Unholy Habits (currently being edited)

12

The teapot screamed, piercing through silence that had erupted after the discovery I had made of him. The rain made it awfully gloomy in here, and I was beginning to feel strange in my very own home. I liked the kitchen. I liked the chipping, cream paint along the window pains. I liked the dark wood being slightly revealed beneath it. I liked the thin windows, and I liked how old they were. They rattled and shook like an old lady bringing a cup of tea to her ancient lips. I liked the white trim, and the milky, sand dusted tiles with the deep brown grout in between the cracks on the floor. I liked the off white walls, with their slightly visible curves, and dents, and cracks. I liked the cream, glass cabinets, and all of the black, stainless steal appliances. I liked the draft from the back door, breathing cool air from the garage in at my toes. I liked it all. But I didn't like it so much now.

I felt detached from the room, and the home. I felt detached from its country-like charm, and its historical value to this town-something I had grown so fond of. I felt disconnected from the glass table a top his knees, covered in that same indigo table cloth. The one with all the red and yellow prints, and the flecks of purple and brown beady dots in rows across the fabric. I felt disconnected from the white Christmas lights running above the windows and the tops of the high cabinets. I felt detached from it all, every cozy, chilling aspect of it all. Deep down I knew it was his presence. The very fact that he, with his fingers habitually flicking the lighter on and off and twisting it between his fingertips. The very fact that he was in this house, alone with me, watching my every move-judging me. He had this way about him, a way about him that made me feel so small, so unidentified with the rest of the world. Because he seemed to be socially accepted, sociable-and liked. And I knew that I wasn't exactly any of those things. School wise, I was but a particle floating about the stale air, taking up unnoticed space in a classroom, boosting the schools funding with my intellectual abilities, and social inabilities. Socially, I was non existent.

I took one small, sliding, step to position myself in front of the stove. I twisted the nob and turned off the flame. Then, with the hand towel, I gripped the hot handle of the tea and set it on a rubber heat protector on the table. I poured the hot water, evenly, into the mugs. I added two peppermint tea bags and dunked them in. Then, I added a splash of milk and a cube of caramel. Then I grabbed two little spoons and dipped one in each cup. I gripped them both in my hand and brought it to him. I set mine on the cloth and grabbed a coaster from the window sill. I set it down in front of him and then put the cup on top of it. I did the same for my own cup, and then pulled the chair out from the table across from him and took a seat.

He looked into the cup with reluctance.

"It's not poisoned or anything, I promise."

"I don't know, you seem like the goddamn type." I bit the inside of my lip so hard that I could taste the blood. I stirred my tea with small little circles, so's not to make the loud clinking sound that the spoon against the glass usually made when an obnoxious person stirred obnoxiously. He began stirring his cup, but I never heard the sound of the spoon on the cup. I thought it to be strange. He was obnoxious, ignorant, unsophisticated, and probably someone who'd never had a lick of tea in their life-yet, he stirred it right.

I watched the way his fingertips grabbed the cup and brought it to his mouth. He sipped it quietly, the only sound being the padding of the droplets of rain on the roof outside. The sun was already setting, it was a moment so gray, so lonely, so undefined-not even a picture could've captured this moment so well.

He set the cup down, this satisfaction welling up in his eyes. He looked in it and then at me.

"What is in this?" He asked. "I can tell it's peppermint tea, but there's something else-"