment I exited the hospital doors. It is what I need from you.

It is what you owe me.

Eight nights have passed since deflating your tire. Your nightly tears are now routine. You sob into your pillows and fall asleep tangled in your sheets, your soft breath shuddering with the vestiges of your fit. You should be grateful that I—the only one who could possibly tolerate this behavior—am the sole possessor of this knowledge. And what is the loss of a job when others await? What does an impending eviction matter? You’ve already paid rent. It is weeks before that can become reality.

You are not helpless. You consume your breakfast like a drooling, sharp-toothed beast. Your clothes tear when you tug them on. Yet you behave as if the world must pity you. As if you are not required to take from it whatever you see fit. Whatever you deserve.

Do you think, then, that you deserve nothing?

It is inexcusable. I know you—know you better than anyone has or could possibly ever hope to. You deserve to take anything and everything you want. You could do it by simply brandishing your claws.

The sun is rising, but I cannot leave your bedroom. I cannot force my eyes from your half-naked figure, bound in your bed, tormented by your own pathetic impotence. You will wake in minutes, maybe seconds. I want to be the first thing you see. I want to belong here.

There is a world in some other time, a different invention of reality, where I lie in this bed next to you, and you curl your hands around my neck each morning, and the room burns out in my eyes until you are everything within it. There is a world where every laugh, every whimper, every spate of tears is at my expense, a world where I am tormented by your mercuriality. There is a world where I permit myself to touch you with abandon. A world where flesh is rewarded with flesh.

This is not that world. I have never belonged anywhere. I do not even belong to you.

“Wha—hm?” you mumble.

I must have spoken aloud again. I say nothing in response, but it is too late. Your gaze flutters open and alights on me.

I wonder for the first time what you see. If what stands there is a thing with limbs and skin. If it is even capable of standing. I wonder if you see anything at all.

A moment passes. You take me in. You screech.

If I am found here, I will be denied you forever. I remember every second.

“Shut up,” I whisper, stepping forward. “Shut up.”

“Get out!” You pull the blankets over you, pointlessly covering your body, as if I haven’t seen you in all forms of undress already. “Get the fuck out! What the fuck are you doing here? Get out!”

I cannot bring myself to move closer. The temptation of savagery glitters in your eyes.

“Shut up,” I say again. “Will you do nothing but scream?”

You respond by throwing a pillow at my head. It flaccidly smacks my chest and thumps to the floor.

“Get out!”

This seems to be all you can say, and I am honestly already tired of it. I do not want to get out, and I do not want to spend another moment untethered. I snatch the pillow from the ground and hurl it at you. It wallops you straight across the face.

“What the—” You shake your head, perhaps stunned by the use of the pillow more than its force. Unsubtly, your gaze shifts to your phone, still charging on your nightstand. Before you can grab it, I am at the side of your bed, tearing the phone from its cord and throwing it through the door. It clatters against the hardwood, slides down the hall, and I stare at you, at your heaving chest. At your eyes, on the brink of bloodshed.

“What are you doing?” you ask. “What do you want?”

You are wasting time. You have wasted so much time. “Do something,” I demand.

Still, you are frozen. I watch you like a hornet trapped behind glass. If I could sting you, if I could inflame you, if I could make you exterminate me.

“Do something!”

With a grunt, you scramble out of bed without regard for modesty and slam your palms into my chest. The force thunders through me, jitters my pulse, and I laugh. It is the closest sensation to euphoria I have ever experienced.

“You fucking creep,” you say. “How the fuck did you get in my apartment? Get out! Get out!”

You push me again, again, and I let you. I fall with your momentum, collapse onto the ground, and above me I am gifted with a vision of which I might have only dreamed—you stand above me in your kitchen, surrounded by knives and matches and melon-ballers, and I realize that I was horrendously wrong. You are anything but average. No, you are beautiful—more beautiful than a cracked skull, more beautiful than the bellsong breath that rattles in dying lungs, more beautiful than splitting skin, broken by the sun’s bloat.

“You’ve always been so fucking weird,” you say, slamming your heel into my ribs for emphasis. “Were you stalking me? Are you a stalker?”

Stalker is a barbaric reduction. Stalkers are delusional, their perception of reality demented, their desires wrought from nothing but their imagination. I have no such misconceptions of who I am. Stalkers wish to possess their prey. I wish to become yours.

My ribs ache perfectly.

“Where the hell is my phone?” You glance around, your eyebrows rise, and you step away from me. “I’m calling the police.”

No. I clamber to my feet and toward where I know the phone to be, and you scream, shoulder me off balance. Ecstasy rushes me, and I cannot help it: I grab you, take you with me onto the ground, and your body is firmer, warmer than I anticipated—your heart feels so small, bounding like the mouse’s when it fought the puddle, like my mother’s when she tried to rip my hands from the steering wheel, and you howl, thrash in my arms, and I hold you, bliss swelling inside me, brighter than blood when it breathes air.

“Keep struggling,” I murmur. “Don’t stop.”

“You freak!” you scream. “I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Your knuckles knock my head, my jaw, and your fingers find their way to my eyes and dig delightfully deep. My hold on you loosens. You writhe free like a newborn. Your feet hit the floor, and when my vision returns, bloodied and blurry, I see you fumble toward the kitchen table. You snatch a fork from your unfinished dinner and loom over me, squeezing it in that soft little hand.

“Get the fuck out!”

I smile. It reaches my eyes.

You dive toward me, the fork’s tines twinkling. Then your feet fly out from beneath you, and you crumble toward the ground, the fork clutched in your fist. Your fist hits the floor first. It is followed quickly—too quickly for me to blink—by your head. Your eye swallows the tines and buries the fork to the end of its handle until stopping with a fleshy thump atop your still-clutched fist.

Your apartment is silent. Blood trickles over your fingers and puddles beneath your face.

I stare. This does not make sense to me. I say your name, a name you never gave me but I possess regardless. You do not respond. I say it again. Your blood is emptying in a lazy river across your kitchen floor.

No.

I flail toward you, push you onto your back. Your hand releases the fork. The tail of its handle stands proudly from your head.

No.

I say your name a third time, shaking you. The only response I receive is a groan of air, uprooted from your immobile lungs. I stare into your other eye, now void of violence. Of anything. I cannot even see myself in its reflection.

No, no, no.

This was not how it was supposed to happen. It was not meant to be you on the floor with a blank stare bleeding into your own brain. It was not meant to be me hovering over you, my heart pounding, my lips trembling. I press my mouth to yours—it is pliant, even now—and breathe you in before exhaling into you, knowing when I plant my palm to your sternum, I will not feel a single thrum in your veins.

This is not what we were meant to be.

There is a rap on your front door, a stranger’s voice asking if you are okay. This is the end. Yet this cannot end yet, not when you are so close, not when I am so close, close enough to close my eyes and taste the dirt.

The door shakes. Again. As if you need help. As if this is one more thing that you are too girlish to manage. They do not know you, they do not know what sort of beast lurks within you. And I cannot flip a switch and lock the doors, cannot stall the windows from cracking open. I must force you to bring me to providence.

Pinning you to the floor by your forehead, I grab the fork and rip it from your face with a slick, watery squelch. It drips with whatever you used to be, and I wonder what it would have felt like to crawl under your skin and meld with every gooey part of you while it still throbbed with life.

I curl your hand around the fork and enfold your grip in mine. Warmth lingers there, like it was waiting for me. And as the door begins to shatter, I exhale, I lie on top of you. And when it explodes from its hinges, I push my fingers into your mouth, and I slam the metal teeth through my skull.