Hugs & Blows

Cold Comfort

Ethan woke up with a jostling of the bed, he sat up and watched as Odette got dressed. Odette dressed in a style that Ethan didn't know how to describe. She wore lots of sweaters, band tees, and ironic shirts. Stovepipe jeans or dresses, the loosely flowing short skirted type that he thinks are called sundresses.

She looks girly and punk-rock but he knows she likes some hiphop. If it could really be described as such, she calls the genre "nerdcore.". Odette seems to transcend all labels. She truly was unique.

Ethan was shirtless and sitting up with the sheets pooled around his boxer clad lower body, he enjoyed watching Odette dress, today she had chosen to wear one of the short sundresses. This one was yellow, it fit snugly around her breasts, and flared out below her waist, it gave her a very pleasing hourglass figure. It had two thick straps on her slight shoulders, it seemed to highlight her collarbones.

He didn't know if she had work or not, he figured she would pair it with one of her signature grandpa cardigans and most likely no shoes. Odette hated wearing shoes and whenever she could be barefoot she was. Ethan thinks her barefooted behavior was a kentucky thing.

Odette was a lot more Kentucky than she was willing to admit, she almost had no accent, it only game out when she was sleepy or trashed. He liked her slightly southern ways. In fact he loved them, he loved everything about her. He stood up, walked up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek before leaving to shower.

Odette flicked on the stereo system, she preferred doing her makeup to music. She turned it to her playlist titled "music to strip to.", sometimes Odette wondered if she was trashy. She thinks she might be, a lot of her shirts have strategically placed slits, her jeans are always distressed to the max. She likes to wear fishnets under them. Odette looked at her face, she was only wearing mascara and eyeliner.

She didn't know if she was trashy or not. She turned her eyes to the pink lipgloss stained, orange cigarette butts in her glass ashtray, she thought about her vulgarity engraved zippo lighter, (it read "if you'd like to fuck smile when you hand this back.") Odette wonders what people see when they look at her. She looked at the lipgloss tube in her hand, it was the sweetly flavored cheap kind that children wore, skittles lipsmackers, she liked for people to "taste the rainbow when they kissed her"

She thinks she might look like a little girl playing dress up as a naughty girl. Odette didn't feel twenty two, though she had been doing things that most twenty two year olds do since she was fifteen, she didn't feel her age. She didn't feel like an adult, she knew she wasn't grown up enough.

All of the sudden she's cold, scared and confused. She wants nothing more than to curl up under the blankets of her bed and cry. She isn't sure what's made her feel this way. She hates that she can't control her own emotions. She wants to to feel normal, but she has no idea what that would even feel like, she trusts that it's better than this though.

Ethan walks in with a towel around his waist and water droplets on his skin, she walks up to him and hugs him, bursting into tears. Ethan is shocked and confused but he holds her and consoles her. She thinks back to one night months ago when Drew said that he was perfect for her, a psychopath to balance out her borderline ways.

She had laughed awkwardly, unsure of what he meant or why he would joke about them being soulmates, or him being a psychopath. She wonders if maybe she really is borderline.

"I'm sorry I'm so irrevocably fucked up." she says between sobs.

Ethan strokes her hair and says "You aren't fucked up. You have nothing to be sorry for, I love you."

She mumbles "I love you too." into the crook of his neck.

"What's wrong?" he asks soothingly.

"I have absolutely no idea. That's what's so fucking frightening." She answers.

He kisses the top of her head and says. "It'll be okay baby girl, I'm here."

They lay in bed like that for hours, her all dolled up and crying hysterically, and him naked and comforting her. Later on when she's calm and thinking back on it, she thinks that that is a great metaphor and says a lot about the two of them, she just isn't sure what exactly it says.