Love is Crazy by b.m.7

Chapter 1: Electricity, Life, and Anchovies

"Talk about Anchovies... What was I saying again?" asked Jenny. She had that wacky-fun smile on her face again.

"You were talking about how your Dad took you fishing," said Gavin. He and Danielle had joined us for a double date game night. 

"I thought this was Pictionary." I said, getting a giggle from Jenny.

"Only smart asses play Pictionary," proclaimed Gavin, winking at me. Danielle punched him in the arm.

"I'll drink to that." I said, downing the last of my coke with whiskey.

"Cheers," Danielle chimed in, and we all clinked our misfit glasses together with merriment. Later that night we all gathered round the television to watch a horror movie. By the end, no one could really remember what it was about or who played in it. Danielle and Gavin had left mid way through, and Jenny and I were interwoven, fingers interlocked. Legs pressed together. It was as if there was some force on either side of us pushing our bodies together in warmth.

We fell asleep like that. Gavin and Danielle had taken it upon themselves to clean a little before they left in the morning.

The night was a great success. Jenny had been begging me to move in with her for several months now, and a week ago after a fight, when I came back to her, I agreed to move in. This party was a celebration of our 6 months together.

Jenny was a peach, sweet as a spring breeze and as wild as a firing glowing against the night sky. Her hair was strait, but naturally reddish orange--a tint that shot off sparks if you looked close enough. Her face was heart shaped and her eyes big; bright green pupils made her face a bit quirky, but beautiful all the same.

"Ben, could you help me with this?" Jenny asked from her bedroom.

I walked in to see her reaching for a hat in the top of her closet. "Lost your stool?" I asked, walking over to help out. I was about half a foot taller than her.

"I got a new one." She said, winking at me. I gave her a silly look and picked the hat off the shelf.

"You're funny. Be thankful its the weekend, any week day and I'd be gone before you woke up." I said. I worked at a bank downtown as a part-time accountant and it took about half an hour to get there by car.

"Oh, I'm thankful alright." She came close to me, gently pressing her face into my chest. "I've got you." I wrapped my arms around her. I kissed the top of her head.

"I'm greatful for it." We held each other for another moment, and then broke apart. I prepared a nice lunch for the two of us, it was my turn. Jenny would be cooking dinner. We had lived together well so far. We had yet to have a fight in her house.

It wasn't that big, one bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen. It was more like an apartment than a house, but it was enough for the two of us. College graduates only needed something to get our feet wet.

I had wanted a new one, but she insisted on her own home. Who am I to turn down such a wildling? She was something special. She also liked Anchovies.

To me, somebody liking the fish was adventurous, for they had to first try it, and then learn to like it. Much like onions when I was little, they are an aquired taste. It really made a lot of sense. Jenny and I were like Anchovies to one another. She was wild for her family, and I rebellious for mine. We didn't mix well, but we made it work, learned to like each other, and neither of us could really explain it, but there seemed to be a certain electricity between us.

Some force was pulling us together, and Gavin was as supportive as Gavin got. He was a bit of an asshole at times, but he got shit done. He also was a bit wise beyond his years and found Jenny to be alright, among some of the other crazy girls I had dated. For some reason, I was prone to attracting the crazies. We used to joke how it may have been that I was the one making all these poor girls crazy, as if I was cursed.

One girl, Sam was her name. She and I were doing well in college until one day when I was over at her residence hall. We were hanging out on her bed playing a board game when her closet fell open, stuff spilling everywhere. (She wasn't the most cleanly person.) We managed to make some piles, but in the midst of it all was two candles, a picture frame I had given her, and a small shrine looking stand on the ground. Putting the pieces together I found the crazy. This girl had a shrine made up in her closet. It was a bit creepy. I used to try to blame it on the fact that she was a Buddhist, as she tried to tell me, but something made the hairs on my neck stand up. I couldn't deal with her, so I broke up with her on the spot. It wasn't the nicest thing I'd ever done, but it got me out of a crazy relationship.

Another time, a girl put something in my drink, and the next moment I was falling head over heals for her. I brushed it off as a hangover. Afterwards however, I could never shake a feeling that I'd end up with her, and two weeks later I was dating Esmerelda. I call her the witch, myself. If it weren't for my strong belief that magic doesn't exist, I would have sworn I'd been enchanted in some devious way.

Gavin told me it was the other way around, harping on how I had made it all up because she dumped me. It was true, apparently she got tired of me and left me in the dirt. It made no sense. Neither did what I had with Jenny until Gavin pointed out she wasn't wearing a pointy hat or praying to me every night. At least there was that.

In the six months we'd been together I've come to know a lot about jenny, but I'm still a little worried there is something that she's not telling me that will weird me out.

"There you are." Said Jenny waltzing into the kitchen as I was taking the pot of steaming rice off the hot stove.

"Never left, sweetheart." I said, playfully kissing her. "You know, you are the only guy who ever volunteered to cook for me." She said.

"I enjoy it." I winked. "I expect a sandwich later." Her face coiled up in an annoyed but still playful way. She couldn't help but laugh.

"I set myself up for that one." She said.

"Sure did." I agreed.

"Finish cooking wench." She said, a gleam in her eye.

"You're funny." I said.

"You're a peon working the bellows of this ship, hiayah!" she said, pretending to whip me.

"No mind pay you to the pauper, the stew will be ready for Oliver and the rest of the orphans soon enough."

"Not if Queen Elizabeth has anything to say about it!" Said Jenny. "To the salt mines!"

"Those were Spanish, dear, you must mean 'to the gallows'" I said.

"Ah yessss, to the gallows! Off with your head." She said.

"I'm painting the roses red dear, not much more I can do at the moment." We both smiled and I brought out the food. It tasted good, and watching her shoulder-length-fiery hair blow in the wind was interesting because when the sun shown on it just right it became velvet. (I tend to space out a lot.) However, there was something about that fun, easy, and pleasant moment that stood out to me in the weeks to come. For a few weeks from today, our world would be turned up-side-down.