Crests and Troughs

Simple Syrup

Song of Chapter: Mess ~ Noah Kahan
~~~

You're lying in bed and hugging a pillow to your chest. You hug it the way you hugged pillows when you were a child and had to sleep alone. You hug it the way you hugged Léyon when you were a teen and had someone to hold. You hug it the way you want to be hugged.

You don't even have the will to wipe the tears flowing from your open eyes.

You wish you weren't alone.

You fall asleep with that sentence on loop in your head.

You dream about Léyon and Tianne and Jeremy and even Nathan. The dream quickly becomes a nightmare and you half-wake up with that same heavy emptiness.

You try to think of somewhat soothing things to lull yourself back to sleep and, at this stage, you're not sure if you did sleep or not. Life has been a bit of a blur lately and everything seems to blend into one and stretch out endlessly at the same time.

Anyway, your ringtone rouses you and, for a while, you hoarsely sing along to Khalid's (ft. Shawn Mendes) 'Youth'.

Before it cuts off, you groggily reach across to your dormitory desk and answer. You expect to hear a family member's voice on the other end of the line but you're met with simple syrup, "Hi. How are you? It's been a while, hasn't it?"

You rub your eyes and stare at the caller ID. The word Jeremy stares back at you.

Huh.

"Are you there?"

"I'm here. I just woke up," you croak.

"It's five in the afternoon. What do you mean you just woke up?" He sounds genuinely confused and the conversation is taking on too much body for you right now. Your head is pounding, probably from the beginnings of dehydration, and he's making you have to think of something witty.

After a pause and a sigh you settle with, "I mean, I just woke up."

He blows out a puff of air and says, "Wow, you're sleep schedule is seriously fucked up."

You don't respond because how does one repond to that?

You find that you didn't need to because he breaks the silence, "Are you hungry?"

You subconsciously rub your belly while you think about it, "Yes."

"Alright, I'm bringing KFC."

Huh?

It takes you a moment to wrap your head around his words.

He's coming here.

And, he's brining food.

"Desireé, are you there?

Oh.

"I want curry chicken from that Chaimaican place at The Melting Pot, Timmy Yip. I brought Myari and you guys there a couple weeks ago."

He chuckles, a foreign sound, "I remember. The whole experience was a burst of flavour."

You can hear his grin and you smile at that.

Whitey, you muse even though he isn't actually white; just foreign. Same puss is cat, you snide.

"Sure. You'll get your curry chicken even though it's going to make me late."

"You didn't give me a time-frame, remember. So, you won't be late."

He chuckles again and the line goes dead.

You're glad you were craving a taste of the past because you now have time to look somewhat presentable.

Your bed is unmade and you think that's not unusual, until you remember that you have been lying on a bare mattress for the last two days.

Alright, that's bad, you think.

So, you roll out of bed a bit too swiftly and almost fall. You blink a couple times to relieve the familar dizziness. And, you head to the showers.

You spend a long time in the shower. You're not sure how long you took but, you just know it was long because you were more focused on the thoughts popping into your head than the motions you were making with your rag. You even had to remind yourself a couple times that you were bathing.

Eventually, you completed the activity.

Drying off though, was a whole other bridge to cross.

You didn't bother to wash your hair even though it had become one big knot on top of your head. You'd wrapped it up in a bun last Thursday but, with all your tossing and turning, it had become all fuzzy.

You opted to leave it that way because you knew how much time and effort it would take to look presentable. None of which you were willing to spend.

Finally wrapped in your towel, you make your way to the sinks and look yourself in the mirror.

Why are you like this?, you ask.

You keep searching your face for an answer but you don't find it.

The heaviness sets in and you want to cry but, you can't. You don't know why.

You pick up your toothbrush, wet it, squeeze some toothpate on it and begin to brush your teeth. Slowly, trying to find an answer.

You don't find it.

You get to the inside of your teeth and you still don't find an answer.

You make it to the right side of your mouth and you still don't find an answer.

Your eyes begin to well up.

You want to cry.

You begin brushing your tongue and you feel the tears coming.

The saliva is beginning to build up in your mouth and the dams in your eyes begin to overflow.

You cry with everything you have. Everything you don't. Everything you wish you felt. You cry for relief. Relief from this paralysis. You cry until you have to spit and then, you cry some more. You cry until the taste of the toothpaste becomes unbearable. You rinse your mouth and you wash your face. You blow your nose and then you look back into the mirror. You are beautiful. You feel better.

When you make it back to your room, you're surprised Jeremy hasn't arrived as yet. He must've forgotten the way to Timmy Yip, your favourite Chaimaican restaurant.

You take your time to get dressed, floating in a pool of self love.

As you're pulling your blouse over your head, you hear a knock at the door. Two seconds later, you find a smiling Jeremy on the other side. You usher him inside and order him to leave the food on your desk, next to your pile of untouched schoolbooks. You tell him he can sit at your desk and you gather the sheets you're going to clothe your bed with. He offers to help but you know he won't be much help so you wave him off. He obediently remains seated. You appreciate that.

Once your bed is made, you rest your stack of books on it and take a seat above Jeremy. You both eat in silence.

When you've finished your first round and he has a quarter left to go, you open the reuseable plastic containers for round two.

"I guess you were hungry?"

You stop and look at him. Then, you wave your free hand over your body, "Look at this," you say, "I need to maintain this," you complete, referring to your thick curves. Even though your oversized sleeping shirt hangs lower over your knees than it did three weeks ago, you know you're still pretty thick, fat, whatever it is from your time spent in front of the communal bathrooms mirrors.

He bursts into laughter. See, he didn't even notice you're smaller. Louder than you expected from him and much more hearty. It's filled with so much energy that you give him a slight chuckle in return.

You don't bother telling him you've only eaten corn flakes the entire weekend.

That night - or morning, rather - you sleep well. Dreamless and not too long. You wake up thinking you can take on the world.