Unholy Habits (currently being edited)

43

I awoke to the sight of his back. It was bare and muscular and warm against my chest. It felt soft and thick and manly all at the same time. I traced my fingertips along his skin, drawing shapes and patterns and sentences that I didn't even know. From here, I could see between the cracks of the curtain, and all was white.
I sat up and crawled out of the bed and around it to the windows. I peeled back a little bit of the curtain, but not so it would illuminate too much light on his face. When I did though, the stream of white from snow widened my eyes. There was snow layering the ground in a thick blanket as though it had been working real hard all night. There was snow caking the trees and bushes and the tops of the houses all around. And the snow flurries were still coming down in a thick, blinding film about the sky. It was so beautiful.
In the bed, Gabe stirred and opened his eyes. They caught me first thing, blinking a few times and then finalizing their fixation on me. I smiled and then he smiled.
"It's snowing." I whispered.
"Really?" He asked in amusement. He sat up and ran a hand through his hair. Then he peeled the covers off of himself and stood up. He came up behind me, putting a hand on the curtain and turning his face out of the window. "It's beautiful." He whispered.
"I know!" I rested my forehead on the cold glass and breathed against it, leaving it foggy when I exhaled, but then making it disappear when I inhaled. "It's like the clouds did it just for you, so you could have a perfect Christmas." He smiled and let out a little airy laugh.
"You're fucking funny."
"And you have terribly vulgar language." He shrugged.
"Well at least I can fucking control it when I want to." I scoffed.
"Yeah if you have an audience." He glared at me.
"That is not fucking true."
"Do you realize that in every instance that you just said you could control it, you swore?" He licked his lips in annoyance and glared down at me.
"And do you realize that you tremble under my very touch?" He asked and ran his fingertips down my bare arm. I shivered and stepped back. He smiled and I scowled.
"You're such an-ugh!" He laughed at me and then took a seat on the edge of the bed. "I think you should be in drama." I let out with a sigh. He laughed hysterically at this.
"Is the magic getting to you a little too much?" I squinted in annoyance at him and took a seat next to him.
"No." I answered. "But you're really good in front of an audience-you're believable." I explained. He shook his head with this interesting smile on his face.
"I think you should be a drug dealer. Since you love drugs, ya know?"
"I do not love drugs!" I scolded in frustration. I didn't even like the word drugs. And I only did one kind ever and it wasn't bad like the other ones. "All I'm saying is that you're good at acting. How is that so bad? I'm complimenting you." He shrugged and raised and eyebrow.
"Well," he began. "I'm not an actor. Im an asshole." I shook my head in defeat and stood up.
"Move." I muttered and grabbed hold of the blankets underneath him. He didn't move though. "Hello?" He raised his eyebrows at me.
"Harvard told me to move, I thought you were practicing kindness or some shit." I flicked my hair back over my shoulder and sighed.
"Actually, right now, I'm practicing the destruction of an asshole named Gabe. Now," I got close to his face. "Move." He smiled the biggest, most genuine smile, and then got up.
I made the bed. Pulling the sheets thin and flat along with the comforter. I folded up the comfy blankets and layered everything real nice. I threw the pillows on all fluffy and thick and taking up so much space. And then I opened all the curtains, letting in the brightness of the snow all around. It made me so happy that we could have a white Christmas because all along it had been ice-less and without snow. And now winter's mark was being made.
While I made the bed, he pulled on his sweatpants and sweatshirt and brushed his teeth. I pulled on leggings and tied my hair in a messy bun and brushed my own teeth too. Then I pulled on fuzzy socks and rubbed in a little bit of lotion on my face after rinsing it. I put on some Chapstick and then took a seat on the edge of my bed. I was bent down adjusting my gray fuzzy socks when he spoke as softly as he did.
"Um, Lenore?"
"Mhm?"
"I-" he held he backpack in his arms and took a seat next to me. "I wanted to give you my gifts privately. I thought maybe..." He cleared his throat. "I thought maybe they'd mean a little more." He was speaking with such gentleness and care, this softness coming all about his being. He unzipped his bag and pulled a square box out, it was about the size of a phone, only more square and a bit thicker too. It wasn't wrapped in any paper, just a plain white box, though it had hand painted designs. It was white Christmas lights, they looked like it too. It was real intricate and beautiful. He held out for me to hold and I took hesitantly.
"Gabe you didn't have to do-"
"Just open it." I eyed him for a long moment, and then looked down at the little box. I pulled the top off and was greeted with a folded up patch of pastel pink lace. I placed the box top underneath the little box and set it on my lap. I picked up the fabric and let it unravel to reveal its shape. It was silky and cold and soft. But upon holding it up unraveled to my eyes and understanding what it was, I dropped it back in the box.
"What did y-oh my-Gabe!" He chuckled to himself and watched my cheeks burn with embarrassment. A thong, he'd gotten me a lace-y, silky, extra small, pastel pink thong. "Why'd y-" he leaned in close to me.
"I know it's all sexual and unacceptable and maybe a little creepy, but it screamed you." He whispered deeply in my ear. I picked it up after shivering and gave it a second glance. It was really pretty for a tiny piece of fabric that got shoved up your butt. Somehow, it was kind of romantic that he'd gotten me this, though. But I didn't let him know that. Instead, I folded the little fabric neatly, placed it back in the box, closed the top, and then set it on my night stand. I was prepared to thank him but was halted by his thrusting of another gift in my lap. It was a bigger box than the first, about the size that a decent sized cake would come in. Again, there was no wrapping paper, just a plain white box with painting. Though this painting was all sketchy and wild, snow and sparkles and street lights. It was even more beautiful than the first one.
I opened the top and set it beside me carefully. I reached in and pulled out three pairs of black leggings and six crop tops. The first was a plain black long sleeve, and the second was a pink tank top that had a criss cross cut out back. The third was a black, short sleeve Rolling Stones ones, and the fourth was a pinkish, cream tank top that seemed really popular in today's fashion-though this one was actually cute. The fifth was  grayish tank top, with a yin yang , and the sixth was a black tank top, with the phases of the moon. They were all real stylish and I actually quite adored them. But my mind couldn't wrap around why he would've picked these kinds of things to get me. I turned my head to him, holding the last crop top in my hands and opened my mouth to speak.
"What did you do all this for? I have plenty of clothes." He smiled and bit his lip a little. It was the most attractive thing he could've ever done.
"See," he began. "I don't know if you know anything about guys, but we like to see our women in certain kinds of things. And once we know what those things are, we make sure they have plenty of those things so they'll have no choice but to wear it. Ya see?" I felt my eyebrows scrunching together as he spoke and I observed the crop top. "I like the way you look in leggings and crop tops. I'd like to see it more often." I drew in a deep breath, the expression across my face not leaving.
"That's really guy-ish and strange, yet very clever, I must admit." I explained as I put the clothes back in the box and turned to put the top back onto it.
"I know!" He said real excited and as if he were gay. I scoffed a little as I continued to close up the box. He held out another gift before I could put this one down even.
"Gabe, what are you doing?" I asked. "This is really too much." He smiled a real cheesy over exaggerate smile in which made me smile and take the gift without any further conflict. This box was small and thin and had a perfect black night sky with the stars blinking all about. He was so talented, it was ridiculous. I opened this box, noting five CDs. They were all in black and clear cases with a slip of paper in each cover that had nothing on the front but on the inside. I turned to him for an explanation.
"The ones with stars on them are of all the songs we watched the stars too. And the rest are songs that I've watched the stars to, or painted to, or think of you too." He said the last part real quiet like he was partially ashamed but partially unsure how to even say it. I looked down when he said that, afraid of how I should react. But I did exactly what felt right. I set the CDs back in the box and put the cover over it and set it on top of the thong box. I turned to him and hugged him hard. He was caught off guard because he didn't do anything at first, but finally he did, wrapping an arm strongly around me. It felt good to have his arms around me. They were always warm and held me so tight where I was, I thought I'd never escape. But he finally let me go and smiled a small smile at me, a soft gesture in which was only seen about him every so often. So I captured that look and those eyes and that moment, stowing it away in a little vault in the back of my mind. The only piece left of me that had not been corrupted by this world.
"Here," he handed me yet another gift. It was a smaller box, about the size of a box of markers only thicker. But it had a sketch of the profile of a dudes head with a smoke between his lips and smoke being whipped away in the wind, or, in this case, about the box.  I opened it and saw, upon the inside of the top of the box that it said; drown yourself with me. It was written in nice handwriting in black sharpie with a perfect little period at the end. I gulped down and looked in the box to see cigarette upon cigarette and a pretty, silver little lighter on the top of it all. It was the nice kind of lighters. The type that you flicked once and it stayed lit until you flicked the top shut. And below the lighter, a little silver cigarette holder. He leaned in close to my ear.
"There's a whole carton in there." I looked over at him, holding this box in between my sweaty palms.
"You really want to turn my lungs black." I whispered, trying to come across as though I were joking, though his true intentions made my stomach feel like an earthquake. He scoffed a light airy kind of scoff and talked real slow and quietly.
"No-well, maybe a little." He explained. "You're pretty when you smoke." I eyed him close, feeling my eyebrows crinkle a little.
"Most normal people wouldn't find that to be pretty." He pressed his lips together in a firm line.
"Well," he began. "I'm not like most normal people."
"I guess that's true. Most normal people don't give cartons of cigarettes in each others stockings. It's kind of got a negative feel about it." He shrugged.
"Well I found something good about it." He muttered as though he weren't too enthusiastic about defending his gift because he truly had his opinion set and wasn't too enthralled with anyone else's.
"What would that be?"
"The fact that it's a mean killing machine. Think about it," he began. "Most people fear death, they cringe and crack under its very name, very presence. Most people distance themselves from any contact with it, running away from one of life's biggest inevitabilities. But you," he paused to breathe. "You accept it, you understand it. You feel it's pain, its presence. But you're stronger than most people, and this-" he gestured to the cigarettes. "This is your very metaphor, you're very trademark of just how strong you really are. You sip it back like it's water, inhale like it's oxygen, feel like it's a warm summer breeze. You don't let the toxins and poison and smoke tatter you. You're different!" He had gotten so worked up that he had to stop himself for second before he began whispering some words softly. "You're different."
I had watched him become passionate and strange and so enticing with the words and the way he spoke about me. It was so strange to see what someone else thought about me, on this deep of a level. Everyone always scratched the surface-hardly. They'd note my abilities, my accomplishments, my intelligence, my manners. But no one ever dug deep within my guts, deciding who I am and where I stand in this world. Whether I was a wind that changed the tides of seas or a mere chilling breeze about the winter in the middle of the night-the breeze no one knew, saw, or ever missed.
"You're wrong about one thing." I explained softly.
"What?"
"I don't accept death." He just watched me, unsure if he could believe me or not. "I merely tolerate it, learn to live in an unwanted harmony with it because it's the only way to keep myself sane." He sat there staring at the ground with a serious expression across his face.
"Cigarettes are the only things that keep me sane."