His arm wrapped around the back of her neck, and draped down her shoulder, like a dead fox that kept some rich white woman warm in a 1970s cartoon, a woman who was always offended by the inherent silliness of the world around her. Their world was blocked out for the time being, by drawn shades and a job well done.
With his free arm he grabbed the vape pen off the night stand next to them, inhaled then filled their head space with faux weed smoke. She gazed at the cloud for a few moments, as if day dreaming, trying to decipher which animal the cloud resembled, “why do you always do that after?” He smirked, “I don’t think it’s always.” She side eyed him, “MOST of the time.” He shrugged and closed his eyes, “I dunno, it’s a good combo… like tuna casserole and elderberries,” he went to take another pull but laughed through a coughing fit instead. Her face scrunched up in horror, as she shook her head and begrudgingly laughed along with him, “WHHATTTT, uuugghhh… maybe we should stop in that case.” She half-heartedly pushed away from him as he curled her back in tighter, laughing all the while. “Just kidding, just kidding,” he paused for a second, the cloud thinning out above them, “it’s like peanut butter and… tuna fish casserole.” She pushed him away again and wouldn’t allow him to curl her back in, “sssttaaahhhppp.” A few minutes of laughing and fake wrestling passed then he took another pull. He was a bit more serious, “nah, but it’s like, I dunno, a preservative… slows down time when things are feelin good… it’s like turning life into strawberry jam.” That hung in the air for a minute, like a cloud of smoke, and she smiled before responding, “so you need to like… make a quick sandwich or something?” He laughed loudly, not realizing he was making nothing but food comparisons, “maybe in a few minutes, I’m still making the jam.” She shook her head but continued to smile, “well make me a sammich too, when you go.”
She rubbed his tattoos as they hung down by her bare chest, gazing at them as she did the cloud, “so colorful.” He grinned, “gotta make the most of this pastiness.” She kissed the colors, “so when’re you gonna get that one of me?” She grinned in that cute, smug way that irritated him. He rolled his eyes and took his arm away. She kept on it, “you have another girl on your arm.” He laughed, “what? She’s a dead singer that I never met, who cares… it’s not like I got it because we were in love. I liked her music.” She looked away, “well you still got it, I don’t see what the big deal is.” He shook his head in disbelief, “you do realize it’s permanent, right?” She shrugged, “you don’t seem to care about the other ones being permanent, maybe you just don’t think we’ll be together very long.” He rolled his eyes again, “not if we keep having dumb arguments like this.” She grabbed her shirt from the end of the bed, “so now I’m dumb.” He rubbed his temples with both hands, “THIS is dumb, if I got a giant tattoo of your face on my arm you’d be freaked out that I was some obsessive maniac, so what’s the point of this dumb argument. I’m not gonna get a tattoo of you like I’m not going to get one of anyone else in my life, so let’s just drop it, what’s the point.” She continued to stare straight ahead, gazing at the door as she did the tattoos, “so it’s not obsessive to have another girl’s face on your arm.” He threw his hands up in the air, “I got this like 5 years before I even met you, what the fuck do you care.” He shot up, put on his sweats and walked out of the room.
He paced around the kitchen, opening up a cabinet, then opening up the fridge, then opening up the cabinet again, closing the each door with a noticeable thud. He finally walked over to some sandwich bread near his coffee machine, and threw it over to a more spacious area of the counter. The jam jar was almost completely see through, with sporadic strawberry globs near the bottom, and remnants smeared around the sides. He lathered up two slices with peanut butter, then he scraped around the glass jar using the knife as a squeegee, trying to salvage every last red drop.
She was still on the bed when he re-entered the room, sitting upright and leaning against the back wall with eyes down on her phone. He walked over with two sandwiches in his right hand, and his left hand acting as a claw while he pinched two plastic cups of water together. He set the waters down on the nightstand next to the vape pen then sat down on his bed, and extended the paper towel wrapped sandwich over towards her, as a peace offering. She reluctantly accepted and took a bite, then inspected the sandwich after another mouthful, “what happened to making the jam?” She smiled in that cute, smug way that drove him nuts. He grinned, “shuttt uppppp,” then lunged over, trying to take a bite out of her sandwich. They wrestled and kissed random parts of one another, in between half-hearted lunges and biting at the air. Like puppies, each trying to consume what the other had left.
Tom Lettieri 