Porcelain

I'm crying. I know I am. I hadn't wanted to, though. I hate being weak in front of him. But as I taste the brackish tears against lips so course, I can't help but find myself caught within a winding path of remorse. I should have spoken up; I shouldn't have just glanced at him through sad eyes and allowed Jay to drive away, leaving him there - stranded. I could read him like an open book - he hadn't wanted to stay; I know he hadn't. But he did feel as though he needed to; that he somehow owed it to himself and to his parents. And as I stare at my own broken reflection, I realize that not only does this mirror need to be cleansed of dirty fingerprints and blatant scratches, but that I must pick up the pieces he's left me in, scattered amongst shattered memories and countless questions and wonderments.

I can feel a hand atop my shoulder; he grips it, softly, but with a sort of force that only he can ever demand. I nod and wipe the trails of tears from my cheeks and look away from the side mirror of his bright orange car's passenger seat. "Let's go," he says, his voice nonchalant and delicate, although I know the moment is anything but. I've never seen his home - though I don't know if calling this rusting one-floor apartment a home would be the correct thing to do. But as Jay leads me toward the screen door and pushes open the obviously un-locked wooden door behind it, I can feel a sudden cold encompass my body like a brutal embrace. The kind of embrace I feel when Jay creeps his arms round my shoulders and pulls me to him, smirking as his lips touch against mine.

I melt against him; and the feeling is familiar, in a sense. He's just like him, I note. His lips feel the same against mine and his touch is just as gentle, like the handling of a delicate porcelain doll. I'm just as pale as one, anyhow, I think to myself. And just as easily breakable, though I'm already broken. "You're so tense," he says, and my mind flashes instantaneously back to the week before. I'm always tense, I want to say. "Come on," he beckons, pulling me by the hand toward a room that I can only assume to be his own. The aroma is strange and unwelcoming, and I wonder if he's hidden something within the volume of the room that has begun to rot. He motions for me sit to on his bed, as he pushes a load of magazines off with his arms, bundling the sheets and comforter about the mattress.

I feel something under me as I sit, poking into my thigh. I reach for it and pull out a set of headphones. They look familiar. He catches me examinating the blue and silver device, and quickly removes it form my grasp. "They're Sean's," he says, removing his black cap and placing the headphones within them, throwing the cap into the corner of the room. "I forgot to give them back to him and really haven't, you know," he stops. "It's not like I'm gonna drive up to Wasaga just to give him a set of headphones." I nod, though I can't help but gaze longingly at the cap laying still on the opposite side of the room, amongst dirty laundry and scattered papers. "I'll probably go up there this weekend, though, and bring the them with me. He left a few CDs here that he wants back. Said somethin' 'bout needing to de-stress. Whatever. I think he's hatin' it in Wasaga, just doesn't want to admit it, 'cause he chose to stay."

"He misses Ellie," he says, shuffling through a CD case before sighing in exasperation and sitting beside me. He lays down and pulls me along with him, so that we are now lying beside one another, my legs entangled with his and my right hand entwined with left, as my head lay on his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart. We've had few moments like these in the past; moments of slight romance before the deed is done. They last only minutes before he begins to kiss the side of my face, moving toward my lips and pushing them open. . . . Everything becomes shadowed and dark from thereon. "He misses Ellie a lot, I think. I mean, I don't know. . . . 'Cause he asks how she's doing a lot, but I just say that I don't know, 'cause I assume that he talks to her a lot, anyway. But then I think that maybe he doesn't, 'cause El's been asking a lot about him too."

I wonder if he asks about me too. I remain silent momentarily, adjusting to the thick aroma of his bedroom. Truthfully, I can sense Sean, in a way. And Alex. But I don't think of her too often, or I begin to feel more drawn out from society that ever before. "Does he . . . ?" Jay turns over so that I am lying on my back, rather than my side, his arm draped over my stomach, toying with the fabric of my cotton T-shirt, as his head lies in the crook of my neck, nipping and licking at the exposed skin. I begin to tremble as a chill creeps through my spine and vibrates throughout my body; Jay makes a sound of acknowledgment. "Never mind," I say, turning my head as to brush my lips against his. His lips are so different from Sean's, I note. Jay's are pouted and expecting, whilst Sean's were thin and scowling.

His tongue pushes past my lips and I welcome his gesture openly. I hear him groan into my mouth and push himself on top of me, letting his weight fall against my lanky frame. "You were going to ask if he asks about you too, weren't you?" he mutters into my mouth. His hot breath burns against my skin, and I pull him closer, silently begging him to stop and never stop all at the same time. I sigh against his mouth and reach behind his neck to push his mouth against mine.

I think for a moment, as our mouths move as one against each other. "No," I whisper, gripping the hem of his shirt and fisting my hand through his hair.

"Good," he says, reaching for the zipper of his pants. "Because he does."