The Art of Pretension

you can occupy my every sigh/
you can rent a space inside my mind/
at least until the price becomes too high

“God,” she spit out into the night, “are you following me?”

He smiled, his mouth bruised like the aftermath of an earthquake, and even though he was injured and possibly deranged, he replied, easily. “Of course.”

“No shit? Really?” Her eyes widened, not unlike the moon that shone above.

He looked at her shocked expression and rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Molly, why the fuck would I want to follow you?”

His sarcasm had always been unreadable.

“What are you doing here then?” She asked.

“What is this, an interrogation?” He said, although he started to jog to catch up with her.

Molly hit the brakes and waited till he caught up. She sighed, and exaggerated the movement by slamming her forehead against the steering wheel, purposely covering the sight of the irritated boy. “I don’t know, Stain, but this is getting absurd.”

“Absurd?”

“Yes, absurd.” She sighed again.

She should have sped away from him when she had the chance, but the night was blasé and she was curious—and, there he was, smirking up a storm. She tried to ignore it; how unattractive. Really.

“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?” He asked. In response, she rose and stuck her head out the window to glower. He took an uncertain step backwards.

“Stop following me!” She screeched.

“But I’m not!” His voice sounded desperate, but both of them denied this fact.

Molly parked her car sloppily and stomped out, alarming the boy and her both. “What’s your problem, Stain?”

Stain took another step back, unknowingly giving Molly confidence to continue on her tirade. His startled frown and furrowed eyebrows bemused her. “Everywhere I go, there you are. Like a fucking shadow. A shadow, Stain, a shadow!” Her lips disappeared as she fumed.

“Could you repeat that?” He muttered, and she pretended not to hear.

“And even if it is a coincidence that you and I always end up in the same place, you never pass up the opportunity to insult and completely humiliate me, asshole.”

Stain shot out a laugh that shook his body; a toothy grin overtook his face, wrinkling his solemn eyes and stretching his windpipes. It sounded sincere enough.

He quieted after a moment, but a smirk still remained in place. “Do I, Molly?”

Molly’s hands, frozen at her sides, reached out of her car, out of their own accord, to wring his neck. Stain ducked.

“Missed,” he chuckled.

“Fuck you, you idiot,” the girl retorted back.

“Serious?” His eyes flicked to her, almost interested, but he hurriedly looked away and spat at the idea. “I hope not.”

“No need. Like hell would I ever.” Molly shuddered.

“Am I really that horrific, Molly Connolly?”

“Yes.”

People don’t mind horrific, Molly. People pay money to see horrific. They crave it.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “They fear it, Stain. They fear. There’s a difference.”

“They crave that fear,” Stain said, looking murderously thoughtful.

“Who cares what people crave and fear, anyways? I didn’t mean that context. Why do you always twist what people say?”

“People are so vague. I can’t see how you would expect me to react otherwise.”

“Freak.”

“So I’m a horrific freak now? What does that make you then? Unbearable? People can’t stand the unbearable, just so you know.”

“You’re still here. You can stand me.”

“I can stand tearing you apart.”

“What are you talking about, now?” Molly asked, unconvinced. Her teeth chattered, the cool air now embracing her lack of jacket, and she wrapped her arms around herself. Not tired, but exhausted, Molly thought about leaving. Her warm car and mixed tape sounded tempting, but she knew she was too curious to really leave. Her nights seldom were dramatic, even if it was with Stain, with his nonsense and his insults. Even if.

“It would be so much fun, Molly Connolly, to break you.”

“Break me? Like a doll?” Molly laughed nervously. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

“Not like a doll. I mean, metaphorically. I want to humiliate you.”

“Why?”

“Don’t be scared. I said I wanted to, not that I would.”

“Oh. I feel so much better.”

“You should, because if I wasn’t so passive, you might have reason to fear for your life.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just saying,” Stain said, very obviously.

“You never answered my question.”

“Which one?”

Molly gave Stain a look

“Oh. Why do I want to humiliate you? Well, Molly, it’s simple. I hate everything about you.”

It shouldn’t have affected her, hearing him say it aloud, but it did. All year, he had shown his avid disgust towards her through brief words and determined glowers, but the contempt was never fully established. Molly opened her mouth, and then closed it, because there was no dignified way to respond.

But then she did, because she knew she had to.

“I knew you were an asshole, a freak—a horrific freak—but this….I don’t know what to call you.”

“Are you actually offended by me?”

“Don’t try to turn this into a joke. Don’t…don’t…” Molly lost track of her words, speaking so quickly without any prior considerations to what she was really saying. She was caught in her own rage and confusion, blinded by it and choked up on it, like the sun hiding behind a storm. She felt defeated and she was. The boy before her, Stain, wouldn’t look her in the eye. He was caught up in his own façade, and she saw it, but she couldn’t detect it. For her, there was nothing more to this boy other than his crossed arms and bleeding scowl. He looked stuck up as always in his dark clothing, and she observed that once again, he had unintentionally rebelled against another one of society’s rules: his brown shirt and black pants. Surprisingly, it looked good. Natural. His dark hair brushed against his neck and he absently ran his hands through it. Her eyes gripped his subtle habits and his easy coolness. She saw this desperate impression and mistook it as truth.

She wondered what he saw; if he saw her simply with her sweaty hair and greasy face, her fringe plastered against her forehead and her mismatched clothes hanging loosely on her ribs and over her hips, or if he was searching for her own façade. She had one; could he see? Molly gulped, and he heard and finally looked at her and saw her staring.

“Well?” He asked. A cocky grin tugged at his lips.

“Well, I’m sick of you,” She said, and knowing this might be a long night, sat on the nearby bench for the bus stop.

“You don’t look sick. As a matter of fact, I do believe you were just checking me out,” He piped as he sat down beside her.

It was her turn to laugh carelessly. So what if she was? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been staring at him for visual appreciation. She had been searching. She told him this, bluntly. Then, she asked if he had a cigarette. Her voice was shaky and pleading.

Without even a nod of consent, he searched in his back pockets, found the inconspicuous pack, and handed one out to her before. He even lit it for her, too, before lighting himself one. She commented on his chivalry. He commented on her indecency to even say something as such. Both felt resigned. They positioned themselves away from each other, cursed, and smoked.

From a glance, the scene was bare: a streetlamp setting in the middle of the night with an ambiguous vehicle and two unattractive teenagers refuting their obvious attraction for each other. Up close, though, the scene was different. Firstly, the streetlamp was cracked, and light spilled more from the right where the boy stood than it did from the left where she leaned up against her car. His face looked haunted in this contrast while hers’ appeared guarded. The car was old and ran no faster than sixty miles per hour. She drove it because it had been her brother’s piece of work once. The teenagers were both full of spite and bullshit. She just wanted to know what the hell was going on, and he was trying to rile her up. Tension rose thick in the air, but nothing sensually acidic; nothing of chemistry. Both would assure you that it only appeared so from far away, a mirage.

“Who’d you manage to piss off tonight, other than myself?” Molly asked curiously, turning to study him again.

“No one,” a bruised mouth lied. A black eye winked at Molly shrewdly.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be embarrassed.”

“I’m not embarrassed. I just don’t think it’s important. Everyone here is the same.”

“How tragic.”

“It is!”

“And you, the little black sheep, can’t find his place amongst his peers.” Molly laughed bitterly.

“It’s not like I’m trying to fit in, bitch.”

“Ouch; that was unnecessary.”

“Not really.”

She nudged him. “Listen, I’m serious.”

“So am I!”

“No, about you stalking me.”

“I’m not stalking you!”

“Then, what are you doing here? It’s past three in the morning.”

He looked sideways, as if the street might interrupt him, and then up towards the sky, as if the moon might betray him, and finally he stuttered. “I-I can’t sleep!”

Her expression softened with eyes bright and understanding and a sympathetic frown. “You’re an insomniac?”

“No.”

“But, you just said you can’t sleep!”

“It’s not like I have this problem every night,” he explained.

Molly stayed quiet. He glanced at her and was surprised to see her eyes averted. She cleared her throat sheepishly.

“Wait—are you?”

“Uh, well. Uh, you could call it that.”

Stain clapped his hands, delighted. “Oh, give me a break! That’s rich, you know.”

Molly narrowed her eyes. “How is it rich?”

“I mean, look at you.” She looked. “What could be worrying you so much that you couldn’t sleep at night?”

“That’s really none of your business.”

“No, but it’s so strange. You’re rich, ignorant, and pretentious…you don’t have any problems. Not any real ones at least.”

Molly grasped the edge of the bench. “That’s not true,” she whispered.

“It is!”

“You-you have no right to tell me what my life is like. Look at yourself. Worry about yourself. Just—I don’t care. Leave me alone. I don’t want to deal with you.”

“Because to you, I’m a fucking disease.” He nodded like he too, was scandalized at himself.

“You’re a fucking jerk is what you are!”

“Well—” Molly cut him off.

“Listen; it’s not too complicated. Leave me alone! Please. Think whatever you want of me, but don’t tell me. That’s assault, and you just…you can’t do that.”

She caught his eyes in hers, and stared solemnly at him, asking him to consent. She was tired of him. All year, he had been giving her shit.

For a moment, the tension dropped, the crickets’ hums stalled, and the rush of the highway nearby faded. Silence eloped with heartbreak and birthed the discontinuation of time. The effect was dramatic, and still, Molly thought. Everything was still.

Stain, his face illuminated by the streetlamp, was speechless and mustered a look of indifference. His eyes, full of luster, though, betrayed him. He pleaded with her, trying to coax her to understand. Understand what?

“So,” Molly said, painfully breaking the silence. “Is that a ‘yes’? Will you leave me alone?”

Stain felt unsteady. His hands shook slightly as he tried to get up. He coughed, blood spewing, and shut his eyes tightly before nodding. “Okay, yeah. Okay.”

She thought he was getting up to leave and tried to get up herself but was suddenly thrashed back. Stain had stumbled and abruptly fell on her. The two collided in a tangle of elbows and sneakers on the cement, and then his weight was on her, his arms around her, and his head nestled in the crook of her neck, but he wasn’t trying to maul her. He was …he was crying.

Well, he wasn’t crying per se, but his breathing was in uneven shatters, a chasm breaking in his throat, and he clutched her shoulders aggressively. She sat, shocked, awkward, and unsure. She couldn’t find it in herself to push him away. She wasn’t even convinced she could.

“Listen,” she protested. “Get off.”

He pulled her even closer, heaving and now sobbing. Moisture seeped into her skin. Was it his tears or, she thought with a flaccid disgust, snot? She remembered his bleeding mouth, then.

“Hey, asshole, you’re getting blood on my sweatshirt!” He faintly heard her, yet he didn’t let go.

Maybe if he had been nicer, she would have held him—if they had been friends. But, they weren’t. He had insulted her; he had hurt her. She couldn’t handle his wrapped arms and weeping. Not this asshole. She couldn’t console him. She needed the comfort as much as he did but…but…he was the one breaking down, asking so much of her so unexpectedly. How could he expect that of her? It made her hate him. She didn’t ask to be exposed to this illicit vulnerability act. She didn’t ask for this. She didn’t want this. Knowing this, she yanked away from him and ran to her truck. Heavy, loud steps. He was left red-faced and confused, but she wouldn’t look back at him, not even as she peeled out and sped away. She returned home, ignoring how her truck was mustering a loud roaring protest at the speed it was going at.

And for the first time, Molly took her sleeping pills, because she knew that if she slept, she would forget.

New short story, or well, it's a "long short story". A novelette? I have the first six chapters. Anyways, it's a little dark, but a lot of fun to write. Hopefully to read. Ahem. Anyways, reviews would be great.