k magazine F17

22
KALEIDOSCOPE • Issue10
“I don’t really want to talk about that stuff.” The ladybug flew off her wrist towards the
hanging light above their table. Ladybugs were her mom’s favourite bug. Emma thought it
was weird that her mom had a favourite bug.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Do I look okay?” She straightened her shoulders and looked right at him. She cut her
bangs again which was cute, but she had deep purple rings under her eyes he’d only really
seen when she was sick. She had a lot of red marks on her nose and chin from picking pimples
that weren’t really there. He could smell that she put on extra perfume. An ugly busgirl came
to refill their waters, and James smiled at her as though she was pretty.
“I get it James. You think I’m unstable,” she said. He took too long to tell her she looked
okay.
“That’s not it,” he said. But he wasn’t sure if he meant it.
“You’re going to go report to your friends and your family that I derailed again and
that I’m crazy and that breaking up with me over the phone was totally justified because I’m
just a crazy crazy slut.”
The mother of a nearby table turned to see who just shouted slut in the restaurant. James
hated when Emma called herself crazy.
“Emma.”
“You’re glad I cheated, aren’t you? You’ve spent two years looking for a real enough
reason leave. You left me in the rain then called me a bitch for coming back wet. You know I
did it just to spite you? You know I hope it hurts. I hope your family hates me.”
“Em.”
“You better get tested because he didn’t use a fucking condom.” She sipped the last of
her water through the ice and sat back with her arms crossed. The mother and the father were
looking now, while their daughter twisted spaghetti with her fingers in a highchair. James
took his first sip of water.
“Fucking say something.” She pushed the words at him across the table.
“Are you still on your meds?”
Emma blinked fast, and without looking down she clenched her hands together in her
lap.
“Please make it painless.”