When I Was Alphie

Chapter Nine / Petals

Author's note: This is an intense chapter mostly meant to delve into Anna's mental health and set up for the climax(s) of this novel. It might seem like the following chapter and the next update will contain graphic sexual content, and while this book has sexual themes by nature, I'm not planning on writing explicitly detailed content, though sex will be contained in my next update. I'm tired of graphic sex scenes so if you're hunting for that, you won't find it here, as I'm planning on taking on those scenes at a different angle.

Towards the end of the story I'm planning a romance arc so for those who want the fluff, the ***light*** smut, and the good-feels, hang around to the end.

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Chapter Nine / Petals

At some time in life, it's an inevitable part of human existence to reach the point of Nothing.

Nothing.

Truly, Nothing.

I go without breakfast, my stomach protesting and hunger hurling itself at the walls of my gut, and by dinner, the hunger and discomfort associated with it have disappeared. I crunch ice cubes and grin at my reflection in the stainless steel door of the fridge, crunch, crunch, crunch. Melted ice dribbles down my chin but I don't wipe it away.

Ah, Nothing.

Part of me wants to succumb to the loneliness of Nothing, the other part of me wants to feel Anything. As a person with unregulated emotions, sometimes I chase Anything because Anything will deliver me from Nothing. Anything slips down my throat with a burn of alcohol, chafes my cock because I try to feel Anything there, and Anything drives me out of my house and into the dark, searching for the thrill that will cause me to feel Something again.

I sleep under Nothing for a while, wearing it like a cloak. The nice thing about Nothing is that it drives you nowhere; Nothing wants me to stay home in my bed, cocooned in my blankets while I stare blankly at the screen of my phone. My family doesn't like when I'm doing Nothing, especially when my mother notices the empty bottles of my anxiety medication that I never refilled. At my mother's belligerent urging, I pick up my anxiety medication from the pharmacy, and on my way out slip a tube of coral pink lipstick into my pocket without paying.

The lipstick and the act of stealing in the search for Anything make me feel again; I feel Something. Feeling Something is more fulfilling than Nothing, even though this Something isn't a pleasant one. Something is better than Nothing, right?

On my dresser, I light all of the candles I've collected with Gemma, turning off my lights as if I'm about to hold a seance in my bedroom. In the flickering light, I carefully apply the lipstick, painstakingly lining the corners of my mouth and pressing my lips together in the way Gemma showed me how. I like the pink color, it's feminine.

Anna's face is illuminated by candlelight, her blonde hair a golden curtain, lipstick collecting in the divet of her lower lip. My fingers run through her hair, noticing how it's creeping past her chin, getting longer. Her eyes stare out blankly, irises that strange gray color, and she looks pretty. Anna smiles at me in the mirror and my face stretches, my mouth moving from an expression of Nothing to one of Something.

"Golden boy," I tell Anna. "Golden boy with a stupid, broken dick."

She frowns.

"Sorry." I rub my eyes and so does she. "Anna, you've really fucked up things for Alphie. Honestly, I can't tell Anna from Alphie apart. Who got hard for Gemma, huh? Who fought with James? Who goes around bending over for old dudes? That's all really messed up."