Sin & Savior

CHAPTER 6, PART 3

As their dinner cavalcaded into the clamor of forks and knives and their cacophonous tendrils clanging against the ceramic; plates too filled with satisfaction to have held a conveyor of second-helpings in the clutch of their pale regards: unspoken want and need swirled through the air with the type of tension capable of shearing atoms in two.

"Sera...." Broderick asked, his voice low and unelevated "....When? When will what I give you finally be enough?" he asked, exhausted and exasperated.

"When it's more," she stated flatly. "Broderick....you haven't even taken me out on a DATE yet but you expect me to unceremoniously hand you the most important thing I have in my entire life on a platter without any consideration or gatekeeping, and I'm SORRY but I am NOT changing my mind until you change the way you've been behaving towards me. You act like I'm supposed to let you have what you want merely on the strength of the fact that you want it. And....I'm sorry, but.....what thing worth attaining on EARTH operates inside that boundary? The answer is nothing, and you KNOW it Ricky. Can't you see that I haven't asked nearly as much of you as you're constantly demanding of me with your veiled threats to leave if I don't eventually give you something you can find literally ANYWHERE else. There are open legs all over this campus. Go talk to that whore Scarlett if sex is so god damn important to you: I'm sure she'd be more than happy to spread her legs for a McDonald's combo and a bright smile. I am NOT so easy, Ricky. I never was, and you knew that when you decided to date me. So stop pressuring me day in and day out with what it is you claim you 'need' so badly. You are not going to die, Broderick, but you're by far the most dramatic person I know. If you need me to help you medically around your 'addiction' you claim has this crutch on you - I will. I've offered countless times. But I will NOT be the whipping horse of your desires! I have my own wants, and one of them is to keep to myself until I find the man that loves me for me, and deserves all of me. And not only have you not expressed yourself as being capable or qualified of that, but you haven't even pretended like you feel I'm worth anything to you beyond a toy for you to be used up and discarded once you get tired of playing with me. And I'm not letting you play with me until you realize full well I'm not playing with YOU, Rick. I'm serious. Take me on a date, or stop fucking asking me about an..."

"ALRIGHT, DAMN. SHIT. FUCK." He cut her off mid-sentence.

"I get it, I get it! You don't feel appreciated, and you think because you feel that way it means I don't actually appreciate you, but I do. And I don't know how to show you that any more than what I'm doing! We spent over $200 tonight on ONE meal, that's a date to me!!" he cried, unhinged and aimless into the air around them, its heavy and sharp report rattling in her ears.

"You want to do everything you can to keep me private and hidden away from your social groups and you believe that I don't SEE it, Broderick. Like I don't SEE you letting go of my hand whenever Desmond and Kevin are around. Laughing loud and hard at all their jokes disparaging women when you know you're a fucking puppy dog in my lap whenever we're in private. Stop lying to your friends and perpetrating this front like you don't have any commitment to this relationship or like I mean NOTHING to you before you dare think that you can ask me to open my legs for a coward that's so stuck on his status that he turns his back on the person he claims matters the most to him. You're FULL OF SHIT RICKY, AND..."

At that moment, an unexpected intruder injected themselves unexpectedly into the thickening report encapsulating the living area.

"Evan...." Broderick uttered, barely a whisper between his teeth.

She stifled her howling, and looked over at the small boy who couldn't have been any older than 15, shirking her shoulders and shrinking into the background as her shame began to silently overwhelm her.

"Seraphina, this....is Evan. My little Brother. Evan..." he turned to his brother, disgrace and cognitive dissonance washing over him "This.....this is......this is my....my uhh...."

He couldn't bring himself to say the words. Seraphina cut her eyes at him and they beamed against the light piercing into his skin like lasers. "I have a girlfriend, Evan." He whispered, to Evan's apparent surprise.

"A...girlfriend?" he stammered.

"Yes, Evan...my girlfriend. This is Seraphina, my girlfriend."

"I...I didn't know..." Evan quipped, quietly and demurely.

"He," Broderick whispered to Seraphina, "has Aspergers Type 2 and Autism. I try and keep him distant from certain changes in my own life knowing that he could never understand the social mechanism of it all. He has anxiety, and it's pretty detrimental. He primarily keeps to himself, plays video games, watches cartoons and anime, and fantasizes about the day when he'll get out of what he imagines is a hellhole and away from my mother, his caretaker. But what he doesn't realize or understand is that he'll probably need consistent care until the day he dies..." he whispered, pulling away soft and hopeful that her reaction wouldn't be one of disdain or disgust. Instead: she looked at him with profound understanding and gratefulness. "Ricky...I wish you would have told me about him sooner. That's incredible. I'm certain you have a wonderful brother," she said, walking over and hugging Evan, her sympathy activating in spite of the fact that Evan had no idea what the two had been talking about in stoops and corners hunched over whispering into one another's ears.

"I'm ready to get out of here, Ricky. I had a wonderful night, but I'm stuffed and if I don't start driving home soon I'm absolutely certain I won't make it out without drifting off to sleep." She said boldly.

"What's wrong with that?" he smirked, and allowed it to grow itself into a grin before glancing in her direction away from Evan.

"Everything." She said with gusto, to which he laughed half-heartedly.

"Alright, well...I guess I should go ahead and walk her out, Evan. I'll be right back." He looked over at his brother before gripping Seraphina's hand and heading off with her towards the door.

They glided elegantly toward the door, leaving Evan and the backdrop of his loud League of Legends game behind, stepping out over the threshold and into the daylight.

"Why would you make him feel like he was different? That was disrespectful." He said without a question on his mind or in his mouth. "What on earth are you talking about?" she looked sideways at him sharply and spat "I didn't do anything but give him a hug. What's wrong with that?!?!?!" she said "After having me WHISPER in your ear about what could've been anything, although it was clearly him, like he wouldn't be smart enough to pick up on the fact that you were feeling sorry for him. That's not cool, Sera." He said, beleaguered and offended. "Fuck you, Ricky. I didn't do ANYTHING wrong, and if it mattered that damn much to you, then WHY on earth did you tell me in the first place if you had not expected me to be a WOMAN about it, and be nurturing after hearing that information? Are you fucking stupid? Fuck you, Broderick.... FUCK!"

He took her quickly and unexpectedly by her shoulders and slammed her into the side of his car firmly, but gently enough to convey the threat without committing any violence.

"You fucking bitch. You spend all this time teasing me, manipulating me, and you believe you have the right to disrespect me and my brother? To spit in my fucking face? Fuck you, bitch!" he screamed, loud enough for anyone within 4 houses on the block to hear.

He was, summarily, rewarded with the heel of her shoe nearly perforating his own in a hard, intentional, interlocuted stomp upon the upper-base of his foot.

"Don't you EVER speak to me like that again." She howled, before gripping his genitals in the palm of her dominant hand and squeezing until the point where she knew if he moved and she gripped harder he'd end up in the hospital. "I am NO bitch of yours." She said, before shoving him into the staircase and banister, then running to the driver's seat of her car, unlocking it, and tossing it in reverse as he slammed his fist against the auto-body, peeling out in reverse out onto the smooth-stoned street, and into the horizon.