Burning

It was days later, when Vic was making eggs that she remembered Kevin’s text:

My heart is tucked under your pillow.

Leave it to him to be dramatic and over the top because she left him alone in his apartment after spending the night with him. He was the hardest person to unlove. Even when he was seeing her and Gen simultaneously, making both of them believe they were the only ones, she and Gen competed with each other for his undivided affection until they met each other and realized that they were not the enemy.

Kevin was.

But that had not stopped either one of them from falling into bed with him when he came back into their lives after ghosting them. They thought they had left him behind, but it was him who left them in retrospect and picked them back up like he had not abandoned them.

Vic’s leaving his apartment after they had had sex because they had not made love. They had not made love in a long time. What happened between them was animal instinct. That was the only way she believed it could be now when their bodies joined. She had never been able to leave him before, but this time she was, and she was not going to break this time. She was not going to let him control everything.

Underneath your feet, bloody from dragging my heart around.

That was the text when she picked up her phone after she had finally reached the point that she did not look to see if he had texted her. He had been texting her since she left with these melodramatic adolescent boy messages that would have made her succumb if she was sixteen. She picked up her coffee mug that had lollipops on it because it reminded him of her when he saw it, not feeling angry to see the gifted cup anymore. He had called her Lollipop sometimes when he was being affectionate. But it was a lot for her to be able to use that mug and not start crying all over again.

Vic had wanted him more than anything, and now she was blase as she scrambled eggs. With her peripheral vision, she saw his name pop up on her screen over and over again, like Edgar Allen Poe trying to send romantic, morbid texts. She scrambled her eggs in the shape of a heart and sighed.

My heart is smeared across your walls.

It was almost humorous, and she wanted to text Gen about it. But Gen had been radio silent since her own interaction with him, and she was not sure that she was up for it.

And then she saw Gen’s name flash across her home screen, and she picked up her phone, risking burning her eggs.

Read the previous and next stories here:

The inspiration from this story came from me reading this story by my friend Marie A. Rebelle — if you are not reading her, you should be! Her story was written for one of Diana C’s Creative Corner prompts. Mine was written for this one:

| My heart is tucked under your pillow |