Love and Food

xxxix: hickey

The so called "allergies" were really getting to Kyle. He started to become more distant and cold, and also have quite a bit of a temper. Nothing that Cecilia was doing would cheer him up, and in reality, she was feeling like a piece of shit.

If anything, the relationship was really starting to regress, and the cracks were really started to show now.

Once again, Cecilia and Kyle were in her car and the weather was starting to get a little warmer. April just rolled around, which meant that Kyle (and Evan) would be graduating soon. It was bittersweet, which meant that Cecilia would be alone next year.

In the backseat, Kyle would throw Cecilia's backseat buddy, which was a chicken into the front seat and Cecilia fought with him to get it back.

Just as she grabbed it, she felt a set of teeth bite into her right arm.

The faint senstaion of pain caused her to moan, and it made Kyle bite her harder.

A minute passed, and she saw her arm. A bruise was starting to form on her right arm.

Kyle gave her a daring stare.

"I marked you. You like it?"

She saw the mark. It was in an awkward spot, and she shuddered in fear.

"Between the two of us, I would have loved to mark your neck or your special spots." He whispered to her softly, so softly that it felt harsh.

"Well, what about me? I gotta mark you." She pinned him down.

"Not today." He stopped her.

"So, I can't return the favor?"

"I don't need you to return the favor. I only did it for one reason: to mark my territory on you. If anybody dares touch you or hurt you, they will see that mark and know that you are off the market."

"And what does that mean?"

"I don't need to explain."

Cecilia rolled her eyes.

"I actually have a question." She asked him.

"Hit me."

"Why do you always throw my chicken in the front seat? What did it do to you?" She asked innocently.

"Because. There can only be one cock in this car."

That reaction made Cecilia smile, but in anger.

"Get out then."

She pointed to the door.

"You got to be joking."

"I'm not, and I'm serious. Get out." She sounded more serious and scary.

"Jeez, what did I do to you?"

He jumped out of the car and she drove away, putting her chicken in the backseat.

Just as she driving home, she noticed a car switching lanes like a maniac. It was Kyle, he was having an episode of some sort. It caused Cecilia to be in such confusion that she nearly crashed her car.

When she got home, she faceplanted into her staring wheel.

"I need to scream."

With all of the windows closed, she screamed as if she was being murdered. The screams got to her so much that tears started flowing from her eyes.

It was late at night, so she could just walk in the house and nobody would assume a thing. She splashed some water on her face.

Her phone was dry, but she needed it to be.

Where the hickey was, it was a difficult spot to hide. Cecilia could wear a long sleeve, but she would sweat to death, most t-shirt sleeves barely covered it, so she had to tell everybpdy that she bruised herself in some weird way.

All everybody saw for the next week was Cecilia's "bruise". Cecilia would always walk by hiding her arm, not facing that way, or if she was caught, then she would say she ran into a wall.

Addy saw the hickey first, while they were changing for quantity.

"Girl, what happened?" She asked nervously.

"Ask Kyle." She slammed her locker.

"What did he do this time?"

Cecilia sighed.

"Oh, you know. Just being him. Causing trouble."

"Trouble in Paradise?"

"Like it ever was Paradise. At most, it was purgatory."

"Geez, I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say. Is that what I think it is?"

Cecilia nodded sadly. "Yes, maam."

"Wow."

"Don't ever be like me, it's not fun."

Addy nodded. It was hard for her to see a friend like this. There was something that she had itching off of her chest for a while, but she was scared to hurt Cecilia's feelings. It seemed as if Kyle beat her to it.

Smiley and Wizzy took notice too. They heard everything about it.

Chichi saw it in lecture.

"What happened to you?" He asked.

"Kyle."

'You don't sound happy about it."

"I really don't know what and how to feel anymore."

"Oh, damn."

Cecilia traded her t shirt and shorts for a long sweater and shorts on Tuesday.

The Monday before, she was walking to grab a post class matcha when she was walking in Evan's view. She saw him and spedwalked away to a different direction.

He saw her bruised up arm and then remembered as he was walking out, he heard Kyle's words from the kitchen.

"She is nothing without me. Yeah, her. I'm in love with her. Nobody will get in my way, got it?"

Poor her.

He was staring at his phone and noticed a necklace was on the floor.

It was a snowflake necklace with a pink center.

Evan put it in his pocket.

Cecilia's family took notice of the mark.

"Yeah, Kyle gave me a hickey." She admitted to her sister.

"Oh, I must have got it from work." She lied to her parents.

The mark and that final encounter, little would she know would be the last time that they would ever be one on one, alone and intimate together. Talking about their thoughts and blowing stuff off each others chest. Staying until campus late at night and kissing, almost to the point of making love.

Cecilia wouldn't miss the feeling of it, it felt so bleak and desolate. She started to question her feelings and her true intentions.

There had to be one more incident that can hit the final nail in the coffin, one thing that would solidified the fact that the relationship was either going to or not going to work. For now, both parties were in a questionable game of limbo, except the fact that there was no actual game of limbo, and it felt like mind games. Over and over and over.