How Much 'Till You Snap || mrtowell

Stomach Monster

          I stood on the sidewalk staring at the road with an empty expression. Almost a glare, facing the uneven cracked concrete. My eyes tilted at the pavement, the black rubber wheels of cars speeding in front of them every so often. My hands were stiff holding loosely onto the rough and bumpy straps of my backpack, enough that they could almost slip right off. The chilly winter wind brushed my side lightly like the touch of paper, leaving my wobbly legs to shiver in the light breeze. I gripped tighter onto my backpack. The noise of swooshing cars started to zone out, while the light fuzzy noise in the back of my head grew stronger, louder. A monster trying to escape its cage.
     My feet felt tempted to walk into the traffic, like a magnet was pulling them to the other side. I could almost feel them begin to inch forward.

     Disrupting the white noise, I heard a muffled voice, faint enough I couldn't apprehend it. I turned to the noise to see a familiar figure standing next to me. Next to me stood a girl almost up to the same height as me, her short blonde curls somewhat gave a warm welcome, that person you'd meet at a party and tell your whole life story, even though you only met them four minutes ago.

     "What?" I said to try and figure out what the muffled voice had said.

     "You looked like you were about to jump in front of one of those cars on the road, The blank face and all..." I paused for a moment to think. At first, I didn't remember a car passing by, or even a road. Like my memory was wiped in the last three seconds. But then I remembered what I was standing there for, and that got me back on track.

     "Oh! Yeah... um I just... was waiting for you and I zoned out. Guess the road looked interesting." I tried to laugh off my lie. She laughed to it as well.

     "Anyways, sorry I took so long, my mom wanted me to make breakfast and we got into this whole argument thing about why I couldn't cook, and she never taught me and didn't care enough and blah blah blah. Long story short I got Simon to make waffles while I grabbed a Luna bar on the way out." She held up a light turquoise wrapper with a picture of a coconut on it. The foil was ripped in half and crinkled in her fingers. I laughed at her brief explanation while she put the wrapper back into her pocket. "Shall we walk?" I nodded. We started down the left side of the sidewalk. Our feet matched together, walking with our feet side by side in unison. "Okay, Devan, you know that guy I've been talking to you about, the one in my chemistry class?"

     "Yeah, I think I remember." Her cheeks started to turn to a peachy pink, some colour given to her pale vampire-like skin.

     "Well... he kinda asked me out." She bit her lip in a smile and looked towards me, and raised her eyebrows waiting for a response. Her fists clenched together, the tips of her fingers deep into her palms. I could see the inside of her fist start to glisten from the sweat, barely noticeable, but I see everything. After a long pause of unbelieving, I grinned with joy for her.

     "Wait, really?" She nodded her head up and down, slow at first but then sped up with the increase of her excitement. She twirled around with her hands deep in the pockets of her dark green jacket. Her pink skirt was a bit delayed off the twirl, going in opposite directions when she did. "Angie oh my god, I can't believe you're the first one to get a date. But honestly, I didn't doubt it." I giggled my last words and continued to walk down the sidewalk with her by my side. I could see her face still lit up, she was really happy.

The walk to school was short since we only lived about ten minutes away. Our pace was also quite quick this morning, considering the freezing air making our feet speed up to beat the cold. We had the same idea in our heads, walking fast equals getting to our destination faster.

The trees standing tall around us made the view of the school almost impossible to pick out from the varied shades of green and brown, but we could see little specks of the outer walls peaking through the scattered branches. The wind was light against the pine needles, so it appeared that they barely moved.