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"How was your first day of school?" Balloon Tits. Globs of heavy red sauce drip off her serving ladle, some landing on the plate in front of her, some slipping down onto the faded wood of the dining table. The glistening droplets taunt Gregory cruelly, gleaming like the blood that's streamed from his nose far too many times. The meat in the pan she's scooping from is thick and fatty, three heart attacks in a single dish. Still, it doesn't stop Gregory's traitorous stomach from growling madly, because the food smells far better than it looks.
He turns away, refusing to let Balloon Tits hear the cry of his deprived belly. He doesn't want her pity. He doesn't want her hovering over him as usual, begging him to eat something other than the paper-dry sandwiches he's been living on for dinner ever since she'd moved in. He doesn't want her staring at his protruding ribs with concern, silently noting how his oversized jackets and worn t-shirts can't hide the concave slope of his stomach anymore.
He doesn't want her to care. It's so much easier that way.
Gregory slumps further down in his seat. He wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for his father's insistence that he eat with them. He doesn't know what to tell Balloon Tits. I fucked up. I met the guy that I kissed two years ago while Mom---my real Mom, not you---was taking her last breaths. Except it wasn't just a fucking kiss, was it? I bitched at his friends because I was pissed off at you for existing. He hates me now. And did I mention the guy opened his stupid fucking mouth and told his---fuck, our---classmates that I bitched at his friends, and he's apparently kind of popular because now no one wants to be friends with me? Fuck, that was expected, to be honest.
He can't tell her all that, obviously. "Fucking horrible," Gregory mutters instead. Not that your slut ass would understand. At his side, his fingers curl into his palm, pressing until his ragged nails shift through the surface of the calloused skin.
Skin-deep isn't enough. Not for Gregory.
"You have to eat something," Balloon Tits presses, her pretty face creasing in worry. Her breaths are shallow, her oversized chest heaving with every sharp inhale. Gregory imagines the dark depths of her cleavage coiling into Aladdin's cave, rock with a tiger's head. It would rear from her chest, roaring like the beast it would be, and it would swallow her whole. Never to plague his existence again.
He crosses his arms over his own chest. "I will."
"Not...those things. Proper food."
Gregory's stomach moans desperately at the mention of actual food, a pleading crescendo, but he refuses to give in. "I wouldn't exactly call your cooking proper food," he remarks flippantly. His nails sink deeper into his palm, poco a poco. Flesh against blood. Rust against rhyme.
The lines rippling across Balloon Tits' face deepen, but they do nothing to hide her golden youth. Gregory finds himself curling up his lower lip in disgust.
