The Hating Game

by Sally Thorne

Books were, and always would be, something a little magic and something to respect.

I’m twenty-eight years old and it seems I’ve fallen through the cracks of heaven and hell and into purgatory. A kindergarten classroom. An asylum.

Every day here is a challenge, a privilege, a sacrifice, and a frustration.

I think I’ll go treat myself to a basement scream.

If a human could grin without moving their face, he just did it.

I feel the heat of his body inches from my back. It’s like sunshine. I’d forgotten that other people are warm.

I’m so badly socialized I can barely converse with normal human beings. I want to be at home on my couch with all of the pillows piled on my head.

I can still remember the taste of his mouth. I breathed his hot exhalations until my lungs were filled with him. His air was inside my body.

Each laugh gusts from him in a husky, breathless rush, something he can no longer hold in, and it’s as addictive to me as the taste of his mouth or the smell of his skin. His amazing laugh is something I need now.

This feeling is worse than a hangover. It’s worse than waking up after a nude karaoke performance at the office Christmas party. I said too much last night. I told him about my childhood. He knows how lonely I am. He’s seen everything I own. He’s got so much knowledge the power will fog out of him in toxic clouds.

Speak to me. Engage with me. I can’t fix anything if you ignore me.

I need to chalk tonight up as another awkward life experience.

His smile is worth a thousand of anyone else’s. I need a photograph. I need something to hold on to. I need this entire bizarre planet to stop spinning so I can freeze this moment in time.

There’s a fragility in this kiss I would never have expected. It’s the same as the knowledge that one day this memory will fade. He’s trying to make me remember this. It’s so bittersweet my heart begins to hurt.

I try to discreetly smell him. I bypass discreet and press my nose against his T-shirt and suck in two brimming lungfuls. Shameful addict.

The art of holding hands is underrated and it’s embarrassing how much this simple act has me nearly breathless.

I am getting dangerously high off his smiles. This is my third one now? I’m stuffing them in my pockets. I’m cramming them into my mouth.

His sweat smells like rainwater and cedar, leaving a faint rosemary-pine tingle in my nostrils. I press my face against his neck and breathe in, again and again

“You’re the sort of person who needs to be eased into things slowly.”

“Just keep walking, unless what’s up that tree is as special as this.”

I’m not the blameless little victim in our private war.

I need to start living my life, rather than walking the same path,

The thing about the truth is, it’s addictive.

“I can only apologize in advance for the things I’ll do to you.”

If I ever thought I was an addict before, it was a vast understatement. I want to OD on him.

He wants to press his mouth against my skin. Bite. Eat. Devour. He wants me, hands and knees. Wet skin and cold air. Fingers sliding into me. His whispered words barely audible over my labored breathing.

He’s thinking of nothing but me and my reactions, learning what I like, withholding and giving and talking to me wordlessly.

Life has started to feel like one big chance to make each new little memory.

He’s always completely different from what I expect. Soft instead of hard. Slow instead of fast. Shy instead of brash.

I’m an addict, completely hooked, already wanting my next fix while the current one is still running brightly through my veins.

He takes his time with me. He’s a rare man; achieving the almost impossible. He kisses me into the present moment.

His body is a temple. Mine will be a hut made of butter at this rate.

He’s pressing his mouth to my skin and sighing, breathing, like I’m a dream he never wants to wake from. He’s breathing me in like he’s a filthy addict.