The Incredible League of Goth Pizza Haters (RH)

Part 19

---Sylvia---

Once I started I couldn't stop. The tears came, and then the tremors so fierce it was as if my body was the earth and it was quaking inside and out from the destruction and corruption that took place within me. Mena, like she was the sun, hugged and cried right along with me, warming my cold core. The ladybugs, scarlet stars in a secret universe of echoes and misty sunlight, continued about their business. A sign of hope and beauty within this galaxy of stone. 

***

I was still hiccuping in the memory of my painful outburst as Mena drove us back to my apartment. She'd offered to pay for a hotel where we could sleep and be soothed by the unfamiliarity of a new setting. But I'd been on the road for weeks surrounded by unfamiliarity and reminded of it whenever I looked out the window. I just wanted to go home and see my cats. 

So that's where we went. Andy was sitting on the couch when we opened the door. He mewed and mewed until I walked over to pet him. He looked thinner than he'd been when I'd last seen him and I wondered emptily if Abby had been too depressed and suicidal to care for my cats. 

Not a shocker, I guess. She couldn't even care for herself enough to stay alive. 

I fed them both and replenished their water bowl. Wally looked fine, which made me worried about Andy. He didn't seem to want to eat. I can't blame him, neither do I. 

For dinner Mena whipped up some bomb ass macaroni n' cheese. I ate my entire plate, which was more than I'd eaten all at once in the last few days. It felt okay. Afterwards Andy napped on my lap while Mena hugged Wally. We stayed up most the night watching movies in silence. She tried to talk to me about how I was feeling and everything. but I didn't want to. I felt like my spine had been ripped out, leaving a long narrow hole in my body and through that hole, the hungry crows came and plucked out my skin. They buried deeper and dug out my organs. My bones. All while I sat hunched beneath a single street lamp, surrounded by darkness, alone. 

But telling her that would've only brought more negative feelings and this goddamn world had enough negative emotion without my contribution. 

So I asked her about her life and she talked for a while about the tragedy that she endured by having gotten stuck on a tour bus with One Erection. She put enough effort into talking about how horrible it was that it was kind of obvious to me she had fun and didn't hate them as much as she promised she did. Her face turned full tomato when she talked about the blond one. 

I remembered how Balz got when talking about Ryan Ashley. 

Abby will never get to fall in love. 

About an hour or so later Mena was shifting around really uncomfortably, which made me uncomfortable because this was Mena's 'I'm keeping things from you but I don't know if I should tell you' body language. I knew why she was treating me like I was hurt and fragile. It was because of the funeral and she didn't know how I was holding up. I suppose I wasn't doing great, but the special treatment made me feel even worse. I wished she would treat me like she did before Abby died, so I told her just that and she nodded and straightened her posture. 

"Okay... so." she sighed, "I have a boyfriend." 

"Oh?" Mena hasn't had a boyfriend in three years, not since Josh stole her virginity and cheated on her. I was worried for my friend and sad from grief but also 100% ready to kick any boys ass who would try to hurt her again. 

"Yeah. Niall."

"Oh."

"And I had sex again."

"Oh?"

"It wasn't with Niall."

"Oh."