overdosed on confidence
I am growing tired of this.
I am a patient person, but this situation requires more of me than just patience; that I could handle. It requires me to sit back on my heels, and smile at his jokes, and act as though I am not irritated by the way he pretends I do not dazzle, amaze, or destroy him.
That is what I dislike the most. I am surprised and hateful, that he thinks I would not kill him for overlooking me.
And now I am ten degrees hotter. I am burning a hundred times brighter. Something uncomfortably tight is stirring in the pit of my chest squeezing at my heart like an anaconda. I smile at him and it is cold, cold, cold, the curve of my lip sharp as a scythe and the glint in my eye growing ever-darker. Then I turn away. I look at anything else—the doorway, the shining rim of the glass, the sun-bright counters—because I know if I look at him right now, it simply will not end well.
For a moment, I think this will help. For a moment the world seems to slow. I can hear the silence again; the blood is rushing away from my ears.
When he is in my periphery, I can focus on all the ways mother taught me to restrain myself. Deep breaths in and out, measured through the teeth. Holding your exhales halfway. Thinking of something more pleasant than the task (or the lover) at hand. I think I can feel my skin cooling a few degrees, my heartbeat slowing its rapid thunder.
But then he says I’m nice, and then, before I can curb my surprise enough to respond, it isn’t fun, and—
Well.
I can feel a sudden weight against the place my skull meets my neck. When I am angry—at least more so than usual—I do not pin my ears. Instead the nest of snakes gathers into one thick clump and lays itself flat, becomes a seething, teeth-baring pit of wriggling bodies and hard, glinting eyes. My own face is expressionless, but their movement and flickering tongues can mean nothing but danger. The prettiest things (and I do think they, and I, are quite pretty) are always the most mean-tempered.
“Well,” I grimace, “I hate to break it to you, babe—but you’re not fun now either.” My voice rings cold, cold, cold. There are so many things I could say. So many things I could pick at and pull apart, insults I could smash him to pieces with. My stomach is turning with something oddly like hunger.
I lean forward, almost until our lips could touch; and when I know he is looking at me, really looking at me, right in the eyes, when I know he can see the depth of my disappointment, I murmur: “You’re wasting my time, Warden. Come back when you are fun.”
I throw the rest of my drink into the nearest potted plant and brush past him, back upstairs.
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