You seem a little different--Kenjorine

Chapter 18 ⭐️

           As the couple re-entered the home, they shared a collective grateful sigh. The warmth wrapped around them like a motherly hug. It filled their lungs in a healthy, clean way, unlike the smoke that had inhabited them before.

           Kenny grabbed a couple of stained, tattered gray rags from under the kitchen sink and passed one to Marjorine. "So you don't burn your hands on the bowl," he explained when she looked at him awkwardly.

Her eyes lit up in understanding, and she flustered. It had seemed so obvious to him. I really shouldn't dwell on it that hard, she thought. With an ever so slightly pink face, she took the cloth in her hands. "Thank you."

She made her way over to the microwave as Kenny stood, using the open cabinet for support. It creaked uncomfortably.

Marjorine wrapped the thin rag around the plastic bowl, making sure she kept both of her hands on it. Instantly, the heat spread into the fabric, warming it faster than a forest fire.

As the door clicked to its creaky and already familiar shut, Kenny made his way over to the bed. He sat the beer on the floor between spread legs, alongside his bowl of spaghetti. Marjorine made her way to sit beside him as he sat the bottle opener he had grabbed beside him on the bed.

           The bottle opener looked unnecessarily pretty, in a simple, aged way. It was obviously extremely old, worn at the edges from hands constantly gripping on it and rusted from condensation. It was a lavish green, and looked like a forest when paired with the rust. As said, it was unnecessarily gorgeous.

           Kenny wasted no time in grabbing a beer, and Marjorine closed her eyes as the familiar sound of alcohol bottles clinking registered itself in her brain.

           Kenny held the bottle he had grabbed out to her. "You want the first beer?" He asked.

           She shook her head. "No thank you," she denied, politely. "It's your beer." She had her hand folded neatly in her lap, and she stared at them with a sort of guilt in her eyes.

           Did she feel shameful for drinking beer with Kenny? She wasn't sure. Of course, it was illegal, but that wasn't really what was nibbling at the edges of her heart. She wasn't exactly fully in the know about guilt as a whole. It just wasn't an emotion she had felt much in the previous years.

           But, watching Kenny tip the rim of the bottle to his lips, she almost forgot everything else she was feeling entirely. The way the golden liquid passed the baby pink rims and seeped into the cracks—well it was enough to make the gods stop in their tracks.

Marjorine watched him intently as a shiver passed through his body, shaking his stocky limbs. He hit the air with his fist.

"Whoo!" He exclaimed, eyes wide. "There's nothing like a fresh Corona to hit the spot!"

Marjorine suppressed a giggle. This outburst of energy really was suddenly amusing. He made the beer sound—and look—more intriguing then it ever would actually be. She sighed, and the look of someone lovestruck implanted itself on her face.

Kenny glanced at her from the side of his eye, and the left corner of his lip curled up in a smirk. "Your turn," he teased, leaning forward to grab another beer out of the case.

Marjorine's stomach twisted again. She wasn't even sure it would taste good, but she didn't want to seem scared of the challenge. Kenny lived on the edge; the brink of life and death. And she wanted to keep up with that, just enough to be close without pushing him off the cliff.

In the midst of her thoughts, she hadn't heard the bottle being cracked open by Kenny's thick, callused fingers. He held it out to her, his hand steady, and after a few moments of hesitation, she took it. Her fingers wrapped around the freezing cold bottle, and the shock of the cold shot up her arm. She almost dropped it on the bed; what a disaster that would be.

           She pressed the bottle to her lips. The putrid smell of alcohol filled her lungs. It was all too familiar; she hated it. She would do anything for Kenny, though. Absolutely anything. He'd given her so much, she was not going to chicken out on the things he wanted to do.

           She took a swig. It was bitter. Disgusting. It shriveled on her tongue and lingered on her lips like a dead bug. It was positively awful, like the medicine you'd refuse to take as a child. It took all of her strength to not regurgitate it all over Kenny. She swallowed thickly, and it burned down her throat.

Kenny noticed the discomfort on her face and his eyebrows furrowed. His lips parted as he pondered what to say. "You really don't have to drink it if you don't want to," he settled for, tone sympathetic.

           Marjorine shook her head slowly. She was going to do this, for him. Just tonight. She took another swig. It didn't taste any better, and the burning still persisted. She blinked back tears.

           "If you're really not going to stop," Kenny started, sounding like he was trying to convince her to put down the bottle. He took a sip. "it gets better once you get drunk off of it."

           Oh, thank Hamburgers, she sighed. She didn't know if she could handle it if it kept persisting like this. After a couple moments of consideration, she looked at Kenny dead in the eye.
           "How bad do you think it would be to chug this?"