Shrinking

Natalie Jordan was shrinking. 

Her stomach had caved in, her skin stretched tightly across her narrow rib cage. She stood in her underwear before the mirror in her small, colorful bedroom, scowling at her own reflection. She was somehow skinnier at sixteen than she’d been at twelve. As if she wasn’t scrawny enough already. Her face might still have been pretty, with her slim cheekbones and big brown eyes, if not for the unsightly bruise around her left eye that had turned a vibrant greenish purple. 

She huffed and pulled on a blue graphic tee-shirt depicting a wolf howling at the moon—an old family heirloom from the nineties, its design faded and cracked—and tucked the front into a pair of high-waisted, loose fitting skinny jeans, rolling up the hems a couple of times above her ankles. She stalked into the hallway and banged into her younger brothers’ room.

“Get out,” Nick groaned from one bed, while Tommy went right on snoring from the other. The three of them looked so similar that they could have been triplets, if not for the size and age differences; Tommy ten and Nick fourteen. Natalie ignored him, stepping over piles of dirty clothes and toys and shit to yank open their closet door. She sifted through their shirts, pulling out her favorite—a blue flannel with a Social Distortion dancing skeleton patch roughly sewn over a big hole on the back, that also happened to be Nick’s favorite.

“Get your own clothes, asshole.”

“This is mine, fuckface, I paid for it.” She jammed her skinny arms through the long sleeves and checked her reflection in the mirror over the dresser, tousling her chestnut brown hair into messy waves at her shoulders.

Nick grumbled, “It doesn’t even fit you. Why don’t you steal Tommy’s clothes, you two are about the same size, now.”

She chuckled dryly. “Get up, dumb shit, it’s time for school.” She stomped back out, slamming the door behind her and both Nick and Tommy bellowed a string of curses after her.

The kitchen was barren. She rummaged through the empty cupboards, tight jawed. There was a solitary box of cheerios, with barely enough left for a single serving. She huffed and split it into two bowls on the counter for her brothers, then brewed a pot of coffee. Hunger didn’t bother her much, anymore. The pain had dwindled with her shrinking stomach to a dull, constant ache that could be appeased with copious amounts of caffeinated beverages. Still, she needed to make sure to eat a proper lunch today. She didn’t want to pass out at school again.

While the coffee brewed she pulled out her phone and scoffed. Ten missed calls, three voicemails, and a chain of text messages from PSYCHO FUCKER. She pounded the delete button without checking any of them.

There was also a new text from Mattie: Morning, sweet thang. 

She smiled and texted back: Waddup hot stuff?

A response came back at once: Thinkin bout u. Got plans this weekend?

She poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, texting back: Depends. Whatchu up to?

She sipped her coffee, texting back and forth with him as Tommy came slumping into the hallway, followed by Nick, who shoved him into the wall as he passed by, yanking a red flannel onto his lanky torso over his Nirvana smiley face tee-shirt—another relic of the nineties. He scrutinized his tiny bowl of cereal as he went to open the fridge. He glared in, empty but for expired condiments and Natty Lights. “No milk?” 

“Why don’t you go wake the Tank and ask him for milk money?” Natalie grumbled without looking up from her phone. 

Nick scoffed, closing the fridge, and shoved her out of the way of the coffee pot.

“Don’t shove me, ass hat!” 

“Do something, short shit.”

Tommy frowned at his sad little bowl of cereal. “This it?”

Nick sneered, leaning on the counter next to Natalie with his own cup of coffee, taller than her by a good eight inches now. “Yeah, dipwad, cause it’s your turn to ask for grocery money. You were supposed to do it yesterday.”

“Fuck no, I told you, I ain’t doin’ it. Natty’s the favorite.”

Natalie laughed. “Fuck you, I always gotta ask him. Why don’t you do us all a favor and go eat for free at fucking school.”

“It’s ratchet to eat breakfast at school.”

Both Natalie and Nick broke out into a procession of mockery for the little prince of the projects and Tommy turned red. “Shut up, assholes!”

Nick rolled his eyes and dumped his cheerios into Tommy’s bowl. “Here, my prince. Wouldn’t want those peasant folk to think you ratchet.” 

Tommy snatched the bowl and slumped down into one of the barstools across the kitchen island, grumbling about the lack of milk. 

Nick stood glowering next to Natalie, biting his nails. 

She whacked his hand from his mouth, grumbling, “Quit that. It’s fine, we’ll deal with it.” 

He grumbled back, “Feels like we’re always fucking dealing with it.” 

“Just suck it up for a couple more weeks. He’ll get more lawn service jobs when it warms up and it’ll get better, it always does.” She noticed a huge hole in Tommy’s tee-shirt and groaned. “Thomas. The fuck are you wearing?”

“What? I like this shirt.”

“It’s gotta massive fucking hole in it, Prince Rachet Ass! You can’t wear that to school. Go change.”

“I like this shirt. Can’t you just patch it?”

“Do I look dead to you?”

“What? No?”

“Right. I’m not your mom.”

Tommy sneered. “You patch Nick’s clothes!”

“Yeah so she can steal them,” Nick grumbled. 

“Oh my God, please keep whining about it, little brother, you sound really cool.”

“Cooler than you, trash whore.”

Natalie scowled. “Ew. Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? Everyone at school does.”

“Oh do they? I wasn’t aware. For real Nick, don’t ever call me that again, you don’t even know what it fucking means.”

“Yeah I do. Speaking of which, Trev has a message for you.”

“Agh! Why are you still hanging out with him? Have you no loyalty?”

“He requests you quit being a bitch and return his calls.”

“Charming. Tell him to get a life and mind his own fucking business.”

“Will you two go back to making out already? All this fiery tension’s gonna bring down the property value.”

“I don’t think my boyfriend would appreciate me making out with the neighbors.”

“Right. Mattie.”

She frowned. “What’s your problem with Mattie? I thought you liked him.”

“Trev told me how you got the shiner.”

Her jaw dropped in indignation. “The fuck’d he tell you? It wasn’t Mattie, dipshit! Mattie is a gentleman, he didn’t do anything!”

“Right. Mattie didn’t do anything.”

Natalie scoffed. “Quit talking to Trevor, he’s fucking psychotic.”

“Not my fault we didn’t get a say in the custody battle.”

“Yeah,” Tommy grumbled. “I’d take Trev back over you in a heartbeat.”

“Yeah? Would ya? Too bad, we’re bound by genetics.”

Before either of them could respond, Frank came slumping and yawning down the hallway. He was a taller, broader, thirty-two year old version of his children, with many tattoos and streaks of gray in his chestnut hair. He eyed the two teenagers leaning against the counter with cups of coffee and no food and snorted. “Coffee for breakfast? At least I know you’re my kids.”

The two chuckled dryly and Natalie poured him his own cup.

“Bless you, sweet child,” he said, tousling her hair. He slumped down in the barstool next to Tommy, leaning his forehead against the counter with a groan.

“Rough night, old man?” Natalie asked. 

Frank grumbled against the countertop, “Who you callin' old, lady? This night job is brutal, I’d like to see you try it.”

“Sounds rough,” she said, with genuine sympathy. She knew he was struggling to make rent and she did honestly feel for him, but he stubbornly refused to let her get a job until summer break, and they needed groceries. Bad. She shot Tommy a piercing look, but he was picking irritably at his dry cheerios. Her lips tightened. She always had to do everything. “You’re off tonight, though, right?” she asked, going for a casual, plant-the-seed approach. “We haven’t had a Friday night movie marathon in a while.”

“Oh, okay, now you're talkin’ my language,” said Frank. “Gore fest?”

“If you think your elderly heart can take it.”

He laughed. “My child. I was raised on horror. I can not be frightened.”

“You’re on, old timer.”

“Why don’t you invite your shadow to join? Wouldn’t be the same without the obnoxious commentary from you two.”

Her grin faltered. “No. Dad. We broke up, like, a month ago.”

Frank smirked. “How could any of us forget the great tragedy of the twenty-first century? How long you plan on keeping him in exile? I mean, come on, he’s family. Kid was over here so much I thought he was another one of mine for years.”

“See?” said Nick, gesturing towards him. “We all agree, we should at least get visitation rights on weekends and holidays.”

Natalie shot him a look. “He’s not invited. Wamme to pick up some frozen pizzas?”

“Only if you get pepperoni this time,” said Frank. “None of your veggie nonsense.” 

“Yeah, fine, grease yourself into an early grave. You need anything else while I’m there?”

“If I give you my card, you mind grabbing some groceries?”

“Yeah, I can do that. Nick, think you could bike over with me after school to help carry?”

“That’s cool,” said Nick, mimicking her casual tone.

“Keep it under thirty, this time,” Frank grunted, pulling his wallet from his pocket while Natalie and Nick exchanged subtle looks of triumph for a successful, drama-free grocery money requisition. But he paused, looking at Tommy. “The hell is this?” he snapped, sticking his fingers through the big hole in his shirt. 

A tense silence fell over the kitchen.

Tommy scowled and Frank grabbed his arm, giving him a shake. “Answer me, Thomas, the fuck’d you do to your shirt?”

“It's an old shirt, Dad,” said Natalie quickly. “It was one of Nick’s, he just wears it to sleep in. Tommy, go change for school.”

Tommy went to get up, but Frank pushed him back down. “Uh no no, don’t lie to me, he’s all dressed for school. Why you dressing like a homeless person, Tom?” 

“Dad, chill out, it’s fine,” said Natalie. “Didn’t anybody tell you? Grunge is in.”

He rounded on her. “You always let them go running around like fucking hoodlums?”

She reeled back, scowling. “How’s this my fault?”

“Come on, Nat, I’m running on like three hours of sleep here, would it kill you to help me out in the mornings?”

“Are you kidding me? I ‘help you out’ constantly! It’s not my fault you think it’s normal to raise children at sixteen.”

Frank took a deep breath, pinching his forehead. “You kids are seriously driving me up the fucking wall. I’m working my ass off every fucking day and night tryna keep you dipshits alive, and everything you touch turns to shit.”

“Please,” Nick grumbled. “When was the last time you bought us shit?”

“Oh, okay, you, too, now?” Frank grunted, gesturing towards him. “That how you're talking to me, now, Nicky? You forget who pays for the fucking clothes on your back?”

Nick sneered. “Nat does.”

“Nicholas!” Natalie squealed, rounding on him.

“What? He asked. I’m not gonna lie.”

Frank’s glowering gaze shifted from Nick back to Natalie. “The fuck’s he talking about?” 

“Nothing,” she snarled, glaring at Nick.

“Since when you buying them clothes? Something wrong with the clothes I buy them?”

“Oh my God,” she groaned, burying her face in her hands. “They’ve grown out of the clothes you bought them, Frank.”

“‘Frank’? Oh, you all grown up now, huh!”

Nick yelled, “It’s amazing any of us have grown when you never buy us food, Frank!” 

Natalie yelled, “We need clothes, Frank! I asked you for money and you said, ‘We don’t have money. Get used to it’!”

Frank yelled, “So where did you get the money, Natalie! You selling yourself?”

Natalie let out a loud, shrill laugh. “Yeah, Frank! I’m selling myself! I don’t even ask for cash anymore, I just have ‘em pay me in kid’s clothing! I fuck ‘em right there in the aisle of fucking GOODWILL!”

Frank jerked upright, storming around the kitchen island and Natalie stormed out around the other way, stalking off down the hallway and he yelled after her, “DON’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME!” while Nick yelled, “GOD I HATE THIS FUCKING FAMILY!” and Tommy held his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. 

Natalie stormed into her room and slammed the door shut, locking it a split second before the handle began to rattle violently. Frank pounded on the door. “Open the door, Natalie! You are gonna tell me right now where you’re getting money from!”

She ignored him, throwing on her backpack and snatching her hightop converse off the floor. She climbed over her bed to the window.

“You live in my house, you open the fucking door when I tell you to!”

Natalie laughed as she shimmied open the window and called over her shoulder, “This isn’t a house! It’s a shit ass apartment you can’t even afford!”

He hammered his fist against the door. “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR, NATALIE! IF YOU MAKE ME BUST IN THERE I’MA BUST THAT SMART ASS MOUTH OF YOUR’S INTO NEXT FUCKING WEEK!”

She tossed her sneakers out the window and they fell three stories to the grass below. She climbed out after them, shimmying herself down the storm pipe as her dad shouted and cursed from the hallway, threatening to break the door down. 

She passed Diego, blowing dank ass smoke out the open window of the apartment below hers. “Sup, Natty Light,” he said sleepily as she climbed past him. He glanced up to the ceiling. “The Tank sounds pissed, ay? Wanna hit?” He held his joint out to her.

“We got school, dumb shit,” she grumbled as she shimmied down. 

“Aye, tha’s why I’m smokin’,” he laughed. “I’m ‘bout to go fail a fuckin’ math test for fuckin’ sure. Ay, tell novio he owes me twenty bucks, would ya?”

“That prick’s not my boy-friend!” she called and jumped the last ten feet to the ground, landing heavily in her bare feet with an “Umph,” and toppling onto her palms. She jammed on her sneakers and stormed around the front of the apartment complex to the bike racks. She fumbled to unlock her slim, janky boy’s bike, every inch of its red frame covered in a wide variety of stickers; from Pokémon and Spider-Man, to Misfits and N.W.A., a tattered Natural Light label wrapped around the back of the seat pole like a license plate, stuck there by one of her dick ass friends.

Frank’s muffled shouts reached a crescendo when he finally burst into her room, only to find it vacant. Nick and Tommy—still in his holey tee-shirt—came skidding around from the courtyard stairs to grab their own bikes as she took off on hers, calling over her shoulder, “Thanks a lot, ya dipshits!” 

Frank cursed and shouted down at her from her bedroom window as she sped out onto the road, holding up a middle finger. More neighbors stuck their heads out their windows, some listening nosily, others hollering to shut the fuck up.

She sped along, huffing angrily, taking her aggression out on the bike pedals. She had a bit of extra time to get to school, so she took a detour through the North side of town, where the trees ran along the side of the road in perfect symmetry. It was a sunny, brisk morning, and the trees were vibrant with blooming flowers. She liked to ride her bike through these clean, quiet streets, especially after a big blow out with Frank the Tank. There was something calming about the massive houses, with their colorful gardens and perfect lawns, smooth and green as the felt grass of a miniature golf course. She took a deep, calming breath, inhaling the fresh Spring air after a long, particularly abysmal Winter. 

*                                                *                                                *

Alex was already waiting for her by the highschool bike racks, sitting in the grass, vaping. She was asian-american, with blunt bangs and a septum piercing; her clothes grunge for style, rather than social status.

“Hey girl,” she called as Natalie locked up her bike. 

“Whaddup.” She slumped down in the grass and Alex passed her the vape pen. She took a long, slow inhale and passed it back. “You got the shit?”

“I got you, babe.”

She grabbed some concealer from her backpack and dabbed it over the bruise around Natalie’s eye. She sat back, scrutinizing her work.

“What’s that face?” Natalie grumbled. “Can you still see it?”

“Naw, mang. You good.”

“Lemme see.”

Alex held up a compact mirror and Natalie groaned. The greenish purple was so vibrant it was still visible under the concealer.

“It’s cool,” said Alex. “It makes you look tough as fuck.”

“Mmm.” Natalie didn’t want to disagree, so quickly changed the subject to something she knew would get Alex talking for a while. “How’s your thang?”

Alex took a drag from her vape pen and grumbled, “Fucking terrible. I’m just not feeling inspired with my subject, you know?” She launched into the theatrics of her recent project for their art class, allowing Natalie to vape and sit quietly for a couple of minutes, half listening while she tried to devise a way of asking to spend the night at her place, without divulging the details of her atrocious morning. Normally she’d have just stowed away at Trev’s for a night or two until her dad cooled down, but that obviously wasn’t an option anymore.

Other kids started arriving for school. Some jock prick sneezed as he passed by, in a way that sounded uncannily like, “Trash whore.”

“Excuse you,” Alex called after him. “Fuck these jabrones, dude.”

“That would certainly bode well with my reputation.”

Alex snorted. “Own it, bitch. At least you’re not a hamster fucker.”

Natalie laughed out loud. “Oh my God, I can't believe that goofy ass shit got out. Was that your doing?”

“What goes around comes around. She’s the one that started the trash whore thing.”

“She wasn’t even there.”

“Yet she was still kind enough to go shouting her own version of events from the rooftops. How fucking convenient for that mother fucker that his name seems to have been excluded from the narrative.”

“Please keep it that way.”

“Yeah, yeah, I said I would. You’re a better person than I.”

“I’m not, dude. I’ve been through all this shit before, it’s better to just let it blow over or it can get a lot worse.”

“Let it. Crucify the fucker.”

An arm suddenly wrapped around Natalie's shoulders as someone plopped down beside her and she stiffened, whipping around. It was only Mattie. 

“Morning, beautiful,” he said with a warm smile. He was lanky and doe-eyed, with wavy, copper hair, cut shorter on the sides and longer on the top. He was wearing tight jeans and a vibrantly flowered, short sleeve button-down. 

She smiled and said in the tones of a southern damsel, “Why I do declare! Good mornin’ to you, young man.”

“Gotchu a lil somethin’, milady.” He held up a Starbucks coffee.

Her smile faltered. “You didn’t have to do that…” 

“I know,” he said with a dopey smile, pressing it into her hand. “But I like ya!”

“You two are freakin’ adorable,” said Alex, in that dry way of hers where Natalie could never quite tell if she was being sarcastic or not. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that normal, stable people said and did nice things for each other for the sole purpose of being nice, without any malicious intent whatsoever. 

“Thank you, Mattie,” she said with a sheepish smile.

“Anything for my lovely lady.” He kissed her forehead.

More of their friend group met up to vape before heading in, and they chatted about some party going on at so and so’s house that night. Natalie listened quietly, sipping her coffee without offering much to the conversation, as everyone avoided mention of the catastrophic events of the last party they’d all been to together.

The other three girls of the group discussed getting ready at Alex’s house after school, and Natalie aimed herself casually towards them, hoping for an invite.

“You in?” asked Alex.

“Fo sho,” said Natalie. “Would you object to my staying the night?”

“Well that would be fabulous.”

“Well aren’t you a delight.”

“Damn Nat,” said Katie, looking her up and down. “You’re looking slim as fuck.”

“Um,” said Natalie, crossing her arms to conceal her bony rib cage. "Yeah, thanks."

“Ugh, I hate you,” said Ally from across the circle. “How do you stay so tiny? I keep trying all these fucking diets but nothing ever works.”

“I know, right?” said Katie. “You lucky bitch. Any updates from the stalker ex?”

Natalie’s lips tightened. “No.”

“Liar,” said Alex with a sly grin and Natalie bestowed upon her a disdainful look from the corner of her eye.

“Ooh, what’d he do this time?” asked Katie eagerly. The rest of the circle fell silent to listen in.

“Nothing.”

“What about the subject for his new art project?” said Alex.

“We don’t know each other's subjects.”

“But one can wonder. Teacher calls it brilliantly disturbing. A portrayal of betrayal. A sonnet of sorrow. A testimony of torment.”

Katie’s jaw dropped dramatically. “It’s about Nat?”

“No,” said Natalie while Alex said, “It’s certainly not about the hamster fucker.”

“Oh my god!” Katie squealed.

“What a psycho,” said Zack and the rest of the guys grunted their agreement.

“You oughta get a restraining order,” said Ally. 

“Definitely!” Katie agreed. “I can’t believe you didn’t get one after he freaking punched Mattie!”

The group went around agreeing with each other, all except Mattie, who had gone rather awkward, Alex, who was eyeing Natalie with that same sly grin, and Natalie, who was grinding her teeth to keep from telling them all to fuck off. They were her friends, they were only trying to look out for her. Even if they had absolutely no idea what the fuck they were talking about. 

“Well, anyway, I better run,” she snapped, stomping to her feet a tad more aggressively than she’d meant to. “See you guys later. My good sir,” she added to Mattie.

“My lady,” he said, kissing her hand.

Natalie stalked through the hallway, pretending not to notice the pricks staring after her with predatory smirks. She probably should have waited for Mattie or Alex or someone to walk with her, as she kept receiving vulgar propositions, ranging from creepy as shit to down-right fucking disturbing, but she’d rather not have her friends overhear all that bullshit anyway. Especially Mattie; he already thought of her as a drama-magnet, given that they hadn’t even been together a month and she’d somehow managed to get the both of them punched in the face on separate occasions.

As she was putting in the code to her locker, someone slapped her butt and she whipped around, snarling, ready to crack the culprit’s skull. But she couldn’t locate the perpetrator amongst the crowd of students swarming by. She ground her teeth and yanked her locker open, throwing her backpack savagely inside. 

She was kneeling down to collect the books she needed for her first class when her locker suddenly slammed shut, again. “Sup, trash whore.”

Natalie groaned and lifted her glaring gaze up the leg of the prick leaning casually against her locker. 

“Trevor,” she said coldly, rising to her feet.

“Natalie. You’ve been avoiding me.”

Trev Dalton was a whole foot taller than she was; lean and muscular. He was wearing a stylish, ironic tee shirt and slim fitting jeans—paid for by his girlfriend, no doubt. He had thick, untidy, dark brown hair, an irritatingly handsome face, and a crooked, perpetually cocky grin.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” She swatted him aside but he stood rooted to the spot.

“That’s funny. I’ve only left you about a thousand messages.”

“And yet, I didn’t respond to a single one of them? Some people might take that as indication your messages are unappreciated. Kindly fuck off.”

She tried to shove him and he grinned his cocky grin. “Nice paint job on that shiner, Natty. Classy. Can we chat?”

“I’m late for class.”

“I’d really like to talk to you.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“That’s a first.”

Natalie chuckled dryly and Trev mimicked her dry chuckle. 

“Begone, fucknuts.”

“You’re forcing me to do this.” He started banging his fist loudly on her locker behind his back, wailing, “Nataliiie!”

She smacked her forehead into her palms as the surrounding students stopped in their tracks to stare. “Shut up, Trevor.”

His grin widened. “Oh pleeease Natalie Lorraine Jordan, won’t you taalk to meeee!”

More turned to watch the scene—the hoodrats from the projects, causing a trashy scene in front of everyone. The prick always knew how to get to her.

“Fine,” she snarled. “Somewhere private?”

“Great. Let’s go.” He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her off down the hall. The crowd of spectators parted like the red fucking sea, their voices crashing together like waves as they passed. 

He stood guard as she scaled over the window railing of the east stairway, slipping through the gap and climbing down into their secret spot beneath the stairs. He jumped down after her and she crossed her arms, leaning against the same wall he used to slam her up against when they ditched class to make out.

“Whaddo you want, Trevor?” 

“His name.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes. Just tell me the fucker’s name and I’ll leave you alone. I’ll disappear into the night. Never burden you with my presence again.”

“Why do you even care?”

“Someone ought to. Your ‘boyfriend’ sure doesn’t.” 

She sneered. “Your ‘girlfriend’, meanwhile, cared enough to inform the entire fucking state area. She know you’re having this conversation with me right now?” 

He sneered back, his green eyes glaring down into hers. “Don’t change the subject.”

“What would she have to say about your obsessively chivalrous concern for your ex, Trevor? Seems only fair to keep her in the loop.”

“Go for it. You think anyone gives a shit who talks to you, trash whore?”

“Oh, that’s nice. I thought you’d have learned some manners by now from the princess prancing you around like her own little bad-boy-toy. It’s sad Trevor.”

He reeled back, scowling. “Yeah, okay. I thought you’d have learned some docility by now from Mattie the fucking pacifist. But who was that ratchet ass with the shiner I saw climbing out a third story window at seven o’clock in the fucking morning? Someone really oughta file a noise complaint on the trashy ass neighbors.”

Natalie snarled up at him, loathing him with such ferocity that the hatred boiled in her empty stomach and rose up in her throat, burning like acid. She sucked in breath through clenched teeth, clutching her tight belly.

Trev scoffed. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

The acid shot through her veins, into her fingertips and back, spreading through her blood stream and her limbs shuddered and spasmed.

His brows drew together. “Nat, you okay?” He placed a hand on her shaking arm.

Pain shot from his touch like an electric shock, engulfing her entire body in one agonizing instant. Her organs twisted and writhed, her bones splintered inwards, her skin constricted and Trev expanded and lurched back, his eyes widening as they followed her down, down, down, and then her head smacked into something solid and everything went black.

Shrunk

Her head was swimming. Every muscle felt like it had gone through a meat grinder. A blaring sound boomed somewhere above, sounding wobbly and distorted. 

Before her was what looked like a black Vans high top sneaker, the size of an actual van. “A Vans van,” she mumbled to herself with a delirious snicker.  

The Vans van screeched backwards along the tile floor, and a massive denim pillar collided down before her with a quake.

The booming grew louder, and she groaned, covering her ears. 

A massive hand came down from the sky, blocking her vision; each finger larger than her entire body. She frowned up at it in confusion as it hovered over her, then the tip of the index finger gently pressed against her chest, rolling her onto her back and her eyes widened. High above her loomed an ungodly creature; its torso the size of an entire building, stretching multiple stories high, its face cast in shadow. 

She screamed.

The hand wrenched back and she lifted onto her forearms, screaming and dragging and kicking herself along the tile floor away from it. 

The booming sound came again; it was a voice from above. A voice of a God. 

The hand drew towards her again, but did not touch her, only curved around her like a wall. A second hand cupped around her from the other side, trapping her between them and she smacked her arms around her head, hugging herself into a tight ball and screaming.

The powerful voice reverberated through the floor, rattling her bones. 

Her name. It was saying her name, over and over again.

She knew that voice.

Her screams faded and her gaze rose from her arms, towards the colossal face above her. A face she knew. She knew those green eyes; wide and terrified. In barely more than a whisper he was murmuring, “Natty, Natty, it’s okay. It’s okay, Natty. It’s okay.”

“T-Trevor?” she whimpered.

He gaped incredulously, his mouth slightly open, then muttered, “Ooh my God...”

“Trevor, what the fuck!” she squealed. “You're huge!”

“Um, I’m not, Natalie. You just shrank.”

“I WHAT?”

“You shrank.”

Her eyes shot up to see the stairwell rising above him to the heavens. “Oh my God! How!”

“I have no fucking idea, it was the craziest fucking shit I’ve ever seen in my entire fucking life. You started spasming and then it was just, like, you just, like, fucking, imploded.”

“WHAT THE FUCK!” Natalie burst into an incoherent rant of high-pitched curses and sobs. 

“Awe shit,” Trev groaned, his brows drawing together. “Please don’t cry, Natty. It’s gonna be okay.” 

He placed a huge finger gently against her back and she squealed, hunching her shoulders away from him, wrapping her arms around her head and sobbing, “Don’t fucking touch me!”

He grimaced. “Okay… but, you do know I’m gonna have to pick you up at some point...”

“Just leave me alone!” she cried, hugging herself into a tight ball. 

“I’m not just gonna leave you down here… You wamme to take you to the nurse or something?”

“Yeah, great fucking idea! Take me to the high school nurse! I’m sure she’s qualified to handle spontaneous implosion!”

“O-kay, what would you like me to do?”

“Don’t yell at me, Trevor!”

He let out a long exhale, his eyes drifting towards the ceiling. “I am not yelling, Natalie, this is in fact a fairly dulcet tone of my voice.”

“Well excuse me if my ears a bit sensitive, Trevor, I’ve been turned into a fucking SMURF!”

He snickered.

“It’s not funnyyy!” she wailed, pounding her tiny fists against her knees in frustration.

“Come on, it’s not so bad. You’ve always been scrawny, I bet you no one'll even notice the difference.”

“Agggh,” she groaned, smacking her face in her palms. “Why’d it have to be you?”

“What was that? Can’t hear you down there, pipsqueek.”

She lifted her gaze from her hands to glare up at him.

He grinned his cocky grin. “Eih, there she is.” He gave her tiny arm the lightest of whacks with the tips of his huge fingers. “Feeling better?”

She huffed. “Please refrain from making witty comments at my expense, Trevor, I am in no mood for your sas. Can you take me to a doctor, please?”

“They’re more qualified than the nurse on spontaneous implosion are they?”

“I don’t know, maybe. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about the rest of the school finding out.”

“Right, God forbid this tarnish your gleaming reputation.”

Natalie sneered. “It’s not about my reputation, fuckhead, this school is full of Goddamn animals. You got any idea how many threats I’ve gotten the past few days?”

Trev frowned. “What? Who’s threatening you?”

“Not the point. Can you take me to the hospital or not?”

“Yeah, sure. But for real, whaddo you think a doctor’s gonna do?”

“I dunno, maybe they’ll stick me in a taffy machine.”

Trev laughed. 

“Glad this is so amusing to you.”

“You’re the one who keeps making outdated pop culture references.”

“Listen, dickfuck–” Her voice caught in her throat as titanic footsteps came down the stairs overhead and she ducked down into a tight ball beneath him, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Awe,” Trev murmured with a sad frown, cupping his hands protectively around her tiny, cowering form.

She panted, waiting for the footsteps to dissipate, before looking back up at him between his cupped fingers with wide, desperate eyes. “You really don’t think a doctor will be able to do anything?”

“Um,” he muttered, frowning. “I mean, it can’t have been biological, your clothes shrank. It must’ve been something, I dunno… Supernatural. Like a hex or something.”

Her lip trembled. “Fuck.”

His frown deepened and his hand automatically drifted towards her to touch her again, but he stopped himself. “It’s gonna be okay, Natty,” he murmured. “I’ll be there with you, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You promise? You’ll stay with me?”

“Of course,” he said with a soft smile. But then his smile faltered into a slight grimace. “But, um, there is just one issue in regards to getting to the hospital that you should probably be aware of. I don’t have my bike today, I got a ride.”

Natalie’s eyes narrowed. “From whom?”

“Guess.”

She swirled with loathing. “Are you fucking joking?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll just tell her I’m sick or something.”

“Abso-lutely not. Can’t you get a ride with someone else?”

“Such as?”

“Literally anyone.”

“None of our friends drive, and your friends all think I’m a stalker for some reason.”

“Take my bike.”

“You mean my bike that I outgrew when I was twelve? Not sure how well I can work the pedals anymore.”

“So walk.”

“It’s miles away.”

“I don’t care! I’d rather walk there myself than get in a car with Princess Fat Fuck!” 

He snickered.

“IT’S NOT FUNNY TREVOR! Why the fuck is she driving you around? Have you no dignity? You really are her little bad-boy-toy, aren’t you?”

“That jibe stung more when you weren’t literally toy-sized.”

“Fuck you.” 

“Like, a small toy, too. Like one of those little green plastic army men toys, you know? Like a choking hazard-sized–”

“Do not!” she bellowed. “Call me! A choking hazard!”

“I said choking hazard-sized. You’re not plastic, I’m sure any small child could swallow you just fine.”

“Aha, cute. You know what, screw it, just call my dad to come and get me.”

Trev’s brows furrowed. “You serious? You really wanna see the Tank right now?”

“My dad, yes, one can assume he’ll need to be informed.”

“Right, only, about an hour ago he depicted a pretty vivid picture of what he planned to do to you when he got his hands on you that would not bode well in your current condition.”

“Okay, eavesdropper.”

“He bellowed it from the window, everyone within a two block radius was eavesdropping.”

“You think the whole shrinking thing might divert his attention?”

“Or piss him off even more if he’s gotta leave work to come get your shrunken ass, only to face what are sure to be some fairly ungodly hospital bills.”

“Just call him! Or go drag my brother out of class, he can deal with Frank.”

“Why don’t I just get the keys from her and I can drive?”

“No!”

“Why!”

“You don’t have a driver’s license, you lack good judgment, I don’t trust you behind the wheel of a moving vehicle, and I don’t agree with your taste in women!”

He huffed, rolling his eyes. “Look, Nat, I know things have been kinda fucked since we broke up, but I wouldn’t ever let anything happen to you, we’re family.”

“No we’re not! Why do you always do this!”

“Do what? I’m only tryna fuckin’ help you!”

“If you really wanted to help me, you’d call my dad! What you want is to play the gallant fucking hero, as per usual! You’re so pathetic! Just go away, I don’t want your help!”

Trev glowered down at her as she panted through clenched teeth. “Fine.” He rose to his feet, towering above her like some kind of teenzilla, and stepped over her to climb back out from under the stairwell. 

Her eyes widened as his massive sneakers collided against the tile floor away from her with a series of tremors. “Wait!” she squealed. “You’re not really gonna leave me down–”

“I can’t hear you, stupidass,” he snapped, climbing up over the railing. 

She gaped up after him, a hint of guilt fluttering through her. She’d gone too far. She shouldn’t have called him pathetic, it was always triggering for him. Part of her issue with Trev was their mutual compulsion to tear each other down when one of them felt upset or vulnerable. Even as she recognized her own faults, she was overwhelmed by irritation. Could he not see how upset she was? She was in actual, physical danger, and she needed his help, how could he have just left her all alone? 

She huffed, crossing her arms. Of course he hadn’t. He was likely sulking at the top of the stairwell and would come storming back as soon as he felt he’d made his point.

Sure enough, he jumped back down a minute later, grumbling, “Oh, look at that, you’re still here.” He stomped back over to her, his Vans vans planting down before her at an alarmingly close distance. He squatted down. “Come on.” His monstrous hand descended towards her and she jerked instinctively away from it and he hollered in a thunderous tone, “I’m gonna have to touch you, Natalie!” 

She threw her hands over her ringing ears, bellowing, “Don’t yell at me, you fucking idiot! You’ll blow my ear drums!”

His jaw clenched and his huge fingers suddenly pinched the back of her flannel shirt and jerked upwards, yanking her off the ground, and she gasped, throwing her hands up to clutch his fingers.

“Didn’t catch that,” his voice boomed as she dangled before his huge eyes. “What’d you just call me?”

“Put. Me. Down,” she snarled, her heart picking up speed.

“Uh huh, okay. Damn, Nat, you are really fucking small. This must be pretty high up for you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you tryna startle me, Trev?”

“No, why? You startled?”

She sneered. “Naw, I’m good. You’re the one afraid of heights.”

He laughed darkly. “Oh. Right. Glad I’m not you, right now.” He rose to his feet, and she screamed as she sky-rocketed upwards, her head buzzing with tunnel-vision from the sudden change in altitude. His hand jerked to a halt when he reached his full height and she swung with the momentum, her head bobbing as she struggled to keep conscious. She shook her head to clear the fizzling light-headedness and she dug her nails into his fingers, her heart pounding, swaying before his face at what felt to her like the height of a ten-story building. The corner of his huge mouth rose into a cold smirk before her. “Awe, what’s the matter, Nat? You look startled.”

She scowled incredulously, holding back tears, and whimpered, “You’re such a dick.”

 “Ouch. I gotta say, Natalie, for how tiny you are, it’s amazing you still manage to be such a huge fucking bitch.” 

“Oh my God!” she wailed. “Get over it! I’ve got bigger problems right now than trying to cater to your fragile fucking ego!”

Trev laughed coldly. “Yeah you do.”

He yanked her towards his chest as his other hand pulled open his tee-shirt pocket. He dropped her inside and she let out an involuntary squeak as she bounced into the fabric.

“What the fuck, Trevor!” she yelled up to him, seeing nothing but the underside of his jaw through the top of his pocket.

He ignored her as he climbed out from under the stairwell and stalked down the hallway, bouncing her up and down in his pocket with every step he took. She was overcome by the blaring sounds of his gigantic body. His rapid heartbeat pounded against her through the fabric of his shirt. Every angry breath rocked her back and forth. 

He was pissed. Great. 

“Trevor!” she yelled up to him, clutching a fistfull of his shirt to steady herself. “Calm down!”

 His chest vibrated as he grumbled, “You might wanna quit your squeaking if you don’t want anyone to hear you.”

Natalie groaned and bonked her head against him. He’d chill out. He’d keep her safe. He could be a real dick when he was angry, but he’d never actually let anything bad happen to her.

She could clearly make out the vast hallway through the fabric of his pocket, the lockers and occasional high school student passing by like skyscrapers. He came to a halt and leaned against a locker, crossing his arms beneath her. 

“What are you doing?” she grumbled up at the underside of his chin. He didn’t respond and she wasn’t sure if it was because he was still pissed or because he didn’t hear her, so she yelled louder, “What are you–!”

“Waiting for my girlfriend.”

Natalie huffed, scowling, but took a deep, composing breath to sooth the aggravation coursing through her. They couldn’t both get angry at the same time, it never ended well. “You’re just gonna get her keys from her, though, right?” she called.

“I guess that depends on what she wants to do,” he said coldly. 

She clamped her mouth shut before she said something to piss him off even more and he wound up stuffing her in a locker or something. It wouldn’t be the first time. It had been like this between them since they were six, long before they started dating. They’d fight and fight and neither would back down and he’d inevitably stuff her into a cupboard or barricade her in a closet or else just straddle her on the ground, grinning his crooked grin and occasionally whacking her in the head as she struggled futilely against him, refusing to let her go until she declared him the winner—which she obviously never did. 

One time when they were eight he held her down for an entire afternoon in the courtyard of their apartment complex because she’d hidden his favorite toy—a Spiderman action figure his mom had sent him for his birthday that he carried around everywhere, which Natalie had stolen because he broke her lucky bracelet, which he’d broken because she ripped up one of his drawings, which she’d ripped up because he called her a stupid ass, because she called him a little bitch, because he called her short, and so on and so forth. She’d lain stoically in the grass while he sat on her stomach with his knees pinning her arms down.

“I’m not messin’ with you Natty, where is it?”

“Get offa me and I’ll go get it for you.”

“Not ‘til you tell me where it is.”

“I’m not tellin’ you shit.”

“I can stay here all day.”

“You’ll get bored eventually.”

“Wanna bet?”

He’d sent Nick, his ever faithful little minion, to rip her bedroom apart looking for it. And when he came back empty handed, he sent him to fetch snacks and coloring books and board games that he’d played on her chest with Diego and Danno and other kids from the complex, forbidding anyone from speaking to her until he was reunited with his beloved Spiderman. 

The two of them stayed like that well after the sun had gone down, and probably would have stayed there all night, too, if Frank hadn’t spotted them out in the dark when he got home from work and hurled Trev halfway across the courtyard. Then he beat her ass for staying out past dark, with zero sympathy for her bawling proclamations of innocence in the matter. Then he screamed at her mom for a good hour for being too high to notice one of the kids was missing, while the other had puked everywhere after eating nothing but an entire box of Twinkies for dinner, and the toddler had been screaming and hungry and running around in his own shit for God knew how long.

As promised, Natalie returned Trev’s Spiderman toy to him the following morning as they waited for the school bus. He clutched it in his hand, glaring down at her. “Where’s his head?”

“Oh this?” She held it up to him.

He snatched for it, but not quick enough and she tossed it down the gutter.

Trev gaped after it, then burst into tears, right in front of all the neighborhood kids. 

Natalie laughed coldly. “Wow, what a baby. Maybe if you cry loud enough your mommy will come home someday to get you a–”

“SHUT UP!” he screamed, tackling her to the hard pavement. “I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

And she laughed her ass off, even as he pummeled her, because they both knew she’d won. No matter how hard he hit her, he’d never be able to hurt her as much as she’d hurt him. 

*                                                *                                                *

After what felt like an eternity, the bell rang. Natalie pressed herself against his chest as shadow after enormous shadow passed by. Voices boomed above her, so loud she covered her ears. And then–

“TREVY!”

Something large and soft pressed against her, squeezing her into Trev’s chest. 

“Hey baby,” said Trev, holding her against him. “Can we talk?”

“I don’t wanna talk,” she whispered in his ear, quiet enough for only Trev to hear, as well as the tiny girl in his pocket. “I want you to do that thing you did last weekend.” 

He grinned. “Oh yeah? What thing would that be?”

Natalie glared irritably from inside his pocket. What a dick. 

He let Brittany recount the venereal exploits of their previous weekend in vivid detail, involving much tongue and tits and a can of whipped cream, before he finally cut her off. “Sure, maybe later. But first, come here, I gotta talk to you.”

They walked for about a minute, paused, and a door opened to a bathroom. Trev jammed the stopper beneath the door to keep it shut and Brittany giggled, “Baby, you’re so bad.”

Her breast molded around Natalie once again, and high above came the renewed sounds of face sucking. This time the embrace lasted for a good minute as he pressed her up against the bathroom sink. Natalie had to kick her leg against his chest ten times before he finally broke away.

“Baby, I gotta show you something.” 

Natalie stiffened, drawing in breath.

Brittany giggled again. “Okay.” 

Trev paused for a moment. He was fucking with her. There was absolutely no way he’d stoop so low. But then his fingers descended in through the pocket and constricted around her like big, fat, double-crossing snakes. He opened his palm between the two of them and Natalie balanced on her hands and knees in his cupped hand, gaping incredulously beyond the ridge of his palm, at the huge set of breasts before her. 

Brittany’s body shape was all curves, entirely different from her own. She had long, voluptuous legs, a plump rear end, and huge, glorious tits. Natalie lifted her gaze anxiously up her chest to find Brittany looking down at her; her long blonde hair curtaining her face, her big blue eyes wide and curious. “What the heck?”

“Mhm,” said Trev. “She wants us to take her to a doctor.”

“Lemme hold her!”

Trev glanced down at Natalie, who shook her head pleadingly. 

“Sure, here you go.” 

Her jaw dropped in indignation and the corner of his mouth rose into a slight, crooked grin as he reached over, tilting his palm to drop her into Brittany’s outstretched hand.

Brittany’s pink clawed fingers wrapped tightly around her body with just her head emerging from her fist, lifting her up to her face. Her big blue eyes looked her over, hungrily. “Does anybody else know about this?” she asked, her hot, sticky breath gusting into Natalie’s face, reeking of coffee and yogurt.

“Nope.”

Her eyes brightened and rose to Trev’s. “Trevy, don’t you know what this means?”

Natalie craned her head around to snarl up at him, never hating anyone so much in all her life—the back-stabbing, psychotic, maniacal fucking asshole—but he was looking over her head at Brittany.

“No, babe, what’s it mean?”

“Nobody knows but us! We can take her home with us, and nobody would ever know what had happened!”

“Damn, babe, I never thought of it like that. You’re so smart.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!” Natalie burst out and his lips tightened as he suppressed a laugh, still not looking down at her. “I’MA FUCKING KILL YOU, TREVOR DALTON, YOU DICKASS MOTHER FUCKING SON OF A–!” 

But Brittany’s thumb suddenly smacked over her face, cutting her off. “You’ll speak when spoken to, trash whore.”

Natalie felt herself descend as Brittany’s free hand pulled open the pocket of her ridiculously tight jeggings, and then she was plummeting down into the darkness. Her pocket snapped closed, jamming Natalie against her meaty upper thigh, within the confines of her jeggings.

“Get cozy down there, little bitch,” Brittany’s voice boomed high above her, her massive hand pounding into her as she patted her pocket. “I’m feeling a little under the weather. Whaddya say we take the rest of the day off and go back to my place?” 

And, with that, her gargantuan leg propelled forward as she walked back out into the hallway.

Double Negative

Natalie was fuming. 

Not just from the previously undiscovered levels of rage and indignation coursing through her veins, but also because the heat coming off of Brittany’s body made the interior of her pocket a good ninety degrees. The elastic faux denim pinned her whole body to the giant girl’s meaty upper thigh, keeping her completely stuck in the same position she’d been in since the pocket snapped shut, with her limbs bent at awkward angles and the side of her scowling face smooshed up against her leg, hurling up and down with every tremorous step, like the swinging pirate ship ride at the county fair that she and Trev had ridden over and over and over again when they were ten to wager who’d puke first—Trev. 

She could see through the thin fabric, but from her angle she didn’t see much besides the blur of lockers panning by and the side of Trev’s thigh coming in and out of view as they collected their backpacks and shit from their lockers and snuck out through the side door to the parking lot. 

They came to a sudden halt by a cherry red Kia Soul and there was a rattling overhead as Brittany pulled the keys from her purse and unlocked the car. Trev took the driver's seat, and Brittany the passenger, and as she sat down her jeggings constricted, somehow managing to force Natalie even tighter into her leg, the soft flesh molding up around her through the fabric, making it increasingly difficult to breath. She could see Trev’s lap in the distance as his hand lifted with the keys to jingle into the ignition. 

The car engine roared into life, sending angry vibrations into the flesh around her and she jiggled around like a fruit in a jello mold from hell.

High above, Brittany and Trev’s voices boomed over the blasting car engine, discussing what to do with her.

“We can keep her in my hamster cage,” Brittany suggested. “Like the little rodent she is.”

“Naw,” said Trev. “We’ll mess with her for a bit, then take her to the doctor.”

“Why does she even wanna go to a doctor? What does she think they’d do?”

“Stretch her in a taffy machine.”

“What? Why would they do that?”

“Worked for the Oompas.”

“Oh,” she said blankly, still missing the reference. “Whaddo you think’s wrong with her? You think she’s on something?”

From inside her pocket, Natalie afforded what little amount of breath she had to scoff at the implication. 

A moment went by before Trev answered. “Yeah, maybe she’s on something. Just the kinda shit those wacky kids get up to in the ghetto. Narcotics that alter the dimensions of, not just you, but the very clothes on your back.”

“Jeez, lighten up! An illness wouldn’t have shrunk her clothes, either!”

“I didn’t say it was an illness.”

“So why do you wanna take her to a doctor?”

“Because that’s where she wants to go. They can stretch her or dissect her or whatever, I don’t really give a shit what they do.”

“God! Somebody’s grumpy, today!”

The two continued bickering, but their voices grew slow and wobbled, the heat and lack of oxygen making Natalie woozy. 

She’d been told once that she used to be friends with Brittany and her doucher brother when they were toddlers. She’d had a hard time believing, even then, that they’d ever been friends—as that would surely defy the laws of nature enough to tear a hole in the space-time continuum. Whether they’d ever actually gotten along or not, Natalie had spent time in her house before and knew of its general location—on the North side of town, where the trees ran along the side of the road in perfect symmetry, on the very street where her mom had suffered for eighteen years before she finally ran away, never to return. 

They pulled into the four-car garage and Brittany practically leapt from the moving vehicle with giddiness. Her leg propelled back and forth and up and down with dizzying speed, the interior of her towering house sweeping by in a blur, before a door slammed shut and plump fingers descended into the pocket to snatch her up. 

Natalie sped up into a massive princess suite of a bedroom, the cool air washing over her and she gasped, gulping down the fresh air. The fingers opened out from beneath her and she dropped face down to the surface of a plump, purple comforter, sinking into the lumpy blanket. She propped herself up on her forearms and glared up at the two moving skyscrapers above her. Trev pulled over the chair from the desk while Brittany plopped her gargantuan bottom right there on the canopied bed beside her, her immense weight pressing down on the mattress so that Natalie had to quickly take hold of the blanket to keep from tumbling down the slope into her leg. Brittany's freight train of a thigh rose up into the air and crossed over the other as her hand collided down into the comforter on Natalie’s other side. She leaned casually over top of her, smiling down at her from high above.

“Alright, little bitch,” she said, and Natalie bristled at the sound of her voice, still laying irritably on her stomach, refusing to look up at her. “Here’s how this is gonna go. We’re gonna spend the day together, the three of us. And if you’re very good and do everything we tell you to do, we’ll take you to a doctor or a scientist or wherever it is you wanna go, understand?”

“This is fucking insane,” Natalie grumbled, smacking her forehead into her arms.

“Ooh little bitch, you’re not off to a good start. I asked you a question.”

Natalie seethed and glared up at Trev, who was slouched in the desk chair before her, inspecting his nails as if rather bored. She yelled up at him, “Are you fucking kidding me with this nonsense!”

Brittany’s thumb and forefinger descended to pinched her head, lifting her to her knees and Natalie squealed and threw her hands up in a futile attempt to push them away. “Do not talk to him, you fucking skank.” With every syllable, Brittany rocked her head back and forth. “I want to make sure we are on the same page so I will ask you one more time, do-you-un-der-stand-me.”

“YES, yes I understand!” Natalie squealed. “Fuck!”

“That’s better,” said Brittany smugly and released her. She fell backwards onto her butt with an “Umph”, rubbing her temple. She glowered up at Trev, who was now picking indifferently at a speck of dust on his shirt.

“Now then,” said Brittany as if this were nothing more than a homecoming committee meeting. “I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask you. I hear that you’ve been spreading some nasty little rumors about me and I’d like to clear some things up.”

Natalie groaned, pinching her throbbing forehead.

“Do you know what I am referring to?” asked Brittany, sweetly.

She sighed. “Yes.”

Trev looked at Brittany. “What rumor?”

She ignored him, her attention on the tiny girl beside her. “So you admit to starting them?”

Natalie glared. “No.” 

“You little liar, I know you started them,” she snapped. But her voice turned sweet again when she said, “But I don’t care, really, there’s something else I wanted to ask you. What would you do if I were to tell you that the rumors were all true.”

Natalie scowled for a moment, then caught her drift. “Jesus fucking Christ!” she bellowed, taking Brittany aback. “Get over it, dumb shit, it was a fucking joke! I’m not gonna sit here and listen to this stupid fucking irrelevant highschool drama shit!”

“Oh no?” Brittany snapped back, anger rising in her voice. “I’d say you don’t got no choice in the matter, sweetie.”

“Don’t got no—God you’re dumb. So I do have a choice?”

“What? No! You don’t got no choice, I said!”

“That’s a double negative, ya fuckin’ dipnode!”

“What was the rumor?” Trev asked, trying (and failing) to hide his obvious amusement by their exchange. 

Natalie huffed. “Someone may have gotten a bit drunk at a party the other night, and made a joke that Brittany… enjoys relations… with hamsters.”

“Oh shit,” Trev laughed. “That was you?” 

Brittany rounded on him, screeching, “It’s not FUNNY!” so loudly that Natalie covered her ears.

“This is so dumb,” she grumbled. “Look, I’m sorry. It was a really stupid joke. Of all the shit I said that night, it was a weird thing to start spreading around. But this is a serious situation and I don’t feel like y’all jokers are taking it very seriously! So can you please help me now and I’ll tell everyone I made it up! I’ll make posters that say ‘Brittany Murphy does not fornicate with small household mammals’, and hang them around the school.”

Trev pressed his knuckles over his mouth, brows raised, his eyes on Brittany as she turned a deep red, glaring down with such malice that Natalie turned away. 

“Trev-or!” she wailed, throwing her hands up, and they exchanged a look they’d shared countless times over the years. 

Her eyes said, You’re not fucking funny. 

His said, Yeah I fucking am.

Brittany’s hand took her from the side, throwing her onto her back and knocking the wind out of her in an instant. Her massive palm pushed down on top of her, pressing her into the purple comforter. The pressure grew steadily stronger as Brittany applied more and more of her weight on top of her minuscule body, leaning over her, her blonde hair curtaining her hateful face, her blue eyes reduced to slits. Natalie couldn’t breathe, any second her ribs would snap. 

“Don’t hurt her,” said Trev—rather casually, given the circumstances. 

Brittany held her there without applying any more weight. She leaned down closer and closer until her billboard sized face was just inches above her struggling form. 

“I can feel your tiny, skinny little ribs getting ready to burst,” Brittany murmured. “I could kill you so easily right now, and I’m not even trying.”

Natalie tried to wriggle out but it was no use. Her mind was racing. She couldn’t breath, why didn’t they see that she couldn’t breath? Brittany watched her with sick pleasure. 

Trev’s hand descended from nowhere and wrapped around Brittany’s wrist. The pressure lifted from her chest and Natalie gasped, sucking in air. He held her arm tightly in the air between them while Brittany glared up at him with her teeth bared like a mad dog’s while he glared back with piercing intensity. Then he grabbed her by the back of the neck and yanked her into him, kissing her with savage ferocity. 

Brittany let out a gasp which quickly turned into a moan. She leaned back on the bed and Trev climbed on top of her. Natalie, shocked by this sudden display of affection, hurriedly pulled herself backwards to avoid being crushed by his descending knee. She rolled around and took off in the opposite direction, but didn’t make it half a foot before his palm smacked down in front of her and she collided into it. His fingers wrapped around her and pulled her back to sit beside them as the two giant bodies writhed together.

He kept his index finger pressed over her mouth while his thumb, which was about a head taller than her entire body, pressed firmly across her chest, feeling her tiny heartbeat flutter like a hummingbird, her tiny ribcage expand and contrast rapidly as she panted for breath between his fingers. A tremor ran through him, and, high above, where their mouths were still locked together, he groaned. His grip constricted around her, squeezing a bit tighter and she bit down on his finger as hard as she could. It was not enough to break the skin, but he jolted and loosened his grip.

“What?” Brittany moaned, kissing his neck.

“Nothing.” They continued on for a couple of seconds before he muttered, “Hey babe?”

“Yeah?”

 “You got coffee breath.”

“What!” She covered her mouth, pushing him up. He climbed off to let her by, a motion which sent Natalie sinking back into the bedspread as his gigantic body arced over her to plop back down on her other side. “Be right back, just gonna freshen up.” She walked swiftly towards the door to the hallway.

As soon as the door shut behind her, Trev loosened his hold on Natalie and she screamed, “You FUCKER!” She kicked and punched herself free from his grasp, stomping across the plump bedspread away from his towering thigh. “You sick, psychotic asshole, what the fuck is the matter with you!”

Trev laughed, watching her sink knee-deep into the bedspread as she struggled to storm dramatically away. “Relax would you? When’d you get so uptight?”

“UP-TIGHT?” she screeched, whipping around and craning her neck to glower up at his grinning face. “That dumb fucking bitch could have killed me!”

“Please. Would I ever let anyone kill you, Natty?”

“DON’T call me Natty! Come on, Trevor, you made your twisted joke! Can we go now?”

“Don’t be a cock blocker, Natty. I’m tryna have a nice time with my girlfriend.”

Natalie seethed, her lips tightening. “Oh, right, don’t mind me. Please, carry on fucking Bleach-for-Brains.”

Trev smirked. “You’re cute when you're jealous. You're welcome to join.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Sure. Why don’t you take off your tiny little clothes there to get me going.”

“In your fucking dreams.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen a thousand times before. I can take them off for you if you're shy.”

“Are you fucking with me?”

“I dunno Nat, whaddo you think? What kind of sick, psychotic asshole do you think I am, that I might take advantage of your situation by forcing you to do something you didn’t wanna do.”

Natalie let out a cold laugh and Trev mimicked her cold laugh.

“I’m not playing this game with you, Trevor.”

“Sure you are. That’s what toys are for.”

“You are so fucking–”

“I’m what? Nat? What am I?” They glared at each other and then Trev huffed, shaking his head. “I’ll tell you what, we can leave right now if you apologize for all your unpleasant name calling.”

“Go. Fuck. Yourself. I’m not apologizing for shit!”

“Fine. Then take your clothes off.”

“Make me, mother fuck–”

“O-kay.” He snatched up both of her wrists between his thumb and forefinger. “You really never know when to shut up, do you?” 

“LET GO!”

“Make me, mother fucker,” he said in a childish, mocking tone. His other hand pinched the back of her flannel shirt and he yanked it up over her head, bending her skinny arms at an odd angle. She let out a squeak and writhed in the direction he was pulling to slide her arms through the sleeves before he broke an arm. “Well that was easy.” He reached for her tee-shirt next. 

“Stop!” 

His gaze snapped to her face. “Why? You got something to say?”

Natalie scowled up at him, then yanked off her own tee-shirt. 

He laughed. “Awe, this is fun.” He pinched her bare waist. “Like a strip tease Barbie.”

“Fuck off,” she growled, jerking away from his fingers. She kicked off her sneakers, then pulled down her jeans and stomped out of them. She crossed her arms in just her bra and underwear, glowering as Trev stuck her tiny shoes and discarded clothes in his jeans pocket. He looked at her expectantly, then tsked and fumbled his huge fingers against her back, ripping through her bra. “Come on!” she yelled as he yanked its straps down her arms and tossed it aside.

“You were taking too long.” He did the same to her underwear before she could protest. 

“I really fucking hate you,” she spat, jerking away from him.

He yanked her back by the arm. “Right back fucking at you.” 

His brows furrowed as he looked over her naked body. He ran the tip of his thumb down her narrow, bony rib cage and she could feel every ridge of his fingerprint. “Damn, slim. Don’t you ever eat?”

She seethed, snarling up at him, just as the bedroom door banged open. Natalie recoiled at the look on Brittany's face, standing frozen in the doorway, watching as Trev fondled her naked body.

“Hey baby,” he said absently.

She stomped into the room. “What are you doing, Trevor?”

His gaze snapped up. “What’d you just call me?”

She stopped in her tracks, pouting. “You let her call you Trevor.”

“Mhm, she’s the only one I ever let call me that. How does that make you feel?”

“Like you like her better than you like me.”

“Sure I do, she’s a fun toy to play with. If you want me to like you more, be more fun.”

“How?”

“Take your shirt off.”

She obediently pulled off her shirt and tossed it aside. Her large breasts bounced as she slipped out of her lacy push up bra.

Trev grinned. “Good girl. Isn’t it so fun when you do what I tell you to do?” He roughly released Natalie and she stumbled back a couple of steps, looking pleadingly up at him, but his gaze had shifted up to Brittany.

“Fine, Trev,” she growled. “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not,” he growled back. “Not yet, anyway.”

Brittany slowly approached the edge of the bed, then leaned down over Natalie until her massive breasts came to a jiggling halt, an inch above her head. She turned towards Trev and murmured, “Can I play?”

He grinned his crooked grin. Brittany’s manicured hand snatched up Natalie and lifted her carelessly to her plump, cherry lip gloss covered lips. She gaped in disbelief as the lips parted widely, giving her a quick glimpse of the wet cavern of her mouth—her shiny white teeth, her slick tongue, down to the bottomless gullet at the far back—before she was barreling inside, and all light disappeared from the world.

Chronic Crashing Crushing Current

A small amount of reddish light crept through Brittany’s lips, revealing two curving rows of teeth, each tooth the size of Natalie’s whole head. She could feel every taste bud on the slithering tongue beneath her, the texture like a carpet’s. A lumpy, wet, putrid carpet. The air was toxic; still smelling of coffee and yogurt beneath the overwhelming mint of toothpaste. It was humid and so unbearably hot that she could barely breathe. She was too shocked to even know how to react, until the tongue rose her up like a magic putrid carpet, and smooshed against the roof of her mouth, while the throat muscles behind her writhed with a loud, squelching GULP.

Panic overtook Natalie and she screamed, “LET ME OUT!” She thrust her hands up against the wrinkled roof of her mouth in a hopeless attempt to pry the teeth apart. When they wouldn’t budge, she pounded her fists against her teeth. “OH MY GOD, LET ME OUT! PLEASE, FUCK, LET ME OUT!”

The teeth parted, so suddenly that Natalie jolted backwards. The dark cavern was momentarily illuminated, Brittany’s tongue vibrating while a gush of hot air and saliva whirled past her, knocking her forward onto her stomach. She realized with a fresh wave of hatred that Brittany was giggling. 

“What’s funny?” Came Trev’s muffled voice, a million miles away, a slight edge to his tone.

Brittany’s teeth parted while her tongue simultaneously tilted and hurled Natalie sideways, slamming her into the slick, rubbery wall of her cheek. “She’s poun-ing on my teef,” said Brittany, and Natalie gaped in horror as her mouth opened and closed with incredible speed, her tongue bending and flicking the roof of her mouth to form every word. 

“Oh, fuck,” said Trev with a dark laugh and suddenly everything jerked forward. The smooth wall of Brittany’s cheek constricted against Natalie, pressing her into the outsides of her teeth. Her whole mouth vibrated as she let out a moan. From the other side of her lips came a second, deeper moan, accompanied by a sloppy, squelching sound that brought Natalie to the understanding, with a searing wave of revulsion, that the two of them had resumed their make out session, this time with her smack-dab in the middle of it.

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, the lips parted once again, and Trev’s tongue came barreling through them. It slithered its way between her and Brittany’s cheek and flung her sideways over her teeth, slamming her into the side of her tongue. Natalie gasped, just as Trev’s tongue plopped down on top of her, and she inhaled a mouthful of somebody’s—she wasn't sure who's at this point—spit. 

Natalie coughed and sputtered as the two slimy muscles dragged over every inch of her body; spiraling her up and down and back and forth and side to side, until she lost any sense of direction. She couldn't tell whose tongue was whose, and wasn't even sure whose mouth she was in, anymore. Every minute or so, one of the tongues would recede as they broke momentarily and Natalie would lay completely motionless as saliva dribbled around her, sucking down the stale, recycled breath of whoever’s mouth she was in, trying to fill her lungs as much as possible before the next rumpus would commence.

As she was tossed around, fighting for every tiny breath, using every muscle, every ounce of concentration to find a pocket of air amongst the thrashing tongues, a memory came to her from over the summer, when she and Trev had run away again, this time all the way to the coast. They’d ridden their bikes for a good ten hours in the scorching sun to stay with his twenty-two year old cousin, Dave, who sold drugs to tourists and lived in an old, decrepit shack on the beach with a bunch of other surfer bums. Trev and Natalie had slept on his couch, crammed atop one another’s hot, sweaty bodies, and had gone surfing with Dave and his friends every day. 

On the fifth day of their visit, Natalie had fallen off her board on a particularly monstrous wave, and got sucked into the current. For over a minute, she was tossed and rolled in the unforgiving depths of the ocean. When she finally managed to break free and kick to the surface, she was only able to gulp down the slightest breath of air before another wave crashed over her, dragging her under all over again. It had been Trev who finally pulled her out, and the two lay panting and laughing hysterically in the sand as his cousin passed them a joint, marveling over the profound power of the ocean that could so easily consume a life with complete indifference.

But this was not the ocean; just a couple of deranged and overly hormonal sixteen year olds. Trev would grow bored of tormenting her eventually, and all of this would end. 

It’ll end. She held desperately to that thought. It’ll end it’ll end it’ll end. 

And eventually the tonsil fracas did end, but it was only the beginning for poor Natalie. The second tongue withdrew, leaving her panting in whoever’s mouth she was in—the shrill pitch of the moans told her Brittany’s. The tongue rose up, squishing her into the arching roof of her mouth as the cavern revolved forward, tilting her upside down. Brittany’s lips puckered outward as she kissed along Trev’s neck, then down the length of his bare chest, his tee-shirt having apparently been ripped off at some point. With every smooch, her tongue smushed against Natalie, sliding her further and further down the roof of her mouth and against her teeth. 

Suddenly the tongue pressed her right into the sharp edge of her front tooth and it sliced across Natalie’s torso. She let out a smothered cry that went unnoticed amongst the moans and groans of the giant teenagers. Blood gushed down her side, blending together with saliva. 

“Ugh!” Brittany’s mouth opened and Natalie glimpsed a valley of flesh below before she was plunging downward, between her teeth and lips, and collapsing onto the muscular terrain of Trev’s bare chest, rising and falling rapidly with every breath he took, his accelerated heartbeat sending rhythmic tremors beneath her. She rolled onto her back to see, high above her, Brittany scowling and wiping her mouth in disgust. She felt a dull sense of relief that surely this would be the end of it, the taste of blood being an inherent killer of moods. This didn’t appear to be the case for psychopaths, however, because Brittany shot her a nasty smile before licking her lips and gulping it down her gullet. Natalie’s eyes panned upwards as the giant girl rose above her. She pivoted onto Trev’s lap so that she was straddling him, then leaned down to lay across him. 

Natalie, too exhausted to even attempt to move, knowing there was nowhere to escape to, anyway, watched blankly as Brittany descended; her chest drawing closer and closer. She froze with her right breast suspended just above her, jiggling slightly as she went back to kissing Trev. Foreseeing the events of the immediate future, Natalie groaned and made a drastic attempt to roll out from under her colossal tit. Brittany hovered there for a couple of seconds, then brought her weight down, flattening herself against Trev. Her breast smushed into Natalie, burying her in ungodly amounts of soft flesh. It molded around her and she punched and kicked weakly against it, and the flesh rumbled on either side of her as Trev groaned and Brittany giggled, each feeling the tiny movements between them. 

The breast seemed to be playing around with how much weight she could handle; lifting up enough to give her a bit of leeway to squirm around, then smushing into her again, grinding back and forth. Natalie wriggled and dragged herself beneath it across the fleshy, heaving ground. Blood was still seeping out of the gash on her side, leaving a slippery trail over Trev’s chest and smearing across Brittany’s tit. She managed to make her way into the gap between the two breasts, where the pressure decreased slightly. Then an ominous giggle came from above. A couple of huge, manicured hands grasped onto each breast, then the two mountainous orbs smashed into her from either side, squeezing her in a deathgrip.

“Hang on,” said Trev, rubbing his thumb across the tiny smear of red on Brittany’s breast. “Is that blood?”

“Just a scratch,” Brittany panted, grinding her tits together. 

The two bodies rapidly tilted upwards as Trev jolted upright, lifting Brittany off of him and his hand appeared between the mountains of flesh to snatch Natalie from the chamber of cleavage. She lay gasping in his palm as she rose up to his eyes. The index finger of his free hand pressed lightly against her chest to roll her onto her side as he examined the cut on her torso. It was long, but thin; the bleeding had mostly subsided by now. He yanked a tissue from a box on the nightstand and wadded it up with his free hand, pressing it gently against the scratch. He expressed no emotion as he held it there, staring down at her.

“She’s fine,” Brittany snapped and made to snatch the tiny girl back from him. 

His finger’s closed around her, holding her out of reach. “Naw, she’s done.” 

“Please, Trevy,” Brittany pouted, smacking her hand down on the bed. “I was just getting into it.”

He rolled his eyes and, without a word, placed her lightly on the nightstand, folding her tiny arms over the tissue to keep it in place, before turning his attention back to Brittany. 

Natalie lay panting on the hard wooden surface of the nightstand, staring at the ceiling, as the two titanic teenagers went at it on the bed next to her. She willed herself to imagine she was somewhere far away; that the rhythmic writhing of the colossal bodies in her periphery was the ocean, that their moans and groans were but the crashing of waves. She wondered if Trev’s cousin still lived on that same beach. Probably. He’d been there for a few years now. 

He’d kissed her one night.

They’d been hanging around a bonfire with his surfer friends. It was the same day she’d nearly drowned, and she’d been rather quiet and irritable while Trev kept making jokes and rambling on and on about the incident; getting more and more animated the more he drank. Dave had given her a knowing look and leaned over to ask if she wanted to go for a walk along the beach and let his little cousin carry on pounding beers with the other guys. They’d walked in the sand for a long time, watching the waves and talking deeply about life and death and the uncertainty of the universe. 

She told him that her mom had always loved taking trips to the beach, that the day she and Trev arrived, after biking ten hours in the scorching sun to reach the coast, had been the six year anniversary of the day they’d chased each other into her apartment, and found her mom laying cold on the living room floor, her eyes glassy and lifeless, and blue, like oceans. 

He told her she was the deepest, most beautiful soul he’d ever met. And then he took her chin in his hand, lifting her face as he leaned down, and pressed his lips to her’s.

It had been strangely soft—nothing like how Trev kissed her, always yanking her around, lifting her up and slamming her into things—and at first she’d been too surprised to react. 

Then she’d pulled away and he’d smiled and she’d smiled and politely suggested heading back, turning around towards the direction they’d come, but he held her by the arm and murmured, “Life is precious, why waste it?” 

And he kissed her again. 

And she let him. 

She’d just stood there like an ice sculpture, letting him kiss her in that strange, soft way, her heart pounding painfully against her chest as his fingers glided slowly up her inner thigh, under her shorts. 

On the excruciatingly long walk back, he’d slid his hand up her shirt, his strong fingers stroking gentle circles around her slim waist, and she’d been unable to breath properly until they were finally in sight of the bonfire, when Trev drunkenly bellowed from the distance, “There you are, ya little fuckass! Get over here!” And he’d run up and tackled her into the sand, kissing her all over and wailing, “Where the fuck you been, Natty! I was starting to think Dave had kidnapped you and I was gonna have to kill him and I already had to save your dumb ass once today! Awe shit,” he laughed into her neck, his warm breath tickling her skin. “Remember when I saved your life? That was fucking crazy!” Then he let out a loud groan and squeezed her tightly, bonking his forehead against hers and murmuring, “Promise me you’ll never die, Natty. I’ve never been so fucking scared in my entire fucking life.”

And Natalie had lain guiltily beneath him, gaping up at him with teary eyes and trying not to think about what had just happened, lest he suddenly develop mind reading capabilities. She whimpered, “I’m so sorry, Trevor…” 

He propped up on his elbows, looking her over with furrowed brows. “What for?”

But all she could manage to croak out was, “I wanna go home…”

He frowned. “Like, now?” 

She nodded and, without another word, he yanked her to her feet, yelled goodbye to his cousin, grabbed their backpacks from the shack, and they took off on their bikes immediately, at three o’clock in the morning. 

The strenuous journey home was made even more difficult, due to Trev’s drunkenness, which eventually transcended into a violent hangover, both of which had him swerving frequently to the side of the road to hurl. They’d stopped for a break at sunrise, and he held her in his lap in the grass on the side of the road, his arms wrapped tightly around her, his pale, sickly face leaning against the top of her head, weakly stroking her hair as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed into his sopping tee-shirt; drenched with sweat and beer and puke and tears. He never asked why she’d wanted to leave all of a sudden, assuming she would talk about it if she wanted to, and she never told him what had happened with Dave, assuming he would kill them both.

*                                                *                                                *

“Do you have something?” Brittany whispered from the bed.

“No, you?”

“Are you crazy? I can’t keep them in the house, my mom would find them.”

“I’ll pull out.”

“No way, I can not get pregnant. There’s a Walgreens on the corner.”

He huffed. “Fine. But listen to me.” He took her chin in his hand. “You will not play with my little toy without me, understand? You will not fuck with her, you will not talk to her, you will not even look at her if I am not around to watch. Understand?”

“Okay.” Brittany smiled, coyly. “You’re so bad.”

“Mhm.” The mattress creaked as Trev climbed up.

Natalie’s heart pounded. Don’t go, she thought sluggishly as his towering form pulled on his tee-shirt and stalked across the room with a series of tremors, without so much as a glance in her direction. Don’t leave me alone with her...

The door closed behind him and a moment later a pink clawed hand descended upon her.

Hamster Fucker

There was no time to even attempt to defend herself as the claw scooped her up and the end table shrank from view, back to the plump purple comforter.

The fingers dropped out from beneath her, a foot above the bed, which, to Natalie, felt like the drop from a second story window. She bounced once and then sank into the purple bedspread. Adrenaline coursed through her, giving her the energy to push herself to her feet. She turned to find herself face to face with Brittany’s jeggings standing beside the bed, so close that, even craning her neck, Natalie could see nothing but leg, leading up to her crotch, which had an unflattering bulge of a camel toe swelling through the jeggings.

“Do you like the view from down there?” Brittany's voice boomed from above, somewhere out of sight. She wiggled her mountainous hips from side to side. Natalie backed away, stumbling in the plump bedspread.

The thick thighs rotated slowly, giving Natalie a view of her gargantuan ass. 

“Or how about now?” Her hands clasped a cheek in each hand, digging her long fingernails into the soft flesh, lifting the titanic orbs up and down, sending ripples that jiggled her meaty thighs. High above, Natalie could just make out the top of Brittany’s head over the bulge of her ass as she turned to peer down at her. “You skinny little bitches think you’re such hot shit. But the truth is, every guy prefers some curves. My boyfriend tells me so all the time. You think your bony little ass is hotter than mine? Here, take a closer look.”

Brittany’s face disappeared from view and her ass floated overhead like an invading space craft, casting her beneath its cosmic shadow. It hovered there for a second, then slowly began to lower. Natalie jolted out of her stupor and sprinted forward, making it into the gap between Brittany’s legs, just as she plopped her butt down. 

The resulting tremor in the bed hurled her up like a trampoline. She landed at an awkward angle and toppled over against one of Brittany’s thighs that rose up on either side of her. Her giant form pressed into the mattress, creating a steep slope towards her groin that rolled Natalie down, smacking into her bulging crotch. 

Brittany let out a little “Oh!” in mock surprise, wiggling her hips. 

Natalie could feel the warmth radiating from within the confines of the jeggings, and she was affronted by a nauseatingly pungent smell. Above her was nothing but belly, protruding in rolls over the waistband of her jeggings, jiggling as Brittany let out a girlish giggle. 

The bulge arched against her as Brittany leaned forward. Her bare breasts came into view past her belly, and then her face, smiling down from a high above. Natalie struggled to free herself from her twat, but she was stuck in its gravitational pull. She pushed away from it and Brittany giggled, again, cooing, “Awe, look at you down there. Snuggling up against my cooch.”

A hand lowered into the trench between the towering thighs and collided into her, patting her a couple of times against the bulge. 

“Oooh, you like that, don’t you?”

Brittany’s face, then her breasts, and finally her belly disappeared from view as she leaned backwards. She arched her back and her groin rose up. She placed her hands on the elastic waist of her jeggings and began wiggling her hips back and forth to pull them down, exposing the jiggling, white flesh, little by little. When she got them down to her mid thighs, she slowly lowered her massive ass back to the bed. 

Natalie hurled herself out from beneath her bare bottom, back between her legs. Brittany leaned forward, casting Natalie into darkness as her belly loomed over her thighs to pull the leggings the rest of the way down. When she had them off, she sat back up and Natalie could again make out the shadow of her grinning face.

“There,” she purred. “That’s better, isn't it?”

Now freed from the confines of the jeggings, Natalie stood face to face with Brittany's throbbing pussy, rising up to twice her height. Heat blast from it like a radiator, with the overpowering aroma of a seafood market on a scorching afternoon.

“Say… Remember that rumor we were discussing earlier? You know? About my fixation with tiny... helpless… household mammals?”

“Please don’t do this,” Natalie begged, on the verge of tears.

“What’s that?” Brittany asked, tilting her head and cupping a hand around her ear. “I can’t hear you all the way down there, you’ll have to speak up!”

“PLEASE, BRITTANY, I-”

“Okay, since you asked so nicely!”

Her hand collided into Natalie, propelling her towards the monstrous cavity until she was smushed into the warm, squishy flesh of her labia. The outer lips closed in around her and Natalie squirmed and clawed against the enveloping dark pink flesh. High above, Brittany let out a loud moan, and Natalie could feel the vibrations of her voice rumbling all around her. The flesh surrounding her constricted as Brittany clenched her legs. 

Brittany had never experienced such pleasure. She could feel the squirming, the clawing of tiny hands against her inner lips and instantly began to gush.

Natalie felt the juices cascading down from all around her. It oozed over her arms, into her hair and down her back. She quickly squeezed her mouth and eyes shut and pushed as hard as she could against the slimy flesh. 

Brittany felt the increased squirming and experienced another surge of delight at the thought of the little bitch being showered by her juices, soaked head to toe. Almost unconsciously, she leaned forwards.

The walls surrounding Natalie tilted so that she lay with Brittany’s titanic body directly on top of her, feeling the plump purple comforter beneath her.

Brittany lowered herself down, little by little. The outer lips smushed down around Natalie, and she was pushed down into the bedspread as Brittany sat on top of her. The pressure squeezed her firmly into her flesh and Natalie squirmed and wiggled with all of her strength.

Brittany sat there for a second, enjoying the tiny wriggling. She marveled at how weak they were. The little bitch must be fighting with everything she had, yet she could barely even feel it. Had she been wearing pants, she might not have noticed it at all. She lifted up slightly, and Natalie saw a glimpse of light and had just enough time to take a deep breath before she lowered down again. 

Brittany squeezed her eyes shut and moaned, bucking her hips, grinding the tiny, insignificant little body down against the bed.

Natalie also squeezed her eyes shut as the ungodly weight ground her back and forth. Brittany let out a series of moans, becoming higher and higher pitched. Then, suddenly, the walls squeezed around her again, as Brittany clenched her thighs together, and everything tilted backwards. Natalie felt her body leave the bed, crammed between her vagina walls. Brittany lay on her back, propped up on her elbows, her head tilted backwards in euphoric pleasure.

Through the gap in the outer lips, Natalie could see out into the bedroom. Brittany’s thighs were spread, her knees disappearing from view into the sky, her feet digging into the purple bedspread in the distance. 

Natalie dragged herself towards the light. She managed to get a grip on the outer lip, but just as she began to pull herself out, Brittany’s hand descended from atop her knee and barrelled into her, forcing her back in, even further. She was flipped around and felt the squishy indent of her vagina. Brittany’s monstrous digits pressed against her back and slid her up and down against her labia. 

Brittany's moans turned to squeals. She applied even more pressure onto the tiny girl inside of her, burying Natalie’s face into the squishy meat. Natalie squirmed and kicked and punched in a desperate attempt to fight off the hand. She unknowingly rubbed her arm against Brittany’s clitoras, and she instantly orgasmed.

She let out a squeal and even more liquid came gushing out in a waterfall around Natalie. The hips continued bucking for a couple of seconds, the hand rubbing against her, then relaxed, collapsing back on the bed. The hand holding her lifted away and she slid down her slippery vulva and into her buttcrack, to lay in a soaking heap on the bed. Brittany’s ass cheeks curved out on either side of her, pinning her in place. The two girls lay motionless for a minute, each gasping for breath.

Both jolted at the sound of the door opening. Quick as lightning, a hand came down and scooped Natalie out from her buttcrack, but too late to hide where she’d been.

“Oh good, Trevy, you’re back!’ Brittany called in a sugary voice.

Trev stood in the doorway for a moment before dropping the Walgreens bag to the floor and stalking towards the bed. He grabbed Brittany around her wrist, yanking it up between them. She released her grip at once and Natalie tumbled out to lay in the palm of his hand, slick from Brittany’s vaginal fluids. 

Trev raised her up to inspect her. She stared groggily into one of his huge eyes. In her dazed state, she found herself mesmerized. The outer rim of his iris was a dark green, lightening inwards towards his pupil, circled with tiny mountain ranges of jade and amber. The endless black pool of his pupil constricted as it focused on her. His long lashes fluttered as he blinked. 

“She’s fine,” Brittany whined. “God.”

The eye snapped up to focus on Brittany. His fingers wrapped around Natalie and lowered her down, level with his waist. He towered over Brittany where she sat on the edge of the bed and said in a cold, distant voice, very unlike his own, “I thought I told you to leave her alone.” 

Natalie knew that tone and, even barely conscious, shifted anxiously.

“Lighten up, Trevy, we were just having a little fun,” said Brittany in her best pouty voice.

Trev’s grip around Natalie constricted tighter. She craned her neck, trying to see his expression, but his attention was solely on Brittany and she could see nothing but the underside of his rigid jaw above the mountainous stretch of his torso. 

His other hand whipped through the air and struck Brittany across the face with a thunderous CRACK! 

Her head jutted sideways. She sat motionless, her eyes bulging, the irises shifting back and forth in the direction of the floor. She raised a hand to her already reddening cheek, then brought it forward to examine it, as if checking for blood. She burst into sobbing tears and Trev rolled his eyes and slapped her again.

She let out a little whimper. He wrapped his hand into her hair and yanked it back, forcing her to look up into his face. “You’re lucky I don’t put you in the hospital, you stupid fucking cunt.”

“I’m s-sorry, baby,” Brittany sniffed. “Please don’t be mad.”

“Where are your keys?” 

“Wh-what?”

Trev gave his fistfull of hair a violent shake. “Your keys. You know, the jingly little things that make your car work?”

Brittany’s watery eyes peered around the room. “My purse, I think…”

Trev released his hold on her, pushing her head to the side. “Get them.”

Brittany sat there for a moment before slinking across the room to retrieve her purse. She squatted, naked on the floor to dig through it, quivering with loud sniffles. She brought them back over to him, holding them out, fluttering her lashes. He snatched them from her and stormed out the door without another word.

Sardonic Retribution

Natalie lay tucked between Trev’s loosely wrapped fingers in his lap while, high above, his other hand clenched tightly around the steering wheel and, even higher, he glowered out at the road. “What a spoiled fucking cunt,” he burst out savagely. “I barely touch her and she falls to fucking pieces. Obviously never been hit once in her precious little life.”

“You shouldn’t hit your girlfriend, dick,” Natalie grumbled from his palm, just loud enough for him to hear over the car engine, and he laughed coldly.

“I know that, asshole. Never hit you, did I?”

“You have hit me many times.”

“Well, okay, when we were kids and you were being a little fuckass. I quit hitting you long before we started dating. But if I had, you wouldn’t have been such a little bitch about it. You’d have fucking stabbed me. Repeatedly.”

“Please. We both know you’d have hit me eventually and I wouldn’t have done shit about it. Circle of fucking life.”

He scowled out at the road. “No. I wouldn’t have.”

She huffed. “Right, you're such a gentleman. Are you taking me to the hospital now?”

“I told you I would, didn’t I? Thought you might wanna wash off, first.”

“Naw, I’m good. Kindly direct your route to the hospital immediately.”

“You smell like a sex toy.”

“Well, Trev, that is likely the pungent aroma of your girlfriend who used me as a sex toy.”

“Yeah, sorry, that was my bad. She’s normally much better at following directions. Major daddy complex.”

“And the make-out session? Who’s complex was that, you fucking psycho? Was this all some sorta sardonic retribution because I called you Brit’s bad-boy-toy?”

He grinned down at her with his cocky grin. “You really think I’m that spiteful?”

“I know you are, asshole.”

“And yet you also called me a fucking idiot when I was so nicely going outta my way to try and help you. Not to mention you called me pathetic, knowing full well how much that hurts my feelings.”

“Awe, poor Trevy with his abusive daddy complex.”

“Awe, poor Natty with her big fucking mouth and tiny fucking body in the clutches of a spiteful fucking psychopath with abusive daddy complex. What was that you were saying about sardonic retribution?”

Natalie faltered.

“Oops,” he said dryly.

“Come on, Trevor,” she groaned. “You played your sick, demented fucking game–”

Trev laughed. “I’d really stop talking if I were you.”

“Haven’t I suffered enough! Do you have any idea what your girlfriend did to me just now!”

“I do. And I legitimately feel bad about that. Which is why I'm giving you a break from my… what’d you call it? Sick… demented…” 

“You said you’d take me to the hospital!”

“And I will. I never said when I’d take you.”

She groaned, covering her sticky face with her sticky palms. “Why are you fucking with me, Trevor?” 

“You tell me. You’re always so spot on with your psycho-analysis.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?”

“Awe, I’m sure you are.” He bonked his thumb atop her head, giving it a couple of pats. “If only you’d said that when I gave you the chance to apologize, and you told me to go fuck myself.”

She shoved his thumb off, yelling, “You are not seriously fucking abducting me because I hurt your fragile fucking feelings!”

“Oh Nat,” Trev laughed. “So small, yet still such a colossal fucking bitch.”

He parked Brittany's car on the street in front of their apartment complex. He gently closed his fingers around her, lowering her into his jeans pocket as he got out. He held her in his pocket as he walked through the courtyard, up the patio stairs to the third floor, and with every step he took she rose up and down and up and down with nauseating speed until he stopped at the back door of the apartment next to her’s. 

His apartment was the mirror of her own, with the kitchen opening up to the living room, separated by a long kitchen island. Where the Jordan’s apartment was sunny and colorful and loud and constantly a mess, the Dalton’s was minimal and pristine, like a museum, tastefully decorated with plants and artwork and furniture far too nice for such a cheap ass apartment complex.

Trev pulled her from his pocket as he entered through the back door into the kitchen, holding her level with his navel as his free hand pulled a bowl from the cupboard. He turned on the tap in the sink, running his hand under the water. “You still like it scalding?” 

She scowled in his hand with her arms crossed, refusing to answer, so he poured an inch of water into the bottom of the bowl at a temperature he thought she’d like, then stopped into the bathroom to stir in a bit of his Old Spice body wash. He grabbed a bottle of shampoo and a washcloth, then brought the bowl into his bedroom and locked the door, although his dad would not be home for days. 

Contrary to the rest of the apartment, Trev’s room was warm and festive, though still kept immaculately clean. His twin bed, covered by many pillows and a royal blue duvet beneath a brightly colored Mexican blanket, was jammed against the wall in a cozy little nook beneath a couple of overcrowded bookshelves and a string of lights. The walls were a gallery of band posters and artwork; paintings and sketches and decorative masks and things, made either by Trev or Natalie, herself. His desk was perpendicular to the bed, under the window, where there had once hung a string clipped with photos, mostly of the two of them over the years—proudly decked in homemade Avengers costumes with Nick, Diego, and Danno when they were nine or posing inappropriately at the middle school’s Spring Fling dance when they were thirteen and one very cute selfie from the beach trip over the summer that had also been the background of his phone, where she was flailing over his shoulder from his back, shrieking with laughter as he pinched her waist and grinned his crooked, cocky grin—but all the photos had been taken down, and most likely burned.

Trev set the bowl down on his desk and gently lowered Natalie into the water at the bottom; as deep as a bathtub’s. She flinched, sucking in breath, as the gash on her side was stung by the hot, soapy water. Trev’s torso rose up beyond the rim of the bowl, his face looking down at her from high above with furrowed brows. “Does that hurt?” he asked softly, lowering his hand into the bowl to run the tip of his finger along the long, shallow gash.

“Don’t touch it!” she wailed, jerking away from him with a soapy splash. “Yes it hurts!”

“Sorry.” His hand lowered beyond the rim of the bowl, then returned with a washcloth that he dunked into the water beside her, sending a rippling of waves. 

“I can wash myself,” she snarled.

“I doubt that,” he said, gesturing towards the towering monolith that was his shampoo bottle.

“Let me rephrase. I do not want you to fucking touch me.”

He smiled warmly. “Okay.” He flopped the wet washcloth on top of her, knocking her to her back beneath the water. She lay flattened on the floor of the bowl, punching and kicking against the heavy weight of the washcloth for a moment before it lifted off of her again and she bolted upright, breaking through the surface of the water and gasping for breath. “Sure you don’t want some help?” he asked nonchalantly, ringing out the washcloth as she panted, swatting her soaking hair from her face. 

She huffed, hugging herself into a tight ball, burying her face against her knees. The tip of his index finger pressed into the crook of her neck and she flinched, hunching her shoulders, but he was only holding her in place as the tip of the washcloth pressed softly against her back. He scrubbed the washcloth in gentle circles around her back, not unlike how he had when they were children. The two of them, and little Nicky, had taken baths together from the ages of two to six. She vividly remembered how they used to pile bubbles atop each others’ heads and run their fingernails down each others’ backs, making shapes and trying to guess what they were. 

Natalie’s parents used to dump her and Nick off at the Dalton’s most days, and practically every other night, either for work or to go out with friends on their nights off. In those days, Trev had been a timid, sweet little boy, while Natalie had been an energetic little maniac of chaos and destruction; bossing him and her little brother around and hoarding all their toys like a dragon. Trev’s mom had been the only one able to keep her tame. She seemed like much more of a grownup than her own parents, who’d had Natalie their sophomore year of highschool. She remembered Trev’s mom as a kind, pretty woman with a pretty accent and pretty green eyes like his, who spoke to them in Spanish more often than not and told funny stories and made up the best games. She was strict about cleanliness and routines, and every night they’d have a home-cooked meal, followed by a couple of games, a bath, and then Nick and Natalie would both pile into bed with Trev for a bedtime story and would all sleep tangled around each other like a pack of puppies.

And then, one day when they were six, Trev’s mom had just up and left, abandoning him with his father; who was an international commercial pilot and only ever came home one or two days a week. And everything flipped upside down. Trev started spending most days at the Jordans, sleeping most nights in Natalie’s bed. 

Tommy had just been born, so Natalie’s mom was stuck at home anyway and more than willing to accept the payment offered by Trev’s dad to look after his son on the days he was away for work. But she was still so young, barely twenty-two, and had never really figured out how to care for one child, let alone four, and their small apartment was in a constant state of mayhem. Her mom spent more and more time vegged out on the couch, smoking a bowl and bouncing a perpetually crying baby while the kids were always screaming and breaking things and chasing each other around and, when Frank was home, he was usually fun and loud and goofing around with them as if he was one of them, but every so often he was hurling them into their bedrooms and shouting at them to shut the fuck up for five minutes before he knocked their fucking lights out. 

So it was that, in just one day, sweet, timid little Trevor lost not only his kind, pretty mom, but also the structure and routine and cleanliness he’d known his entire life. 

And he was never the same.

*                                                *                                                *

“You hungry?” Trev asked as he gently lathered a tiny amount of his viciously fragrant Old Spice shampoo into her hair between the tips of his thumb and index finger. “I can make you something after this.”

Natalie didn’t respond.

“Nat? Are you hungry?”

Her voice was flat as she muttered, “When are you gonna take me to the hospital, Trevor?”

He didn’t answer right away. He cupped water into his palm to pour over her, rinsing out the shampoo. “Thought you might need to eat something, first. Assuming you’ve had nothing but coffee today.”

She exhaled, closing her eyes. It didn’t sound like he was planning to take her to the hospital anytime soon.

“When was the last time you ate, Nat?”

“I dunno,” she grumbled, so quietly he could barely hear her. “Day before yesterday?”

“What’d you have?”

“A granola bar or something.”

He scowled. “No wonder you shrank. Glad to see your boyfriend takes such good care of you. He got a thing for skinny chicks?” 

“It is not his job to take care of me. I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, only, you don’t. You take care of your brothers and let yourself starve.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Am I wrong?” 

“What’s your point?”

“Just that your boyfriend kinda sucks. You never went hungry when I was dating you.”

She glared up at him. “You’re right, Trev. You’re such a kind, caring individual and I am just so fucking lucky to have you as an incessant fucking presence in my life. Thank you so much for allowing your girlfriend to spread trash whore rumors about me that resulted in a multitude of vile and disturbing threats from our beloved peers. And for allowing her to stick me in her mouth. And for joining her in forcefully using my body to pleasure yourselves. Some people might call that assault, you know.” He glowered down at her and she glared back up at him. “Am. I. Wrong?” 

“Who is threatening you?”

“Ah-heh!” she laughed shrilly. “Well, let’s see...” She made a dramatic facial performance of thinking it over. “There was, you, on the car ride over here, with the whole, ‘Sardonic retribution,’ bit. Then, earlier, there was, you, with the ‘You’re not sorry, but you’re gonna be,’ thing. And, um, oh, right, there was that time you threatened to assault me with your girlfriend. And then proceeded to actually assault me with your girlfriend.”

“Yeah, assault, I got it,” he grumbled, rubbing his temples. “You’re driving me fucking crazy, Natalie.”

“Awe, Trevor,” she smiled coldly up at him. “You’ve been fucking crazy for years, now.”

He mimicked her cold smile. “Yeah? Ya think?” His hand whipped down and pinched her face between his thumb and index finger. “So, tell me, Natalie, what was it like? Being stuck inside the mouth of a crazy person, so much bigger than yourself? Were you afraid I might swallow you?”

Her face sank into a scowl and she tried to jerk away from him, splashing in the water, but he held her face firmly between his fingers.

“Because… I was,” he murmured, with the same cold smile. “I kept worrying I might swallow you by mistake, like a piece of gum. And I'd be completely unaware, still making out with my girlfriend as I gulped you down my throat, because you’re just so tiny and insignificant, I wouldn’t even notice. Not for a few minutes, anyway, when I’d remember you weren’t in my mouth anymore. And I’d check my girlfriend’s mouth and realize you weren’t in there, either. And I’d look around the bed, like, ‘Huh, where’d my little toy go?’ And then my stomach would rumble and I’d look down at my belly, like, ‘Oops…’”

“That is severely fucked up, Trev.”

“Oh, I know, and I’da felt so bad about being so careless as to swallow you alive. Realizing that those tiny little taps I’d been feeling from inside my stomach had been you, pounding your tiny little fists with all your strength to desperately try and get my attention. But, you know, I wouldn’t wanna be rude to my girlfriend, so I’d pat my belly, which, for you, would feel like a series of fucking earthquakes, hard enough to knock you over, and my whole stomach would rumble around you as I said, ‘Sorry ‘bout that, Nat,’ and then I’d go right back to fucking my girlfriend, and quickly forget all about you. 

“But you wouldn’t forget me anytime soon, now would you? Oh no, I would be your entire fucking world. You’d be deep inside me, feeling every little vibration of my titanic body all around you, feeling my every movement, going with me wherever I went. You’d try to lift yourself upright, just to be hurled back down to slosh around in my partially digested breakfast as I fucked my girlfriend, getting thrown back and forth and up and down. All you’d hear would be me; the gurgling of my digestive system, my rapid heartbeat pounding against you, my deafening moans of pleasure rattling your little ear drums. All you’d see would be the inside of my stomach, and the partially digested egg sandwich I had for breakfast. ‘Cause that’s all you are to me, Nat. You’re less significant than the egg sandwich I had for breakfast—that I actually had to chew to swallow.”

Natalie eyed him with loathing. “Is that how you felt when I dumped you, Trev?” she asked cooly. “Tiny? Insignificant? Forgotten and all alone in the belly of a beast that doesn’t give a fuck about you?”

His grip around her face tightened, lifting her slightly from the water as he leaned closer. “Is that how you felt when my girlfriend fucked you like a cheap sex toy?”

She snarled up at him.

“I wish I’d been there to see it,” he murmured coldly. “Did you fight back, Nat? I bet you did, you’d never have taken that shit without a fight. But it didn’t matter, did it? Because you are so fucking small. And weak. Just like you always fucking have been. I’ve always been the one looking out for you, and just look what’s happened to you without me. You’ve been beaten. And humiliated. And you’ve wasted away to nothing.”

“And yet,” said Natalie. “Your crippling abandonment issues still have you fetishizing my annihilation. So, tell me, Trevor, who’s really the insignificant one?”

Trev laughed and so did Natalie. 

“Let’s find out.” 

He released his grip on her face to pinch her ankle, yanking it forward, and she flopped backwards into the water. He pressed his middle finger against her chest, holding her under for a moment while she thrashed and writhed against him before he wrenched her up, coughing and sputtering and dangling upside down as the water cascaded off of her in droplets the size of cantaloupes. He lifted her up by the ankle to dangle before his face as he leaned casually into his free hand, propped up on his elbow. 

“Now, let’s see…” he said lazily. “How will we ever decide which of us is less significant?” 

She glared up at him, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering, as she was naked and soaking wet and freezing cold in the huge, drafty room.

“You’ve already been in my mouth today; where else could I stick you…” He furrowed his brows, pattering his fingers against his cheek and making a dramatic facial performance of thinking it over. “I could stick you… In my shoe? Or down my pants? How ‘bout you, Nat? What are you gonna do to me?”

“Fuck you,” she panted, her teeth chattering. 

He smirked. “You should really choose your words more wisely. ‘Cause you say things like that and I get the impression you’re just tryna get in my pants.” His free hand lowered beneath the desk to unbuckle his belt and her eyes narrowed. 

“That where you wanna go, Nat?” He unbuttoned his jeans, yanking down the zipper. 

Her brows twitched as she struggled to keep the apprehension from her face, her heart rate picking up speed.

“Okay, then, have fun down there.” He brought her towards him, and the surface of the desk disappeared from beneath her as she hovered over his lap. Far below, his jeans were unzipped, revealing the rim of his blue checkered boxers, and, pressing up beneath the denim, she could see he had an erection. 

“Don’t!” Natalie squealed and the bulge in his jeans convulsed with the sound of her voice.

Trev grinned. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t,” she squeaked.

He lifted her up to right between his eyes. “Say please.”

His words triggered a torrent of memories from their childhood. Trev holding her paint set out of reach above her head—Say please. Trev straddling her on the ground, a thick loogie dangling from his mouth, an inch above her face—Thay pweath. Trev sitting atop the lid of a washing machine, hammering his fist loudly against the metal while she sat crunched up inside, scowling with her hands clamped over her ears—Say please!

Her age-old response slipped out automatically, “Get bent, Trevor.”

He snickered. “Awe, you remembered. You know what happens next, right?” He slowly lowered her down his torso, his free hand pulling open the waistband of his boxers.

She screamed.

He jolted, muttering, “Jeez-us,” and swung her back up, fumbling his palms around her to keep her quiet as she continued screeching at the top of her lungs. “Shut up, Nat.” 

She screamed even louder, fighting against his hand and he yelled over her, “Shut up, Nat!” He clenched his hand forcefully around her, flattening her limbs against her body and muffling her screams within his fist. 

She kept screaming anyway, within the dark chamber of flesh encompassing her. It was like a flood gate had opened, images flashed vividly through her mind; the thrashing of tongues, the slick labia walls, bodily fluids gushing over her; gushing, and gushing. Her wails turned to sobs against his fingers.

“Stop crying,” Trev snapped, giving her a little jerk. “Stop crying! Damnit, Nat, chill the fuck out, I was just fucking with you! Here, look, you’re fine!”

He dropped her on the desk. She collapsed onto her knees, wrapping herself into a tight ball, squeezing her eyes shut, and screaming.

“Nat-alie,” he growled through clenched teeth. “Stop scream-ing, please.”

She went right on screaming and he pressed his palms over his temples, drawing in a raspy breath, digging his fingernails into his scalp. “Please stop screaming, Natalie,” he groaned. “Please stop, Natalie. Oh my GOD, NATALIE! SHUT THE FUCK UP!” 

His blaring voice pierced through her skull, blasting apart her eardrums and she squealed, throwing her hands over her ears and then his hand slapped down upon her, knocking her to her back. She struggled futilely against his huge fingers as they unfurled her from her ball, sprawling her out on the desk. He leaned over her, tight-jawed, pinning her squirming limbs beneath his hand and pressing the edge of his pinky finger over her mouth to smother her screams. “Jesus fucking christ!” he bellowed down at her, his thunderous voice sounding muffled and fuzzy beneath the agonizing ringing and throbbing in her ears. “It’s not like anyone would ever be able to hear you, stupidass! It’s just really fucking annoying!”

She whimpered against his finger, convulsing with sobs, gaping up at him with tears rolling down her cheeks.

“DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!” he bellowed, hammering his fist onto the desk beside her with a BANG! and she flinched, squealing, her head ringing from the sound as if she’d been whacked with a baseball bat. 

“GOD, you are so fucking annoying! You started it! You, fucking, asked for it! I was trying to be fucking nice, but you just had to be a fucking bitch the entire fucking time! It’s not my fault she did that to you, okay! In hindsight, yeah, I probably shouldn’t have left you there, but you were bleeding, and tired, and sad, and I just wanted to give you a fucking minute to catch your fucking breath! And I told her not to fucking mess with you, and she said, ‘Okay!’ and then she did it anyway! It’s not my fault you can’t trust a fucking word anybody ever fucking says! And, you know, we wouldn’t have been over there in the fucking first place if you hadn’t been such an absolute fucking bitch! I was just fucking with you, I wasn’t actually going to hurt you! But you just, like, kept fucking pushing me, you wouldn’t shut the fuck up! So go on, Nat! Keep screaming! Cry all you fucking want! I don’t feel bad for you, I really fucking don’t!”

He yanked his hand off of her to cross his arms and she let out a sob, rolling over onto her stomach away from him, wrapping herself back into a fetal position with her shaking hands pressed against her throbbing ears. She felt something wet dripping down from them.

Trev panted, tight-jawed, glowering down at her. “I wasn’t even gonna do it, Nat,” he grumbled, in a pouty tone that Natalie couldn’t hear beneath the ringing, like he was very far away, and underwater. “I was just fucking with you.”

She lowered her hands from her ears to find them full of blood. She held them before her, gaping down at her shaking, scarlet palms.

He huffed. “Will you say something?” He pinched his fingers around her waist and pivoted her around to face him, again. “Will you just fucking–” He paused, frowning down at her, his head tilting. He slid her arm aside, running his thumb down her torso. “What happened to your cut?” For the huge gash left by Brittany’s teeth had healed completely, as had the unsightly, greenish purple bruise that had plagued her left eye for the past three days.

Natalie panted, raising her gaze from her bloody hands to glare up at him with bared teeth, tears running down her cheeks and blood from her ears. “I hate you,” she gasped through clenched teeth, unable to hear her own voice. “I fucking hate you.”

He swallowed, his brows twitching as he glared down at her. “Yeah? I fucking hate you, too.”

He yanked open his desk drawer with one hand while the other barreled into her from behind, shoving her forward and she plummeted off the desk into the organized drawer below, landing with a painful thud in a compartment full of pens and colored pencils. She glared up in time to see him glowering down at her before he slammed the drawer shut, throwing her down to roll amongst his rattling pens and pencils and casting her in darkness. 

He stormed across the room, wrenched the door open, and slammed it shut behind him with a thunderous BANG! that went unheard from within his closed desk drawer.

The Cardstock Stranger and the Big Stupid Box

Natalie sat panting with her head against her knees between all the many pens and pencils, like thin fallen trees in an eerie forest, illuminated only by the slim slivers of light peeking through the cracks of Trev’s desk drawer. Her ears were still throbbing and ringing violently, so she could not hear if he was still storming around somewhere in the apartment, but then she felt a light, wobbling boom rattling the pencils, that she supposed was the back door slamming shut. 

She let out a determined huff and swatted the tears and the blood from her face, but without anything to wipe it off on, she more just smeared it across her face with her fingertips. Like war paint. 

The ceiling of the drawer was about twice her height. She could not see anything beyond the compartment of pens and pencils, her view obstructed by the walls of the drawer’s dividers. She glared up at the big rectangle of light in the distance, thinking of the scene in Peter Pan, when Peter inadvertently slammed Tinkerbell into a drawer and she used a pair of scissors to pry it back open. But she didn’t think she’d be able to lift a pair of scissors, let alone with enough force to jam them into the drawer’s ceiling. She’d have to figure out some other way to get out.

She stormed up to the divider wall, kicking pens and shit out her way. She couldn’t quite reach the top of the divider, so she rolled over a pen to boost herself up and over it, hopping down into the smaller compartment on the other side, which held only a USB plug and a couple of memory cards. She climbed through the next compartment, containing a set of paintbrushes, and then the next, holding a variety of cords and chargers; taking an inventory of the drawers’ supplies for anything that might help her get it open. 

As she explored, she wondered vaguely how the tooth gash on her torso had healed so quickly. Now that she thought about it, it had stopped bleeding rather quickly, given the cut’s initial deepness. Also, for all the battering she’d received that morning, she didn’t have a single mark or bruise. She supposed she must have developed some sort of super healing. She wasn’t as shocked as she might have been on any other day—after spontaneously imploding to the size of a plastic fucking army man toy, it was hard to be shocked by her anatomy, anymore. She wondered dully if she’d gained any other superpowers with her shrunken stature. Super strength would have been nice.

Over the next hour, the pain in her ears gradually decreased, her hearing returning, as she became quite familiar with the interior of Trev’s desk drawer. It contained mostly art supplies, but there were also a couple of little hardware items that might have been very handy if she had actually been able to lift any of them. Her best find was an X-Acto knife that, after much strenuous effort, she’d been able to twist open enough to pop out it’s blade, which she then slung over her back with a piece of string, sheathed like a sword in it’s plastic cap that she would pop off the moment she heard the back door open again. 

One compartment held a pile of little papers and the photographs that had been removed from the hanging string, and as Natalie climbed over all the pictures of Trev and herself, she froze in her tracks, her heart skittering, spotting a piece of cardstock the size of a baseball card. In the center of the card was a black and white picture of a pretty sixteen year old girl with long, wavy hair, wearing a pretty designer dress and smiling in a pretty way that did not quite reach her eyes. Surrounding the photo were the words:

IN LOVING MEMORY  

Rebecca Jane Fletcher 

February 09 1990 - August 12 2016

You’re our angel up in the sky, make sure you watch over us all

She stared down at it, her brows drawing together. She had no idea Trev had held onto that card for the past six—coming up on seven—years, that he kept it in his desk drawer.

They’d each been given one by the man greeting them at the door to the church, shaking their hands and thanking them for coming in soft, solemn tones. Natalie had scowled down at the card thrust into her hand before scowling up at the man. “Who the hell is Rebecca?”

Frank whacked her over the head. “Your mom.”

She scowled up at him, holding up the card. “This ain’t Mom. Mom’s name was Beck.”

“Beck is short for Rebecca and that’s what she looked like before you graced us with your presence. Now move.” He shoved her forward. “You're holding up the line. Yeah thanks,” he added to the rather befuddled greeter man, swiping the card from him before shepherding the others in after Natalie, yanking little Tommy along by the hand. 

And Natalie had scowled down at the stranger on the funeral card in her hand, in much the way she was now, in the dim desk drawer in Trev’s bedroom. Then she huffed and stalked away from it, leaving it atop the other disregarded photographs of her past. 

She tried many ways to get the drawer open. She made her way around the drawer’s border, three times, searching for any holes or weak spots. She climbed up the screws in the wooden wall to reach the top rim, the crack just tall enough for her to lay her arms across, pulling herself up to peer out into his bedroom without being able to crawl through or pry open the gap. She jammed the flat end of her X-Acto knife blade into one of the flat end screws, ramming her shoulder up against it with bared teeth, pushing against it with all her might, but could not get it to budge. 

All the while her mind kept slipping back to that abominable funeral she hadn’t wanted to attend in the first place.

*                                                *                                                *

Her grandparents had insisted on paying for it, as well as making every single arrangement. They’d chosen a huge, lavish church on the North side of town, and the reception was crowded with sniffling, mourning people that Natalie had never met in all her ten years of life. The reception hall had a food area full of tables and chairs, with a long table covered with coffee pots and danishes and mini quiches and bacon-wrapped figs and other fancy little snacks and treats. There was also a sitting area full of couches and armchairs, bordered by tables holding bouquets of flowers and many boards pinned with photographs of this ‘Rebecca’ character. And on the side wall was a set of open doors, leading to the chapel that faced a raised stage, and the big rectangular box holding her mother’s lifeless corpse.

Frank had forced Natalie into a lacy black dress that Trev and Nick had made fun of her for relentlessly, while they both got to wear cool suits and ties that had them both talking like old-school gangsters. At least her hair looked cool. It had been curled down her back and half piled behind her head in an intricate bun of twists and braids by her Auntie Rita, Frank's younger sister of two years and the coolest person on the planet—with her tattoos and facial piercings and long chestnut hair shaved on one side. 

Auntie Rita was also in attendance, the only member of Frank’s family he’d asked to come—a decision he regretted somewhat when she showed up that morning wearing heeled Doc Martens and a long, tight, backless black dress with slits up the sides. Upon their entry to the crowded reception hall, she stopped in her tracks and said, “Oh God,” scowling around at everyone. “What the hell is this? It’s like a high school reunion of everyone I never liked.”

“Leave whenever you want,” Frank grunted.

“How about now,” Natalie grumbled at his elbow.

“I was talking to your aunt. The rest of us will be staying for the service.”

Auntie Rita veered off with Trev to look at the photographs while Frank dragged Natalie and her brothers into the chapel to wait in a long line towards the casket, to greet their grandparents and Uncle William and some random lady and a couple of little kids around Tommy’s age that Natalie had never met. Her grandfather went rigid when he saw Frank, and stalked away without a word, followed by her uncle and the rando, laying a hand across his arm. Her grandmother, however, eyed him warily, sniffling into a tissue. “Frank,” she murmured, rather stiffly. “You made it.”

“Yeah, thanks for the invite,” Frank grunted with a tight smile. “Kids, you remember your grandmother?”

“Vaguely,” said Natalie coldly while Nick shook his head timidly.

“Hello Natalie, Nicholas,” she murmured with a weak smile and a sniff. “My how you’ve grown.”

“Mmm,” Frank grunted. “And this one’s–” he turned to Tommy, only to find him off in the distance, chatting amiably to a couple of little kids he’d found, not even aware they were his cousins. Frank huffed and whistled, bellowing, “Oy! Thomas!”

Tommy gaped over with hunched shoulders and a guilty grimace.

“Get over here and say hello to your grandmother!”

Tommy’s eyes narrowed in confusion, looking around, and yelled back, “Mimi’s not here?” 

“Not that grandmother!” Frank shouted. “Your other grandmother!” 

Their other grandmother’s face crumpled into tears. “Thank you for coming,” she gasped, and swept past them to greet the next couple in line, dabbing her face with a tissue.

“Pleasure talking to you,” Frank grumbled. He looked down at Nick and Natalie, both of whom were glowering back at him incredulously. “Lovely lady,” he said with a tight smile and Natalie snickered while Nick went right on glowering.

The photographs of their mom ranged from birth through childhood, with many of her in high school. She had been very pretty, with honey brown, highlighted hair and dark blue eyes. She’d been on the varsity volleyball team. She’d been in the drama club. She’d been on the student council. She’d been an esteemed writer for the school newspaper, and some of her best pieces were cut out and pinned up across the boards, as well as some poems she’d written. There were no photographs of Natalie, or Nick, or Tommy, or Frank. You’d think the funeral was for a brilliantly gifted high school student, rather than a twenty-six year old stoner and mother of three.

“Oh!” Trev suddenly burst out excitedly, farther down the displays of photos. “I found one of Natty!” As if he and her aunt had been playing a messed up game of Where’s Waldo.

“Lemme see,” Natalie snapped, stomping up beside him to glare around at the photos. “Where?”

“Right there!” he said brightly, pointing to a photo of Rebecca at her high school graduation, surrounded by her parents and older brother.

“I’m not in this.” 

“Yeah you are! Right there!” He pointed to the black garbed sea of graduates and their families in the background, to where a tall, laughing teenage boy in a graduation hat and gown was tossing and tickling a laughing little girl in a yellow polka-dot dress and a big yellow bow.

“Awe,” said Frank with a smile, who’d come up behind them to see. He pinched her ear. “You were so freaking cute. And look, there’s your aunt and Mimi.” He pointed to a scowling emo girl in a black crop top and fishnet stockings beside a scowling woman smoking a cigarette. “And Nicky, you’re in this one, too,” he added, tapping their mom’s belly, where a bump was just visible beneath the flowing black graduation gown. 

“Dang, Franky!” said Trev, grinning up at him. “Two teen pregnancies? Who knew you were such a stud!”

Frank bonked the top of his head. “Don’t talk like that.”

Natalie stared at the photograph with furrowed brows—the one missing link between Rebecca; the brilliant student, athlete, and prospective journalist, and Beck; the smirking, tattooed pothead who’d slump on the couch, playing 90’s punk on full blast while Natalie and her brothers danced around like maniacs atop the furniture, screaming to the music at the top of their lungs. She could see the beginning of the transformation in this photo, compared to the others, all of which stopped abruptly in the middle of her sophomore year, when she’d dropped from the face of the planet to be homeschooled, only to return at the start of her junior year, as if nothing had happened. 

At eighteen, Rebecca’s light brown hair was chopped at the shoulders, waving crazily out from beneath her graduation cap around big, funky earrings. Her aesthetic was nowhere near as rebellious as teen Rita’s, but compared to the rest of her clean-cut, cookiecutter family, she might as well have had her hair shaved into a green mohawk, with safety pins pierced through her nostrils. Every one of her family members stood stiffly with their arms around each other, wearing tight smiles, and Natalie wondered if this was the last photo they’d ever taken together before Beck ran away from home, to move in with Frank and her in the sunny little three bedroom apartment they found downtown—the place where she would die, eight years later on the living room floor.

Everyone seemed to know Frank. He was approached by many clean-cut adults around his age, with Natalie sulking against one hip and Nick pressed shyly up against the other, close enough in height that they were often mistaken for twins, although Natalie was still several inches taller, as she often pointed out. She gathered from their jovial greetings of things like, “Oh shit! Frank the Tank, how’s it going, man!” that teenage Frank had been quite the popular peasant amongst the elitists. They greeted Natalie, too, bellowing, “Oh, no way! This can’t be Natty Light? What a legend!” for Frank and his friends had apparently given her toddler self the same annoying nickname that her own dick ass friends would later bestow upon her in her adolescence. 

Frank’s old buddies joyously beguiled her with tales of how her dad had hauled her along with him everywhere he went his junior and senior years of high school, proudly showing her off and making teen fatherhood look so effortlessly cool and fun that other parents went into a frenzy of paranoia that it would become a trend. He’d show up to school functions with his backpack loaded with diapers and snacks and juice boxes and stuffed animals, sporting her around in a carrier like other teenage boys might sport a letterman's jacket—which he also sported. 

He’d been a star player on the football team, and the basketball team, and the baseball team, and she’d be on the bench every game—much to the chagrin of his coaches, who’d been presented with an absurd ultimatum of allowing a baby on the bench or losing their star player. But she’d been an easygoing baby that was used to getting dragged around everywhere and manhandled by teenagers, and never caused a fuss. She’d been like their little mascot, dressed in their school colors with JORDAN written on the back of her shirt in permanent marker above Frank’s number 22, getting passed around by his teammates as they rubbed the top of her head for good luck. And as she grew older she’d stand on the bench between them and wave after him as he ran by, calling, “Hi Daddy! Hi Daddy!” And whenever he’d score a touchdown or a basket or a homerun he’d sprint over and scoop her up, jumping up and down with a wide, toothy grin and bellowing, “Hi Natty! Hi Natty!” as she screeched with joy and the crowd went into absolute hysterics. 

She gathered, however, that not many seemed to make the connection between her, Frank, and Rebecca. She’d known that she’d spent the first two years of her life living with her dad at his family’s house, only seeing her mom for pre-organized visits every other weekend, but she’d never really thought much about it. Now she wondered if perhaps the identity of her mother had been kept a shameful secret from their peers; which would also explain her absence from every single photograph. 

There were a few that knew their relationship, however, and treated Frank less like an old high school buddy and more like a grieving husband, asking Natalie and her brother in hushed, somber tones, “How are you doing?” Which may just be the stupidest freaking question on the planet to ask a couple of kids with a dead mom in the next room. She far preferred the jovial young men who called her Natty Light and playfully rubbed the top of her head for luck.

 They were approached by a statuesque, blonde, very pregnant woman in her early thirties, who murmured, “Oh, Frank,” wrapping her arms around him. “Oh my God, Frank… I don’t know what to say.”

He nodded with a tight smile. “Yeah.”

She pulled back and looked down at Natalie with a gasp. “Is this… her?”

“That’s her.”

“Isn’t she just a doll,” she said, placing a hand to her chest. “She looks just like her.”

“You think?” Frank scrutinized her scowling face—the mirror image of his own. 

“And these two?” she looked around at Nick on his other hip and Trev, standing quietly to the side with his hands in pockets.

“Just Nick, here. And our third’s the one screaming his head off over there with my sister. This one’s Trev.” He reached over to smack a hand atop his head. “We apparently adopted him at some point.”

Trev smirked, shoving his hand off.

“Hi, kids,” said the woman slowly, as if conversing with children of special needs. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Natalie and Nick both answered in unison, like creepy siblings in a horror movie.

“I’m Anna. I used to babysit your mom when she was a little girl; we were next door neighbors growing up. She was like a little sister to me…”

“So how come we’ve never heard of you?” Natalie asked dryly and Frank whacked her upside the head.

Anna sniffed, nodding. “Well, we sort of fell out of touch when she moved across town… It’s such a shame, my little ones are the same age as you, Natalie. We used to have play dates all the time when you were little, you and the twins were the best of friends. Would you like to see them?”

“She’d be delighted,” Frank grunted, before she could answer.

“They’re around here, somewhere,” she said, looking around. “Oh, here we go.” The four of them followed Anna up to a group of boys, hanging around a table in the food area. “Bradley,” she said softly to the biggest of them; a pretty blonde boy with big blue eyes. “This is Natalie. Natalie Jordan, do you remember her?”

“No,” he said dismissively, with barely a glance in her direction.

“And this,” she continued, motioning towards the boys. “Is Nick, and Trev. Can they join you boys?”

None of the boys looked particularly thrilled with this arrangement. Bradley eyed Trev up and down, as if trying to calculate who was the taller of the two of them.

“And, Natalie,” said Anna. “It looks like the girls are just over here, if you want to come with me, I can introduce you.” She strode towards the opposite side of the reception hall, where a group of girls were sitting around in some couches and armchairs.

Trev snickered, shooting Natalie a look as she scowled up at Frank, who rolled his eyes. “Go on,” he said, shoving her after Anna. “Wouldn’t kill you to talk to some other girls for once.”

The girls all wore designer dresses, their hair done up in curls and pretty barrettes. “Sweetie,” said Anna to a pretty blonde girl sitting on the couch, the nucleus of the others. “This is Natalie Jordan. Natalie, this is my daughter, Brittany.”

Momentum

Natalie lay on the cushioned earpiece of Trev’s bulky headphones for a while, glaring at the drawer ceiling. She’d cut out a scrap of tissue with her X-Acto knife to fashion herself a little halter top dress, not so much for modesty—she was quite comfortable in the buff—but for warmth in the dark, chilly drawer and, even more, for spite that her own clothes, as well as her brother’s favorite flannel that she was always stealing, had been stolen from her. She was losing energy and starting to feel like this was an impossible task. But she would not give up. Trev would return eventually and the imagined look of outrage on his stupid face upon finding the drawer vacated gave her the motivation she needed to push herself to feet. 

She tried to think of something from her Physics class that might be of use in this situation. The drawer was heavy, but it was also on wheeled tracks, so it wouldn’t be impossible to move if she could just push it with enough leverage to get it moving. Just an inch was all she needed. She needed something flat. A ruler. She’d seen a mini metal one in the same compartment as the X-Acto knife. 

She heaved it up off the ground, dragging it over to lean up against the divider wall. She squatted down, hauling it up to her shoulders, and lifted it up over the wall, stepping up onto other supplies to hurl it over to the other side. She repeated that over every divider wall to the very back of the drawer.

She looped a rope of string through the little hole at one end of the ruler, then pushed and shoved Trev’s headphones against the wall and climbed up the earpiece to the top of the headband, dragging up the ruler behind her. She wrapped the string around the top of the headphones a couple of times, then laid the ruler sideways, pivoting it around to insert through the crack between the drawer and the desk. After much jerking and wrenching and shimmying, she was able to twist the flat edge of the ruler through to the other side, where it dropped down, hanging by the string she’d secured to the headphones. She hopped down off the headphones and took the other end of the string, pulling the top edge of the ruler at an angle towards her. She heaved on the string with all her body weight, using the headphones for leverage. 

And, little by little, the drawer began to slide forward along its tracks, and light poured in from the other end. Natalie collapsed onto her back, panting and laughing a maniacal sort of victory laugh. 

She kicked off a piece of led from a mechanical pencil and jotted down a large-lettered message for Trev on his stack of post-it notes, in the form of haiku:

My dearest Trevor,

Fuck you, dick, I’m going home

With love, Natalie

She would have liked to sharpen the wound with little dicks and middle fingers, but she decided she’d better not waste any more time when the dick in question could return any moment. 

She unwound a couple of feet worth of string, securing one end to the drawer wall with a piece of tape she’d been very careful not to touch the sticky end of, lest she find herself adhered like a fly in a fly trap. Then she looped the string around her shoulder like Indiana fucking Jones and climbed back up the screws of the drawer wall.

She pulled herself up onto the edge and balanced on the rim of the drawer, looking out onto the vast landscape of Trev’s bedroom. The desk chair was pushed back a couple of feet from where he’d shoved it backwards when he jerked angrily to his feet. She lifted the string over her shoulder and tossed it over the ledge, letting it unravel to the floor. She clutched the string, giving it a tug to make sure it was secure, and took a deep breath, looking down at the hard wooden floor, as if looking over the ledge of a five-story building. But she was not afraid of heights. Since she was little, she was constantly, fearlessly climbing to the tops of trees and swing sets. She’d been climbing up and down the storm pipe from her bedroom window for years, and had never fallen, not once. She took a deep, determined breath, wrapped herself once into the string, and began the long climb down.

*                                                *                                                *

If any of the girls made the connection between Natalie and the dead woman in the other room, none of them showed the slightest hint of acknowledgement, or interest. They’d allowed her to join them with complete indifference and little more than a communal sniff of judgment at her Target brand attire. And so she sat slumped and bored in an armchair, her head propped up against her elbow as they rambled through a bunch of boring chatter about clothes and boys and rainbows and shit.

The one attempt she’d made to join the conversation was after Brittany had gone on and on about her pet hamster, leading up to a riveting announcement. “So, we took her to the vet,” she said dramatically. “And they told us…. Mitsy is going to have… babies!”

“Aweee!” the others squealed.

“I know! I’m so excited! You all have to come over when they're born and pick out which ones you want!”

“Ooh, I want one!” one girl wailed.

“Me too!” howled another.

“My friend’s hamster just had babies,” said Natalie. “It bit one of their heads off. It was nasty.”

The girls scowled around at her as if she was equally nasty.

“Ew,” said one of them. “Like, why would you say that?”

“I dunno,” Natalie grumbled, gesturing towards Brittany. “Thought she’d prolly wanna know that hamsters wig out and kill their babies if you start buggin’ ‘em and stuff.”

“Well,” said Brittany coldly. “Not my hamster.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Natalie indifferently, and the other girls went back to ignoring her. 

She slumped farther into her armchair, growing increasingly bored as they rambled on and on about potential hamster names, until Trev suddenly plopped down on top of her.

“Get off,” she snarled breathlessly, shoving him.

“Scootch over,” he said, shoving her to the side to squeeze into her armchair beside her. 

“Thought you were hanging out with your new boyfriends.”

Nick leaned against the arm of her chair with his arms crossed. “We don’t know anybody.”

“Yeah,” said Trev. “Plus the girl group looked more fun.” Natalie scoffed, while the girls all giggled. 

“Hi,” said Brittany. “I’m Brittany. Brittany Murphy.”

“Trev. Jordan.”

Natalie’s scowl broke into a snicker, elbowing him.

“So he’s your brother?” Brittany asked, suddenly finding her far more interesting. 

“Naw,” said Natalie, pinching his cheek. “He’s just a stray youth we picked up off the streets. We sponsor him. Tax reasons, you understand.”

Trev snickered. “And then, well…” He put his arm around her. “I married into the family. I know the girl usually takes the guy’s last name, but we said to heck with tradition, didn’t we, buttercup?”

The girls giggled again as Natalie whacked his arm off her shoulders and he flicked her ear and she punched his leg and all the while Brittany sized her up in much the way her brother had Trev.

Trev grinned his crooked grin. “So whatchu gals gabbin’ about?”

“I was just telling them about my hamster, Mitsy,” said Brittany, thrilled to have a fresh audience to dazzle with the announcement. “She’s going to have babies!”

“Oh cool,” said Trev, nodding. “You know hamsters eat their babies? Our friend Danno’s just had some and it bit one of their heads off; it was sick!”’

“Ewww!” the girls all squealed with glee. 

“Well,” said Brittany coyly. “You’ll have to come over when Mitsy has hers. I bet you ten dollars she’s just as sweet as can be with her little babies.”

“Oh yeah?” he grinned. “You’re on. Think you can handle another hamster massacre, Natty?” he added, seemingly under the impression she’d been included in the invite. “She almost puked her guts out when she saw Danno’s.”

“I did not.”

“Yes you did!”

“No I didn’t! You were the one that couldn’t even look at it! I thought you were gonna faint like a little princess.”

Trev snickered. “You’re the one in the dress, milady,” he said, tousling her hair.

“Quit that!” she wailed, elbowing him in the gut and patting her hair to make sure he hadn’t messed up any of her cool twists and braids.

“Who’s the little princess, now?” he smirked, then turned back to Brittany. “Where do you live?”

“4897 Meadow Brook Lane.”

“Where’s that?”

The two talked back and forth for a bit, as the other girls chimed in, watching Trev with sheepish smiles. All the while Nick hovered next to Natalie, looking anxious.

Finally she grumbled, “What?” 

“I’m hungry…”

“Well, go get some food. It’s right over there.”

“Will you come with me?”

“Don’t be a baby.”

“Please?”

Natalie huffed, rolling her eyes. “Fine.” She elbowed Trev to the side and stomped to her feet. 

“Where you going?” 

“To get some food.” 

“Be a peach and grab me something, won’t you, snickerdoodle?”

She sneered. “Get bent, husband dearest. C’mon.” She grabbed Nick’s hand and yanked him off towards the food.

Behind her back, Trev chuckled to the girls in a husbandly sort of way and said, “She’s a firecracker, that one.”

“I’ll get you something,” Brittany offered.

Trev grinned. “Oh yeah? Thanks, uh, who are you, again? Natty’s cousin or something?”

Natalie and Nick hovered around the fancy food table, surveying their options for chips or cookies or anything that looked remotely edible. Nick started to bite his fingernail and Natalie whacked his hand from his mouth. “Quit doing that, it’s so gross.”

“Natty?” he muttered. 

“What?” 

“Aren’t you sad?”

“No.”

Over in the corner, Bradley and his gang of boys rose from their table and passed by, snickering and laughing in their direction. Nick scowled after them.

“What was that?” Natalie asked, scowling after them in the exact same way.

“That kid was making fun of me, earlier.”

“What?” She whipped around at them as they filed out through the side exit door to the parking lot. “What for?”

“For Mom.”

“What! What the hell! Did you say something?”

“Yeah, I told him to get bent, but he wouldn’t shut up about it. And Trev said Dad would bury us in Mom's coffin with her if we beat up a bunch of kids at her funeral, so we went to find you, in case you were getting made fun of, too.”

Natalie stalked towards the exit door.

“Wait,” Nick muttered, grabbing her arm. “What’re you gonna do?”

“I wanna hear what this joker’s gotta say,” she said, shaking him off.

He grimaced around, looking for Trev, but he was still chatting with the girls, facing the other direction, so he groaned and hurried after Natalie as she smacked open the exit door. 

The scorching parking lot was scattered with adults—Frank and Auntie Rita among them—hovering around coolers in open car trunks, drinking beers and white wine in clear plastic cups like tailgaters at a football game. Natalie stormed around the side of the building with Nick on her heels, hunching his shoulders to avoid detection from the adults, to where the boys were standing around and laughing in the grass, out of sight of the parking lot. Natalie stalked right up to them and joined in their laughter.

“Um,” said Bradley, reeling back with one eyebrow raised. “Hi?”

“Hi,” said Natalie with a cold smile. “Fun funeral, am I right? Question. Which one of you dickheads was making fun of my little brother?”

“Awe,” said Bradley with a smirk, spotting Nick standing just behind her, looking over his shoulder to make sure Frank hadn’t noticed them leaving the building. “That's your little brother? That make you trash spawn, too?”

The boys laughed and Natalie honed in on Bradley, detecting him as the culprit.

“Dang, Brandon, you got me.”

“Um,” one of the other boys guffawed, as if speaking to a complete buffoon. “It’s Bradley.”

“What’d I say? Anyway, Brian, you do know how our mom died, right?”

“It’s Bradley,” Bradley sneered. “And yeah, I do. She was like, a drug addict or something.”

“Awe jeez,” said Natalie sympathetically. “You mean, your parents didn’t tell you? Sorry, forget I said anything. Let’s go, Nicky Boy.”

She turned to leave and the boys frowned around at each other.

“Whaddya mean?” one of them called after her. “What didn’t they tell us?”

“Gee,” said Natalie, scuffing her shoes in the grass. “I prolly shouldn’t say… your mommies must not wanna startle you.”

“Spit it out,” said Bradley.

“Yeah, tell us!” said the others.

“Okay, but don’t tell nobody I told you, see…” She peered around conspiratorially, then leaned forward to mutter, “She was murdered.”

Nick groaned in dread, smacking his face into his palms.

Bradley scowled, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Bullcrap.”

“It’s true, look it up. It was like a scene from a slasher movie, wasn’t it, Nick? Our neighbors in the apartment below had to put pots and pans out all over the place, ‘cause her blood kept dripping down from the ceiling.”

The boys eyed each other uncertainly, as if trying to gauge whether they, as a whole, believed this story.

“Natty, come on,” Nick muttered behind her, tugging her arm. “We’re gonna get in trouble.”

She rounded on him, wailing, “They have a right to know!” Then she sighed, patting his shoulder as he shook his head, pleadingly. “Don’t mind my brother, here, he’s gone quite mad. It took us ages to collect all her body parts; she was hacked up into all these little bits and pieces. But we never did find her head; that’s why…” She buried her face in her palms, letting out a loud sob. “That’s why we had to do a closed casket funeral! Our momma’s got no head!”

“Woah,” said one of the boys. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Natalie sniffed, wiping her tearless eyes. “They never caught the guy what done it, neither. They say it was the Slingshot Killer. They prolly don’t tell you fancy little rich boys about the Slingshot Killer, do they? They prolly don’t wanna give you nightmares.”

“Please,” said Bradley indignantly. “Everyone knows.”

The boys nodded their agreement and Natalie nodded along with them, covering her mouth to suppress a snicker. “So then you must know, the reason they call him Slingshot is that he always attends the funerals of his victims… and that’s where he picks out who he’s gonna slaughter next.”

The boys looked around at each other in varying degrees of alarm. 

“Are you serious?” one of them breathed.

“Yeah,” said Natalie. “So I’d keep my head down if I were you. And shut the hell up about my family! See ya!”

She turned to storm away, but Bradley frowned and said, “Hang on,” grabbing the back of her dress to yank her back. “You messing with us?”

“Why, Benjamin,” she said, giving him an incredulous look. “Shame on you, murder is no laughing matter. And, I mean, you said yourself, you know all about the Slapstick, I mean, Slingshot…” She smiled.

His jaw tightened and he grabbed the front of her dress, lifting her to her toes, closer to his face. “You think you're funny?”

“Hey!” Nick burst out suddenly, popping up in between them to shove back the bigger boy. “Leggoa my sister, dickhead!”

“Shut up, fag,” said Bradley, throwing him down into the grass and then Natalie was in his face, although he was nearly a head taller than she was.

“You just shove my little brother, dickface?”

Bradley smirked. “Yeah, so what if I did?” He smacked his palm against her forehead and she stumbled back a couple of steps. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

The other boys circled in and Nick jumped back to his feet with his fists up, snarling around, ready to take on all of them at once, while Natalie sneered, standing her ground. “The hell was that? You ever actually fight anyone before, pretty boy?”

His smirk withered. “What’d you just call me?”

The other boys let out a collective, “Ooh…”

Natalie smiled serenely. “I called you a pretty boy. And what a pretty little boy you are, too, with your pretty clothes and your oh so pretty blonde locks, you’re like a lil prince-ess.”

The boys snickered and Bradley shot a menacing glare around at them. He glowered down at Natalie, stepping right up against her, towering over her. “It’s a real shame your junkie mom didn’t teach you any manners,” he spat. “Someone outta.”

She grinned, unintimidated. For she had been in fights, plenty of them—you didn’t grow up in her neighborhood without getting in a tussle at least once a week. She’d been taught how to throw a punch by none other than Frank the Tank, himself—how to hold your fist with your thumb on the outside, how to let your opponent make the first move, then duck to the side and knock them over using their own momentum, how to use a bigger kid’s size against them—and, while it was safe to assume she and her brother were about to get their butts handed to them by the rest of the boys, she’d been in fights with Nick enough times to know he wouldn’t go down without taking out at least three others, while she beat the snot out this chode. “What’re ya gonna do about it, pretty boy?”

She waited for him to throw the first punch, ready to duck aside and pounce into action like an angry cat. But before anyone could make a move, the view of her target was suddenly obstructed by the back of Trev’s neck. “Hi, again,” he said brightly to Bradley. 

“Butt out,” Natalie snarled, trying to shove him out of the way. “I got this.”

“Yeah, move it, jerk,” Bradley spat. “I have unfinished business with your loudmouth little friend, here.”

Trev smirked, restraining Natalie behind his back. “Aha, you don’t know how fights work, do you, kid? You pick a fight with the littlest, but you always end up having to fight the biggest. It’s a crap system, I’m not happy about it either. Lucky for you I swore an oath to a certain Tank not to get in any trouble today, so I won’t be beating the crap outta you.”

“He hit Natty,” Nick snarled, glaring at Bradley.

“For real?” Trev scowled from Nick to Natalie, behind his back. “You let this dork hit you?”

“No,” she sneered. “I was about to kick his butt before you so rudely interrupted.”

He mimicked her sneer before turning back to Bradley. “What’s the matter with you, kid? I thought they taught fancy rich boys better manners than to hit a girl.”

“Oh shoot!” Bradley laughed. “That’s a girl?”

The other boys laughed, too, and Trev joined in with a tight jaw, his grip clenching around Natalie’s arms. “Wow, you guys are really freaking cool, ganging up on kids at their mom’s funeral. There’s a third around here if you wanna give him a wedgie or something.”

“I’m surprised there’s not more of ‘em,” said Bradley. “They are trash junkie kids.”

“Ouch,” said Natalie, her mocking glare just visible over Trev’s shoulder. “That really stings, coming from such a pretty princess as you, Brittany.”

Bradley’s grin sank into a scowl and he jammed his finger in her face, bellowing, “Shut up, you ugly little slut!”

Trev’s hand whipped up from Natalie’s arm to snatch Bradley’s extended finger. “The fuck did you just call her?”

Coldness seemed to descend upon the group and the other boys’ smiles melted. They looked nervously at Bradley, who’s confidence seemed to have wilted slightly as he tried to pull his finger from Trev’s clenched fist. “She started it.”

“Yeah? Did she?” Trev stepped right up into his face, slowly bending his finger backwards, and Bradley had to lift his gaze ever so slightly to keep eye-contact, confirming his initial trepidation that Trev was, indeed, the taller of the two. “And who you think is gonna finish it?”

But Bradley was once again rescued from an impending ass whooping by a squeal of “Bradley!” from his sister, standing at the corner of the church, surrounded by her flock of girls. “What are you doing!” 

Trev quickly released Bradley’s finger and he wrenched his hand protectively to his chest, then turned to shout at his sister, “Go away! This is no place for a bunch of girls!”

“I’m gonna tell Mom!" Brittany wailed. "Why are you out here picking fights with my friend?”

Bradley scowled and bellowed back, “Who?” He gestured towards the three of them. “This trash?”

Trev’s scowl split into a smirk. “Yep! Your sister’s having us all over for a hamster party! 4897 Meadow Brook Lane, right, Brad?”

“You gave them our address?” Bradley wailed incredulously at his sister.

“She sure did!” said Trev brightly. “See ya! Oh, and Brad,” he added quietly, giving his scowling cheek a couple of light slaps. “Be thankful I got here when I did, because if you had messed up a single hair from my best friend’s pretty braids, I would have ripped your pretty blonde hair from your scalp, one handful at a time, and made you eat it. Like spaghetti and fucking red sauce. C’mon.” He turned to stalk away, followed by Nick, who flipped them all a middle finger, but Natalie stood there for another moment, glaring at Bradley as he glared back at her. “Come on, stupid ass,” Trev snapped, reaching back to grab a fistful of her dress and yank her along behind him. “The service is starting, in case you forgot what we’re here for.”

*                                                *                                                *

Natalie slowly and carefully shimmied her way down the string, twisting and rocking from side to side beneath Trev’s desk. 

This was fine. This was nothing. Nothing more than the rope they’d all had to climb in gym class in seventh grade; all accept Trev, who’d stood rooted to the gymnasium floor with his arms crossed because there was no way he was going up that fucking thing. Natalie, meanwhile, had been the first one up, always eager to mock him with the one thing she could do that he couldn’t. And he’d watched with the rest of their class, staring up after her with the same agitated expression he always wore whenever she climbed up trees and swing sets and storm pipes. 

And when she reached the gym ceiling, she’d grinned down at him, staring back up at her with his arms crossed while the rest of their class cheered her on. She held his gaze as she let go with one hand, extending it out to the side. And the other kids laughed and cheered while Coach Tyson called, “Alright, Jordan! Quit messing around!” But Trev just stared up at her with a tight jaw and her grin widened and she hugged the rope between her knees and extended out her other arm and his eyes widened as he sucked in breath and she laughed out loud, swinging around with her arms out wide as the class cheered the Coach blew his whistle and bellowed, “JOR-DAN! GET DOWN!”

And only when she’d returned to the safety of the gym floor was Trev able to breathe properly again, panting to slow his rapid heart rate, glaring down at her as she grinned back up at him. And a minute later he had her pinned up under the bleachers as they sucked each other's faces off. 

He growled against her mouth, “I’ma get you back for that, you little shithead.”

And she sneered back, “You don’t scare me, Trevor Dalton, can’t even climb a rope.”

She plopped down from the string, landing on the hardwood floor with a groan of relief. She didn’t waste a moment to catch her breath as she took off into the massive terrain of Trev’s bedroom, expelling the memory from her mind of when he’d murmured into her ear, “Bet I can, Natalie Jordan. Bet I can scare the shit outta you,” and the way it had made her heart flutter, her toes curl.

The Runaway

Natalie formed her plan as she ran out from under Trev’s desk chair and across the long distance of his bedroom, her tissue dress flapping and flowing around her thighs, her X-Acto blade bouncing against her back, ignoring the pain in her feet from running barefoot over the aged hardwood floor, the cracks and grooves sharp and prominent at her size. She timed her footfalls to the dismal beat of Kanye’s ‘Runaway’, playing in a loop in the back of her head.

The quickest route home would probably be through the wall vent beneath Trev’s bed that connected to the vent in her own bedroom, that they used to talk to each other through on the nights that Trev was stuck at home with his Dad. 

See, I could have me a good girl

And still be addicted to them hoodrats

Or, on occasion, the nights when they didn’t talk, when she’d sit scowling against the wall by the vent, hearing the slams and bangs and yells coming from the apartment next door. And then Trev’s bedroom door would shut and she’d hear him sniffling and whimpering as he crawled under his bed and she’d murmur through the vent, “I’m here, Trevor. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And I just blame everything on you

At least you know that's what I'm good at

And she’d yank down her comforter and some pillows from her bed and lay on the floor by the vent, glaring at the ceiling while he cried quietly on the other side of the wall, wishing she could shrink down and pass through the vent to get him, take him somewhere far far away, run away and never come back.

And I always find, yeah, I always find

Yeah, I always find something wrong

You been puttin' up with my shit just way too long

But now that she had quite literally shrunken down enough to pass through the vent, she was anxious about the idea. It was likely pitch black and there could be rats or something and she didn’t know if it connected to her room directly or if it dropped off or if there was some kind of giant fan that would suck her in and chop her up into little pieces like something out of a horror movie. She’d have to venture all the way through his apartment to get to the door, but she preferred the route she knew to venturing into dark and unknown territories. 

I'm so gifted at finding what I don't like the most

So I think it's time for us to have a toast

She reached his closed bedroom door and barely had to duck down to pass beneath it, turning down the short hallway that opened up to the living room on the left and the kitchen on the right, separated by the towering kitchen island. On the wall facing her, rising above the kitchen island, she could see the back door with its barred window, leading out to the connecting stretch of patios overlooking the grassy courtyard. 

Let's have a toast for the douchebags

Let's have a toast for the assholes

Let's have a toast for the scumbags

Every one of them that I know

Let's have a toast for the jerk-offs

That'll never take work off

This wasn’t the door she was heading for, however, choosing instead to venture across the length of the living room to the main door that led to the dark, creepy stairwell down to the street. No one ever used the front entrance, preferring to take the longer route around the building to the courtyard stairs, in order to avoid said dark creepy stairwell, where you never knew when you might meet some zany character whacked out on Methamphetamine. But there were vents running through the bottom of the front doors that—fingers crossed—she should be able to climb through, and the front door to her own apartment was directly across the hallway. 

In the unfortunate event that Trev returned in the midst of her escape, it would be through the patio door, giving her ample time to duck into a hiding spot and unsheathe her X-Acto blade.

Baby, I got a plan

She hummed under her breath, “Run away as fast as yoou can.”

*                                                *                                                *

Her mother’s funeral service had been excruciatingly long and boring and, as Auntie Rita so eloquently muttered under her breath from farther down the pew, “Un-fucking-believable.” 

They were seated towards the back of the congregation, on the opposite end as the Fletcher side of the family that took up the first few rows. Auntie Rita was the farthest in, next to Frank, who was bouncing Tommy in his lap to keep him quiet with one arm draped around a sniffling Nick. Next was Natalie, slouched down with her arms crossed, and then Trev in the aisle seat. The pews faced a raised stage to her mother’s casket, surrounded by huge flower arrangements. An easel stood before the casket, displaying a blown up, colored version of the same photo of Rebecca as the funeral cards. Beside the easel stood a podium, where a pastor had given a long winded sermon. 

To no one's surprise, there was zero mention of Rebecca’s husband or children; nor anything about her life after high school, besides melancholy little insinuations about how she had been ‘lost’, a lone runaway on a perilous road, but that she was at rest, now, and may the Lord guide her towards peace, at last.

Auntie Rita leaned over to Frank and muttered, “Sure you don’t wanna bail?"

Frank shook his head, blank-faced, and she put a hand on his shoulder. “These fuckers ain’t shit, bro. We’ll throw her a real funeral.”

The floor was eventually opened up for friends and family, and the whole fucking congregation seemed to have something to say about sweet ‘Becky’. Uncle William babbled on and on about how his little sister had always been so bright and inquisitive, pestering him every evening with whatever she’d learned in school that day. Anna Murphy broke down into tears when she reminisced about what a little angel Becky had been to look after. A procession of old high school girlfriends bombarded them with story after story about how funny Becky was and how kind Becky was and how smart Becky was. Everyone agreed that Becky was a friggin genius. Top of the class. Valedictorian. Most likely to succeed. So much potential.

Trev leaned over and muttered, “Hey, Natty, I’m starting to think you mighta been a mistake.”

Natalie’s lips twitched. “Shut up, Trevor.”

“I mean, dang. I always knew you were a tragedy, but goddamn, you really ruined Becky’s life! Just look what you did to all that potential. Ya killed it.”

She snickered.

Some snippety lady whipped around from the row before them with a loud, juicy, “Shh!” And hissed, “Show some respect.” 

“Yeah,” Trev hissed loudly, rounding on Natalie. “Show some respect!” 

She smirked, kicking his leg, and muttered, “You show some respect.” 

“I’ll show some respect,” he grinned, kicking her back. “I’ll respect circles around you.” 

The pretty young woman speaking behind the podium broke down into sniffles. “Thank you.” The congregation clapped lightly for her and she sniffed, smiling around at everyone, before blowing a kiss to the casket behind her. She stumbled down the steps, wiping her teary eyes. 

Another pretty young woman stood up, a couple of rows ahead of them, but before she could step out from the pew, a ten year old boy with dark brown hair rushed past her up the aisle, uttering, “‘Scuse me.”

Natalie reeled back in surprise and whipped around to find the pew beside her vacated. Tommy called loudly, “Where Trev going?” at the same time Nick muttered frantically in her ear, “What’s he doing?” and Frank clutched her shoulder, snarling, “The hell is he doing?” She grimaced around at her dad and brothers, all three of whom were gaping at her as if she had orchestrated Trev’s sudden divergence from the group, while Auntie Rita simply stared after him with raised eyebrows.

Trev strode confidently up the steps to the podium, where he pulled the microphone down to his mouth. “Hey, every-body,” he said brightly, looking around at the baffled congregation with a crooked grin. “So, um, a lot of you out there don’t know me, but I just wanted to say…” He tsked, shaking his head, blinking towards the ceiling. “Becky had so much potential.”

Natalie let out a loud squeal of laughter, clapping her hands over her mouth while Frank squeezed her shoulder, snarling, “I’m gonna kill him.”

“The amount of potential she had,” Trev continued, grinning over at Natalie. “Was just… out of this world.”

The congregation muttered amongst themselves, trying to figure out who this random kid was. The Fletchers seemed to have some idea, as they snarled and hissed to each other, shooting outraged glares around at Frank, who groaned, “Oh my God, I’m gonna kill him.”

The funeral director hovered anxiously to the side, trying to figure out if he was expected to step in or if that responsibility lay more with the kid’s parents.

“I’ll be passing around a petition,” said Trev. “To Webster’s Dictionary. Demanding they add a picture of Becky next to the word, ‘Potential’.”

And before she knew what she was doing, Natalie was ducking out from under her dad’s grasp and stalking up the aisle, ignoring his hisses of, “Natalie! Natalie, I swear to God!”

The muttering and mumbling crescendoed after her as she stalked past the bewildered Funeral Director, up the steps, squeezing in next to Trev. “If I could just emphasize!” she called, yanking the microphone down to share it with him. “How much potential sweet Becky had.”

“So much.”

“So much.”

The Funeral Director looked inquisitively towards the family of the deceased in the front row, who seemed frozen in states of shock and indignation.

“Yo, your kid’s a fucking G,” Auntie Rita mumbled with a huge smirk and Frank groaned, pinching his forehead and yanking Tommy back to the seat as he attempted to sprint up after Natalie.

The shusher lady whipped around to hiss at Frank, “Are you planning on stopping them?”

Frank sighed at her, as if they were both in allegiance against the ruffian children on stage, and shook his head. “No ma’am, I’m not. But don’t you worry, there’s gonna be two more funerals after this one.”

Natalie shot Trev a piercing glare and without a word he scooted over, letting her take the center of the podium. She peered out over the congregation of strangers looking back at her in various states of shock and confusion.

She swallowed and said, “So, um, a lot of you don’t know me, either. And, um, I didn’t know Becky.” She looked at her brothers, from little Tommy with his wide smile, waving at her in awe and admiration, to Nick, staring in shock, mouth agape. It was to them she said, “The lady I did know… she didn’t have it all together like Becky did. She got really sad sometimes. And she was really spastic. And messy. And she couldn’t cook. Like, at all. She had this thing where she refused to look up a recipe because she wanted to figure it out, and she’d get all experimental. And it would always taste so bad. And whenever we’d complain, she’d just laugh and say something weird like, ‘Someday you’ll savor the flavor of imperfection.’”

Nick’s mouth closed as he drew in breath, his lip quivering, his brows drawing together.

The angry muttering picked back up again with a panicked sort of frenzy in the first couple rows, amongst her grandparents and uncle and other family members she’d either never met or didn’t remember. She ignored them, keeping her focus out on the crowd, on the people who’d greeted her dad with friendly smiles and called her Natty Light, who were watching her in confusion, trying to gauge if this was a continuation of the other kid’s ‘potential’ gag.

“She was really into horror movies. And she was super obsessed with Halloween. Like, super obsessed. We’d always have to decorate on the first day of October, and all month she’d drag us out to pumpkin patches and cheesy haunted houses and make us watch the same old horror movies year after year, which we suspected that was part of some grand scheme of hers to give us all nightmares and get us to sleep in bed with her while Dad was exiled to the couch, like, all month.”

There were a few random chuckles from across the congregation, from people concluding that this wasn’t a prank, that this kid actually did know Rebecca, quite intimately it seemed. Anna Murphy leaned forward over the pew to whisper something into her irate grandmother’s ear, squeezing her shoulder.

“And, um…” Natalie went quiet for a moment, her brows drawing together, and Trev’s hand brushed against hers. “She was really creative. She didn’t like us watching too much TV, so she was always having us draw and paint and make masks and costumes and put on plays and make up games and stuff. And she taught herself to play guitar. She’d found a really nice acoustic one at a garage sale and came home super pumped about it, even though she didn’t actually have any idea how to play it. But she was about to have my baby brother, Tommy, and she wanted to learn so she could sing him lullabies and stuff. And she actually got pretty good at it, too. And she, um,” she drew in a raspy breath, holding back tears. “And she started writing songs... Um, there’s this one that I haven’t been able to get out of my head the past couple of days, and um, it really sucks, because she never recorded it or anything, so we’ll never, um, we’ll never h-hear it again…” 

She shakily pulled a folded up piece of paper from her dress pocket, swatting tears from her eyes. “I, um, I wrote down the lyrics so I wouldn’t forget… I won’t sing it, but I can read it. It’s really pretty, like a poem...”

But she paused as she saw Anna duck down her pew and approach the stairs to the podium, calling softly, “Okay, sweetie, that’s enough.”

Natalie sniffled down at her, her lip quivering.

Anna smiled warmly, holding her arms up, beckoning her towards her in a motherly sort of way. “It’s okay, sweetie, you’re not in any trouble. Just come on down, now.”

“Why can’t she talk?” asked Trev from beside her, who’s voice had gone rather quiet and hoarse. “Everyone else got to.”

Anna’s lips tightened. “That’s enough, now, sweetie.”

“Are you kidding me!” Auntie Rita bellowed from their pew at the back of the room, her mascara smeared with tears. “Let her read the freakin’ song!”

Natalie gaped down at the beautiful, scowling woman, who had been like a sister to her mother. She looked around at her brothers, both now sniffling against Frank, who was looking sadly up at her with furrowed brows. She looked around at his scattering of old high school friends, glancing around at him and muttering excitedly to each other, as if they’d finally just cracked the case of a ten-year old mystery. She looked around at the Fletchers, glaring up at her as if she was some foul and disgusting mold that had slunk through the walls, that they simply could not get rid of, no matter how hard they scrubbed. 

Natalie glared back at them, pulling the microphone right up against her mouth. It was to them she said, “I’ll never forget this one time,” her voice ringing loudly through the chapel. “I found Becky. Dead in our living room.”

Her grandmother shrieked. 

“Shit,” Frank spat, shoving Tommy into Nick’s lap as he climbed past him down the pew.

The congregation gasped and sputtered. Anna shot a look at her husband, a stalky, thick-jawed man sitting by the twins, as well as another little girl and a boy around Tommy’s age. The man huffed and got to his feet.

“Puke foaming outta her mouth,” Natalie continued, glaring around at everyone. “Needle sticking outta her arm.”

Trev chuckled beside her, shaking his head, and he leaned back into the podium to say into the microphone, “Ooh, that Becky. What a gal.”

“What a gem.”

“What a star.” 

“What a goddamn angel!” 

Frank stalked up the aisle, pointing up at her and bellowing, “Not another word, Natalie! Time to go!” but was ambushed by Fletchers before he could reach the stairs.

Her Uncle William got in his face, bellowing, “You need to get her out of here! She’s completely out of control!” 

“Sure,” Frank growled. “Move.”

But then Auntie Rita appeared at his side and bellowed, “Hey, fuck you, man, don’t talk about my niece like that! She was giving a way better eulogy than any of you fuckers!”

“Why did you come here!” her grandmother wailed from the pew. “Just leave us in peace so I can say goodbye to my daughter!”

Frank’s scowling gaze snapped over to her. “That’s funny. I seem to remember you saying goodbye to your daughter fucking years ago.”

“Don’t talk to her like that, you piece of shit!” her uncle hollered, shoving him.

“You don’t wanna push him right now, man!” her aunt hollered, shoving him back.

Meanwhile, Anna Murphy’s burley husband came storming past her up the steps towards the podium, shouting, “Get down! Now!”

Trev stomped down before him, blocking his path. “Wait your turn, bro! We all wanna chance to talk about Becky!”

 “I remember this other time,” Natalie snarled into the microphone before anyone could stop her. “Sweet Becky, high outta her mind she was, said to me, ‘I’m sorry you got stuck with me as your mom, Natalie. I wish I coulda been a better person. I wish I coulda been perfect for you. It’s just so hard. It’s all so fucking! Hard!’”

“Okay.” The big man shoved passed Trev and grabbed her by the arm and Frank bellowed from the aisle, “OY! GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY FUCKING KID!”

He threw her uncle aside but then her grandfather grabbed him by the front of the shirt and wailed into his face, “You shouldn’t even be here! You did this to her, you son of a bitch! You did this! YOU KILLED MY DAUGHTER!”

Natalie snarled up at the big man, clutching the microphone as he tried to pull her away while his other hand clutched the arm of a punching, shouting Trev, holding him back. “So thanks, every-body!” she yelled. “Thank you all so much for all the kind words about my dear dead mom! It’s just so fucking swell to see all these kind, loving, supportive folks she had in her life!” The man scooped her up under one arm, pulling her away and she clung to the microphone with all her strength and screamed, “TOO BAD SHE WENT AND GOT HERSELF KNOCKED UP IN HIGH SCHOOL, THE FUCKING WHORE!”

The man released his hold on Trev to grab her wrist, twisting it and wrenching her hand from the microphone, and she squealed in pain and Trev barreled into him, pounding his fists against his back and suddenly Nick appeared out of nowhere, shouting and cursing like a maniac and throwing himself around the man’s legs.

“What is wrong with you people!” her grandmother screeched. “What is WRONG WITH YOU!”

And then Frank was there. He wrenched Natalie from the big man’s grasp and punched him square in the face. The crowd erupted into gasps and screams (and a couple of odd hoots and cheers) as he hoisted her around him and she squeezed her arms around his neck and her legs around his chest and she burst into screaming sobs against his shoulder as Anna screamed and rushed to aid her husband, who was groaning on the ground beside the podium, clutching his face. 

Frank held Natalie with one arm while the other yanked Nick off the floor by the collar of his suit jacket. He grunted over the commotion, “Say goodbye to your mom, kids.” 

Nick blinked around to the casket and whimpered, “Bye, Mom,” while Natalie only sobbed louder, screaming into his shoulder. 

Goodbye? Good-bye? To say goodbye would mean that this funeral wasn’t really for that Rebecca chick, after all. It would mean that this wasn’t all some big mistake or elaborate prank, that the reason her mom had been lying so still on the floor, the reason she’d been so cold, the reason her deep blue eyes were open but that she wouldn’t look at her, she wouldn’t even fucking look at her, was that her she was… she was…

Natalie squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like her insides were blasting apart into a million pieces. She wailed against her dad’s shoulder as he carried her down the steps, away from the casket, willing him to hold her shattered pieces together, or better yet to pull some all-powerful Dad magic out of his hat that might reverse time, take it all back, bring her back. He hugged her tightly with one arm while his other wrapped around Nick’s shoulders, shielding them from the howling Fletchers as they stalked by. 

This unbearable pain slicing her apart seemed to have shot through both of her brothers at the same time, because Nick had his face pressed against their dad’s waist while they walked, convulsing violently with muffled sobs, while Auntie Rita struggled to console a bawling Tommy in the aisle as he screamed, “I WANT MY MOMMMYYYY!” 

Frank hoisted Natalie higher over his shoulder so he could scoop Tommy up under the same arm. He stalked down the aisle, ignoring the stares and the glares and the buzzing voices from the pews surrounding them, carrying two screaming kids in one arm with his other wrapped tightly around the third, Auntie Rita storming along behind them. He paused at the doors and turned back to find Trev with his back to them, still standing before the closed casket. 

Frank whistled and bellowed, “TRE-VOR!”

Trev turned around, scowling with teary eyes. He sauntered down the steps, whacking over the picture display as he passed by, evoking another chorus of outrage from the congregation.

Frank sighed, shaking his head. “Come on, ya little shit,” he grunted when Trev reached them. He lifted his hand from around Nick to tousle his hair. “Can’t take you anywhere.”

*                                                *                                                *

Natalie made her way across the apartment, taking a longer route to keep under furniture, avoiding the wide open as much as possible, growing ever wary of Trev’s imminent return. She ran under the small dining table, listened for any footsteps out on the patio, then sprinted as fast as she could across the long open space to the nearest armchair, which she stopped beneath for just a moment to catch her breath before running out under the end table to reach the couch. She ran across the rug beneath the length of the couch, pausing again on the other side to catch her breath, in preparation for the final open stretch across the living room and into the entrance nook. She leaned against the couch’s leg, panting for breath, shaking out her blistered and bloody feet to try and speed along her fancy new healing powers. 

Her heart skittered as she heard a familiar song playing in the distance, as if calling to her. 

Her mother’s song. 

The lullaby she thought she’d never hear again, until the somber drive home from the funeral, when little Nicky, his cheek smooshed against her shoulder in the back seat of Frank’s truck, began to hum it softly. And everyone listened quietly for a moment, staring glumly out various windows, all except Tommy, who was huddled up in Natalie’s lap, his face nuzzled into the crook of her neck with her arms wrapped tightly around him. And then, cuddled up with her little brothers in the back seat of their dad’s truck, staring numbly out the window, she softly sang the lyrics she’d been prevented from reading aloud to their mother’s family and friends: 

Miles under the sea and moon

Where rainbows dance and coral blooms

Be still, my darling, in the deepest lagoon

My heart glows for you

Starfish gaze at the galaxy way

Up above in the starry night sky

Oh how they dream to sparkle and shine 

Why must they lay, while other stars fly

Miles away, across the sea

I lay with you, while you lay with me

Be still, my darling, in the deepest lagoon

My heart glows for you

The lullaby they would continue to hum and sing to each other in the following years, so that they’d never forget. That Nick would later spend hours upon hours trying to figure out how to play on their mother’s old acoustic guitar, while the rest of the family bickered loudly over the correct notes, humming over each other, fingers pinched in the air, until they were all satisfied with the version he would play whenever one of them was feeling sad, or lonely, or scared. 

Perhaps he had some intuition that she was in danger, that she was desperately trying to get home. Perhaps on some deep, sibling level, he knew that she needed help, even if he didn’t know why, and so he was guiding the way, letting her know that he was there, which meant that Tommy probably was, too, that they were both there, waiting for her. 

She took a deep, determined breath, and took off around the couch leg to sprint the final stretch to the front door, towards the sound of her mother’s song. As she approached she saw that she could indeed crawl up through the vent, but she wouldn’t even have to go that far, because their cheap ass apartments were such shit, she’d be able to crawl right under the half inch gap beneath the door, itself. But just as she reached the door, giddy with triumph, she stopped dead in her tracks.

She felt them before she heard them; the tumultuous footsteps, coming up the hallway stairs. 

Her heart hammered in her throat as she gaped up at the door, shuddering slightly with every pounding footstep. But it must just be an upstairs neighbor; it couldn’t possibly be Trev—he always came up through the courtyard, like everyone. Always. She was so sure of it that she didn't even bother attempting to hide, or at least get out of the way of the door. Because what were the odds, what kind of bizarre, unfortunate, abysmal twist of fate, would it have taken, not just for Trev to have randomly chosen this one day, of all the days, to come up from the street entrance, but also to arrive at the door at the exact moment she did.

And then a set of keys rattled into the lock above and she could do nothing but back slowly away, laughing darkly to herself because it seemed she had, indeed, been placed under some kind of hex or curse—by the fucking devil himself. 

The knob twisted, and she ducked down as the door came swinging overhead in a sinister gust of wind, to reveal a pair of van-sized Vans sneakers, standing in the hallway on the other side.

Sole Crushing

Natalie lurched to her feet, craning her neck to gape up at the titanic figure, rising above her like a skyscraper. Trev, meanwhile, had not noticed her, his eyes on the door knob as he jiggled his keys loose from the lock, high high above. Wherever he’d been for the past few hours, he appeared hot and short of breath, sweat creeping through his tee-shirt beneath his armpits and backpack straps. 

He stuck his keys back in his pocket and his sneaker lifted off the ground and  her eyes followed it upwards it as it careened over her head, too quick for her to do anything but stand there like a goon, mouth agape, watching as it collided down beside her with an earth shattering tremor, missing her by an inch. She toppled backwards from the impact, smacking onto her butt on the floor, as his weight shifted onto the foot beside her and his other shoe lifted into the air. He might still not have noticed her, had the X-Acto knife blade not let out the smallest of clangs against the wood floor when she fell and his eyes glanced automatically downwards.

 He jolted, his sneaker tremoring and squeaking against the floor as he wobbled on one foot, smacking his hand out against the open door for balance and choking out under his breath, “Shit!” He caught his balance and sucked in a gasping breath, clutching his chest with his free hand and gaping down at her where she sat frozen by his sneaker, her hands pressed over her mouth, gaping back up at his towering form with wide, terrified eyes. 

His hovering foot slowly lowered down to the ground on her other side. 

They gaped at each other for a moment before his face cracked into a tight grin. “And just where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

He squatted down towards her and she flipped over and took off sprinting as fast as she could, back towards the living room, in a desperate attempt to take cover beneath the distant couch. Trev laughed, watching her. “Oh noo, she got away from me! Whatever will I do?”

Natalie ignored him, dashing along the floorboards, leaping over the cracks, running like she’d never run in her entire fucking life. 

Trev watched from where he was still squatting in the doorway, his arms draped over his thighs, a wide grin on his face. “Damn she’s fast. Sure hope I can catch her.” He rose to his feet, slamming the door shut behind him with an echoing BANG! and stalked after her, the floorboards shaking so violently that Natalie stumbled with every step he took. She wasn’t even halfway to the couch before his Vans sneaker drifted over her head and stomped to the floor before her with a quake, so quickly that she smacked into it and toppled backwards with a squeal. 

She clutched her temple where she’d rammed his shoe, her panicked gaze following his leg up, and up, and up, taking in his titanic body, towering over her. 

He stood there for a moment with his hands on his hips, peering around the room. Far, far above, his voice boomed, “Awe, shoot, where’d she go? Oh well, guess I lost her!”

Her eyes snapped back down to his sneaker as it pivoted around, his heel on the ground and the sole rising up over her, the diamond-shaped ridges worn down and coated with dirt and grime and a variety of mystery splatters from all the random little things he’d unconsciously crushed and jammed between them. It hovered there for a second, then slowly began to descend. Natalie screamed, rolling out from under it as it flattened down on the ground where she’d been laying. 

“WHAT THE FUCK, TREVOR!” she shrieked.

His gaze dropped to her, laying on the ground beside his sneaker. “Oh there you are.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?”

“I dunno. You’re the one scampering around down there on the floor like a little mouse. That seems crazier to me.”

His knee descended towards her as he knelt down and Natalie leapt up and darted between his legs. He laughed again, his huge sneaker squeaking against the wood as he pivoted around to watch her. “Awe, look at the little mouse girl go.” She skidded around the heel of his other shoe and sprinted out from under him. “I sure hope you can run faster than that, Nat. You’re really not gonna like what I’ll do to you if I catch you.”

He plopped down to sit on the ground before her with a quake, and she skidded and turned to dash through the archway of his raised knee. His bent leg collided down into her path and she jerked to a stop, spinning around to snarl up at him with desperate tears in her eyes. He wasn’t looking at her, his attention on his other foot, where he’d started unlacing his shoe. 

“Don’t mind me,” he said absently, waving her off. “You just focus on escaping, it’s going so well.”

She stood rooted to the spot, watching him yank off his sneaker and toss it aside. He pulled off his sweaty sock next, and she drew in a shaky breath. “Okay, Trev, you fucking caught me! What’re you gonna–”

“I’d really be running, if I were you.” He leaned over her to untie his other shoe and she craned her neck to look up at his looming face above.

“Make your fucking point, already!”

“And what point would that be, little mouse girl?” He tossed his shoe aside. “That you’re slow as fuck or that you’re dumb as fuck for thinking you could run from me?”

 He removed his other sock and her heart pounded. “Please Trevor…”

 He scowled down at her. “‘Please Trevor’, what? Whaddo you think happens to tiny little mouse girls who run around down there on the floor?” His eyes fell onto the X-Acto knife blade strapped to her back. “Whatcha got there, Nat?”

She gaped up at him, panting. 

He lowered his hand down to her and she shakily lifted the string over her head and placed it gingerly in his palm. He snickered down at it. “What’d you think you were gonna do with this? Were you planning on fighting me?”

She shook her head, pleadingly.

“Well come on, then,” he said, pinching it between his fingers and holding it back out to her. “Let’s fucking go, giant slayer.”

Her eyes shot to the X-Acto knife blade and back up to him, shaking her head.

“You sure?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” he said, sticking the blade in his pocket. “So at least you’re not stupid enough to try and fight me. You’re just stupid enough to try and run from me. But since you were such a good girl and handed over your little sword, I’ll give you another chance... One…”

She drew in breath. “Oh my God, Trevor, what’re you gonna–”

“Two…” He grinned. “Still not running?”

“I’m sorry, okay! I’m fucking sorry! I won’t run from you again!”

“I don’t believe you. Three.” 

Natalie panted through clenched teeth, her wide eyes following him upwards as he rose to stand above her. He grinned down at her as one of his bare feet lifted off the ground and she squealed and darted between his legs.

Trev laughed, twisting around with his foot in the air as his gaze followed her across the floor. “Come on, Nat, how’re you so bad at this? You just told me you wouldn’t run from me again.”

Natalie froze in her tracks, hunching her shoulders, smacking her tear streaked face into her palms.

“Well don’t stop now, stupidass.” The sole of his foot glided over her and she jolted, sprinting out from under it. His foot stomped down behind her and she screamed, stumbling from the resulting tremor and wrapping her arms around head. She kept running and a shadow fell over her. She skidded to the side as his other foot crashed down beside her. She toppled over and hugged herself into a tight ball, screaming.

“Awe, what’s wrong, Natalie?” One knee crashed down on one side, and then the other as he knelt down over top of her, casting her in darkness. His hands touched down beyond the ledges of his knees and his face appeared, looking at her upside down between his legs.

“You’re tryna kill me!” she wailed.

“No I’m not. If I was trying, I woulda squashed you by now. What I am trying to do is make you understand what a bad fucking idea it is to try and run from me.”

“I got it,” she choked out. “I won’t do it again.”

“Right, only, you said that two seconds ago, and what’d you do?”

She whimpered, hugging herself tighter. “I ran…” 

“I can’t hear you.” He straightened up and his fingertips wedged beneath her to flip her over. He unfurled her limbs and pressed her flat on her back, pressing his thumb down into her chest to keep her pinned beneath it, so hard she could barely breathe. “One more time. What’d you do?”

She clenched her teeth, shoving her hands against this thumb with all her strength as she choked out, “I ran!”

“Mmhm. And what happens to little mouse girls who run around on the floor?”

“Th–they get stepped on…?”

“That’s right. They’re tiny and quiet and slow. I nearly stepped on you without even knowing it, didn’t I?”

She nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“And I’da been so sad if I’d stepped on you. If I’d squished you under my shoe like a little grape, shattering every tiny little bone in your tiny little body, too quick for either of us to even register it was happening. If I’m gonna step on you, I wanna fucking know it. I wanna feel you splatter like a little grape. I wanna feel your every tiny little bone shatter and crunch beneath my foot. I wanna do it slow, and hear you scream and beg and try to crawl out from under me as I gradually crush your last breath out of you. Only, I wouldn’t crush you, not all the way. I’d keep you alive just enough for me to carry on my way with you stuck to the bottom of my foot, so I could feel you splattering more and more with every step I took, so you could feel yourself rising off the floor, smeared to the bottom of my foot, only to pummel down again and again with more and more of my colossal weight bearing down atop your poor, flattened little body. And then I’d crush you. So what am I gonna do to you now, little mouse girl? Any guess?”

She let out a sob, squeezing her eyes shut, her tiny arms falling uselessly to the floor. 

“Look at me, Natalie, I asked you a question.” He gave her a curt shake with his thumb and she squinted her eyes open. “What am I gonna do to you?”

“St-step on me?”

He grinned, lifting his thumb off of her, and that cocky grin filled her with such a violent surge of hatred that she pushed herself up to her forearms, screaming, “YOU REALLY GONNA FUCKING KILL ME, YOU CRAZY MOTHER FUCKING–!”

“Lay the fuck back down!” His palm smacked on top of her, wacking her head back against the hard floor and her vision was briefly clouded over with static. His fingers spread, keeping her mouth covered, and he glowered down at her with no trace of a grin. “Did I say I was gonna fucking kill you? I am trying to teach you a valuable fucking life lesson, here. But if you move again, I will fucking hurt you. If you say another fucking word, I will fucking hurt you. Do you understand me?”

His hand lifted off of her and Natalie glared up at him, her teeth bared. 

“Wipe that look off your face and answer the question.”

She sneered. “You told me not to say another fucking word.”

Trev let out a cold laugh. “I’m really gonna fucking enjoy this.” 

He smacked his hands on the ground and pushed himself to stand over her. She glared up at him from between his feet, up those seemingly endless legs, up the length of his tee-shirt, to his face, grinless and glaring back down at her in a way that made her blood curdle. She kept still, ignoring every instinct to run away—the manic fury radiating from him suggested he fully intended to hurt her if she moved, and at his size he could very easily kill her, whether he intended to or not. 

His foot lifted off the ground, and Natalie’s eyes shot from his face to the underside of his foot hovering over her, the sole pale and wrinkly and moist and reeking of sweat and coated in specks of dirt and little black fuzzies from his sock.

“I am dead fucking serious right now, Natalie,” he growled from the sky, and her eyes snapped up to his face again as she panted for breath. “Do not. Fucking. Move.” Then his foot descended upon her, blocking out her vision of him. The smell was so overpowering that she gagged and barely resisted smacking her hand over her nose. His heel touched down on the floor, just below her feet, with his sole arching over her. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, his sole lowered down at a deep arch, doming over her as the ball of his foot met the floor above her head, his warm, clammy sole pressing firmly down atop her entire body. She cringed her face to the side, one cheek against the floor and the other against his foot, breathing deep from her throat to try and block out the thick stench of sweat ravaging her nostrils. 

His voice boomed above, out of sight, in a cold, mocking tone, “Sucks to be you, huh, Nat? And you were so close to making it home, too. It sounds like your brothers are over there, now, I’m sure they'da been happy to see you. Only, they wouldn’t have seen you because you are two fucking inches tall. Not to mention, neither of them know you are two fucking inches tall, so they would not know to watch their fucking step. I almost stepped on you, and I do know. I literally almost stepped on you and that would have fucking KILLED you, you DUMBASS!”

His foot flattened down upon her, ramming her against the hardwood floor beneath the leathery flesh, the pressure so heavy against her ribcage that she struggled to breath. 

“How do you suppose it’d feel to die this way, Natalie?” Trev hollered from above. “Cause you came pretty damn close!”

He applied more of his weight on top of her; the soft, damp flesh molding around her. She whimpered from the increased pressure crushing down on her in all directions, her head completely encompassed in flesh, her bones straining under the building weight, her ribs grinding against her lungs, unable to take in any breath.

“And how do you suppose I’da fucking felt, Natalie,” he snarled through clenched teeth, grinding his foot down upon her. “You think I’d ever have been able to fucking live with myself after crushing you like an insect? Did you stop for two fucking seconds to think how fucking terrible it woulda been for me, to feel a sickening little crunch, and then to have to lift my foot and find you splattered all over the bottom of my shoe? Of course you didn’t, because you’re a fucking bitch, with zero regard for anybody else’s FUCKING FEELINGS!”

Darkness fizzled around her vision and she wriggled desperately beneath him, in a panicked attempt to push him off before she lost consciousness.

“Are you moving!” he bellowed. “Are you seriously fucking moving!”

His foot lifted and for a moment she lifted with it, adhered to the soft, sticky flesh of the skin molded around her, before she peeled backwards and plummeted to the hardwood floor with an “Umph”, clutching her ribs and gasping for breath, covered head to toe in foot sweat. 

His knee collided down beside her with a BANG! and she screamed, throwing her arms over her head. His huge hand smacked on top of her and wrenched her off the ground. She shot upwards, cold air chilling her clammy skin, coming to a jerking halt in his clenched fist before his livid face. 

“What was the one thing I told you not to do, Natalie?” he yelled and she smacked her palms over her freshly healed eardrums.

“I couldn’t breathe!” she wailed.

“I don’t care! That instruction was for your benefit! I can barely feel you wriggling around down there, I could have crushed your fucking head or something! Now we gotta do this all over again!”

“Please listen, Trevor," she sobbed. “I could not breathe! I was suffocating!”

“And we’re gonna keep doing it,” he growled, his fist tightening around her. “Until you learn to do what I fucking tell you to do.”

He lowered her back down and she jolted with panic and screamed, “STOP IT! I get the point!”

“Do you? Because I thought I also told you to stop fucking talking!”

She whimpered, tears filling her eyes, loathing her own weakness. “Please don’t do that again, Trevor… It really hurt…”

He glowered down at her, then released his hand from around her and she plummeted to the hard floor with an “Umph!”

She panted, shaking, and lifted herself upright before his bent leg, laying across the floor, his other knee rising into the air with his arm draped over it. She looked pleadingly up at his glowering face, far above. 

“Apologize.”

“I-I’m sorry Trevor,” she whimpered. 

“For what.”

“F-for trying to run away?”

“Is that a question? You must not be that sorry if you don’t even know what you’re apologizing for. Not really seeing why I shouldn't step on you again.”

She swallowed back a sob, then staggered onto her knees and brought her shaking hands together to clasp before her face. “P-please Trevor,” she begged. “I’m sorry I ran away. I won’t ever do it again. Please don’t do that again.”

“But I enjoy stepping on you, little mouse girl. It brings me immense satisfaction. Don’t you want to bring me joy?”

She sniffed and nodded. 

“Great. So shut up and lay back down.”

She let out a sob, tears rolling down her cheeks, but shakily lowered herself back down to lay on the ground, praying he’d be satisfied with her shameful submission, knowing she was powerless to stop him either way. 

Trev watched her with an ugly sneer. “God you look so fucking pathetic right now.”

Her distressed eyes found his, glaring down at her from above, because that was just the type of thing his dad had been saying to him his entire life. He seemed to realize it, too, hearing those words come out of his own mouth, because he went rigid, as if an icy wind had passed through him, freezing him in place.

He snapped out of it in an instant as there came a sudden pounding from the screen door being wrenched open behind the patio door. Both of their heads jerked towards the sound as the locked door handle began to rattle and Natalie immediately let out a high pitched scream, as loud as she could, just as Trev’s palm smacked over her, smothering her against the hardwood floor.

Pixie Hollow Tea Party

The back doorknob banged and rattled before there was a pounding against the window and Diego’s voice called out, “Yo Trev!” 

“What!” Trev called back, as Natalie struggled and screamed beneath his hand.

“Qué tal, mang? Why’s your door locked! We hangin', or what!”

“Not now!” 

“Awe, for real, man? Why! Whatchu doin’!”

“Fuck off, Di, I’m busy!” 

“With what! Ain’t no way you got Blondie slummin’ it in there witchu! You jerkin' off or somethin’? That’s nasty, bro, at least take it to your bedroom!”

Trev’s scowl broke into a snicker. “Yeah, man, I’m crankin’ it! Now get outta here, I’ll text you later!”

“Aight, man, you better! You still owe me twenty bucks for this fuckin’ weed, man, I ain’t above smokin’ it without you!”

Diego’s footsteps drew back down the courtyard stairs to the second floor before Trev lifted his hand off of her. “Un-believable, Nat. Didn’t I tell you no one would hear you scream?”

She huffed, glaring up at him, sensing that the banter with Diego had shaken him from whatever sinister fit he’d been possessed by since his arrival home. “You know that’s a thing serial killers say, right?” 

He snickered. Then his eyes squinted down at her, his head tilting. His fingers wrapped around her and he lifted her close to his eyes to inspect the dried blood streaked across her face, the rusty red smeared and glistening beneath the greasy film of foot sweat.

“What’s this from?” he asked, running the tip of his thumb over the blood streaks.

“My ears,” she grumbled, jerking away from him. “From when you screamed at me earlier. I told you you’d blow my eardrums.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He licked his thumb and rubbed it over her face to wipe off the blood as she groaned and grimaced and cringed away from him, reluctant to have any more of his bodily fluids smeared across her face. “Good thing you apparently have super healing these days or I’da felt like a real dick.”

His fist suddenly tilted sideways, his fingers snapping open and Natalie flopped over into his palm with an “Umph.” She grunted, shakily lifting herself to her elbows, just as the thumb and index finger of his other hand pinched around the front of her tissue dress, yanking her upright to sit in his open palm. She panted, glaring up at him as he eyed her dress. “This is cute,” he smiled, kneading the fabric between his giant fingers. Then he ripped it off, tossing it aside to float down to the floor.

She scoffed, crossing her arms, but his fingers pinched around them, forcing them apart, his eyes narrowing as he looked over her naked body. She crossed them again and he uncrossed them again, grumbling, “Stay still.”

“Quit ogling me, you perv!” 

He ignored her, still frowning at her torso. She followed his gaze downward and drew in breath. The skin of her torso, arms, and legs was tie-dyed in big, hideous blotches of black and blue. She whipped her head back up to scowl at him, hoping he was fucking happy with the damage he’d done. He didn’t look happy. But he didn’t look particularly unhappy either. His face was completely void of emotion as he frowned down at her. She wondered what was going through his head. Guilt, probably. But that was likely getting quickly whisked away to the back of his brain, too intense of an emotion for him to process without launching into another hysterical fucking meltdown.

She waited impatiently to hear what he had to say for himself; whether he would break down in tears, begging her forgiveness for crushing her to a purple pulp, or start yelling at her again for driving him to it. What she was not expecting was for him to mutter, “Cool.”

“COOL?” she shouted. She waved her hands angrily around her bruised and battered body, “You think this is COOL?”

“You’re like a mood ring.”

“WHAT?”

“Look!”

He poked her in the belly and she looked down at herself to see the bruises that had been black and blue just moments before had already morphed into shades of purples and greens. As she watched, she could actually see the colors slowly lightening to yellows and reds, the bruises healing before their very eyes. “Yeah, okay,” she grumbled. “That is kinda cool.”

“Mm,” he grunted, then his gaze snapped to her face. “Don’t ever do that again.”

She sky-rocketed upwards, toppling over in his open palm with a yelp as he rose to his feet and walked across the living room. She latched her arms around his slightly cupped middle finger to steady herself, squeezing her eyes shut, trying not to look down at the panning floor, far below, as he carried her back to his bedroom. 

He walked over to the desk, tossing her onto the bed as he passed by and she flew through the air and sank into the colorful woven blanket with an “Umph!” She struggled for a moment to disentangle herself, sitting upright with a huff as he knelt down beside her, running his fingers down the piece of string hanging from his desk drawer. He wrenched the drawer the rest of the way open to find the leverage system she’d rigged up using his headphones, ruler, and a piece of string. He turned his head to grin over at her. “Damn, McGeiver, look at you.”

He lifted his stack of post-it notes and laughed. “‘My dearest Trevor’,” he read aloud. “‘Fuck you, dick, I’m going home. Love from Natalie.’ Awe,” he tsked, putting his hand to his heart, grinning over at her again. “You wrote me a poem?”

He ripped off her post-it and reached over her to stick it to the wall above his headboard. He grabbed a pencil from the drawer and sat on the floor beside the desk, thinking for a second, counting syllables with his fingers, then jotted down a message and ripped off the post-it. He smiled warmly and reached over to hold it up for her to read:

Dear little mouse girl,

Fuck you, too, I own you, now

With love, Trevor D.

She scowled from the post-it note up at his face, snarling, “Whaddya mean you ‘own’ me?”

He grinned and flipped the post-it around, sticking it to her forehead and she fell back, cursing and smacking and kicking at the huge yellow square. He laughed. “You’re so cute.” He peeled the post-it off of her, tousling her hair, and stuck it up on the wall next to hers. 

“So how long’d it take you to get this open?” he asked with a smirk, sliding the drawer back and forth a couple of times with ease. “I knew better than to leave you out on the desk, assuming you’d be crazy enough to climb down, but I honestly didn’t think I had to worry about you getting the drawer open. So, kudos. I now know better than to leave you unattended.” 

He got to his feet, rising over her. Her shoulders hunched automatically, her heart picking up speed as he lowered his open palm towards her expectantly. 

Her eyes snapped to his hand and back up to his face. “Where are you taking me?”

“Everywhere, apparently.”

She eyed him suspiciously. He rolled his eyes and snatched her up. “Come on, I don’t have all day. It’s a bit late for lunch, but I haven't fed you yet.”

He carried her to the kitchen and tossed her onto the counter, where she skidded along the tile surface and plopped over onto her butt with an “Umph.” 

“Please quit doing that!” she called up to him as he took off his backpack and set it onto the counter beside her. 

“Quit being so cute,” he said absently as he unzipped his backpack and pulled out some groceries, setting them on the counter to tower around her; a can of refried beans, some queso fresco, a bunch of cilantro, an avocado, a lime, a bag of flour tortillas, and a small green and pink plastic toy case, still wrapped in its plastic packaging, depicting a fairy tea party in a mystical forest of twinkling lights, tree houses, and mushroom furniture.

“‘Pixie Hollow Tea Party Play-Set’,” Natalie read in disgust. “Trevor, why?”

He leaned over her to see the play-set, angling it towards him to continue reading, “‘Includes tea pot, tea cups, plates and saucers. Perfect for ages four and up.’ Look, it even comes with a couple of choking hazard fairy friends for you to pal around out with.”

“Trevor, noo.”

“What?” he smirked, opening the can of refried beans. “You needed some cups and plates. This was the smallest I could find.”

“Did you have to get such a girly one?” 

“It’s a tea party toy, they’re all girly,” he laughed as he scooped the beans into a frying pan. “Why do you still have such an aversion to girly toys? You're almost seventeen. Move on.”

“You know damn well why. You and Nick and all our friends always got all these cool games and action figures and shit on your fucking birthdays, while I got stuck with a buncha lame ass ballerina barbies.”

“Yeah, I remember. I always got to keep all the offending toys, your birthdays were the best. Guess it took you shrinking to finally get you to play tea party with me.”

She chuckled dryly. “Can I ask how long we gotta play this game before you bring me home?”

“Sure you can,” he said absently, mashing up some avocado with lime and cilantro in a towering bowl beside her.

Natalie waited expectantly while he went right on mashing, then she huffed. “How long will we have to play this game, Trevor?”

“I dunno. Till it stops being fun.”

“This isn’t fun! You keep hurting me, very badly, it’s not okay!”

“Yeah, sorry,” he said, patting her head. “I did always tend to play a bit rough with my toys.”

She whacked his hand away, yelling, “I’m not a TOY!”

He whacked her back, saying, “Pipe down, Barbie,” and she face-planted to the counter.

She pushed herself back up again, glaring and grumbling under her breath.

“You know what I can’t stop thinking about?” he asked as he opened up the Tea Party Play-Set, pulling out the tiny dishes and organizing them on the counter. “What are the fucking odds we both got to the door at the exact same time? Like, I don’t even know why I went up that way. I was deep in thought, trying to figure out how I was ever going to beg your forgiveness for being such a dick to you all morning. And for whatever reason, I was just drawn up that way and then, like, there you were, staring up at me from the fucking floor. Don’t you think it’s weird?”

“It was an uncanny coincidence, yes.”

“Was it also an uncanny coincidence that I was the one with you when you shrank? That we were off alone, in the spot beneath the stairs that no one else knows about?”

“We were off alone because you dragged me off alone.”

“You really don’t think it means something?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Like I’m meant to take care of you or something.”

“Well you’ve done a smashing job of it so far, what with all the stepping on me and what not.”

“Well that’s what happens when you scamper around on the floor, but that’s not gonna happen again, now is it?”

He removed the frying pan from the burner and tossed a tortilla over the flame to warm it up, then pressed one of the tiny plastic tea saucers upside down into its edge to stamp out a little circle. He laid it out over one of the tiny plates and scooped on a bit of refried beans, mashed avocado, and some crumbles of cheese, like a tiny taco pizza. He pulled out the little plastic toadstool table from the play-set. “Would you like to be seated at your ‘Pixie Hollow Tea Table’?” She stared stoically up at him, unamused, and he sighed and dropped the table back in the play-set, handing her the plate. “You’re the lamest toy ever.”

He fixed himself a plate using the rest of the tortilla he’d used to make her taco pizza, plus three more, smothering them in hot sauce, while Natalie picked at her plate. It smelled overpoweringly of beans and avocado and lime and cheese. She tore off a chunk and took a small bite. The flavor was similar to what it would have been at full size, but intensely magnified on her tiny taste buds. The texture of beans and avocado felt chunky and foreign, the thick tortilla tough and chewy against her tiny teeth. She took a long time chewing, feeling suddenly queasy, before gulping it down with a grimace, clutching her tight, aching belly. 

Trev set his own plate behind her, leaning on the counter against his elbows on either side of her. Natalie watched, somewhat transfixed, as he lifted one of his tacos—the size of a taco truck—high above her head and took a huge bite, larger than her entire serving, larger than her entire body. He stared back down at her with furrowed brows as he chewed and grumbled through his mouthful, “Why aren’t you eating? What’s wrong with it?”

She jolted, breaking from her stupor to blink back down at her taco pizza and mumble, “Nothing, it’s fine.”

He swallowed with an audible gulp. “Is the texture weird?”

“No... I mean, yes, the texture’s very weird, but it’s still good. I’m just not very hungry.”

“How can you possibly not be hungry? Didn’t you say you haven’t eaten in like, two days?”

She shrugged.

Trev scowled. “The fuck is going on with you, Nat? Are you, like, literally starving to death right now?”

She scowled back. “It’s fine, Trevor, thank you for your concern.”

“No it’s not, Natalie, it’s not fucking fine, you’re a fucking skeleton. Is this like an eating disorder thing or is Frank neglecting to fucking feed you, again?”

“Fuck off, it’s none of your fucking business!”

“Yes it is,” he snapped. “You are my toy, and it is my fucking business if I say it is, now eat.” He lurched upright before she could respond, smacking his taco back down to his plate and snatching one of the tiny tea cups. He stalked over to the sink and pinched the cup by its edges, holding it under the faucet while water splashed over his finger tips. He stalked back to her, setting the tea cup before her, filled to the rim. “Drink some fucking water, too, you can’t survive offa nothing but coffee.”

She glared up at him, then slowly pushed the tiny plate and cup away from her and turned her nose away from them, arms crossed.

“Oh, what, now you’re not gonna eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

He scoffed. “Fine, whatever.” He snatched his plate in one hand and leaned back against the kitchen island, using his other hand to lift his taco and take another huge bite, chewing angrily without looking at her, glowering straight ahead out the kitchen window. She sat stubbornly with her arms crossed while he scarfed down his four tacos, then stormed around her, washing up the lunch dishes and putting away the rest of the groceries. Then he stomped to a halt above her, gesturing towards her with clenched hands. “Eat, Natalie!”

“I’m not hungry.”

“What do I have to do to get you to eat?”

“Take me home.”

“I’m not taking you anywhere until you fucking eat!”

“Well get cozy.”

“You think I won’t shove it down your fucking throat?”

“As if you could, dick-for-brains, you’re too big.”

“Agggh,” he groaned in frustration, bonking his knuckles against his forehead. “Please eat!”

He frowned down at her and she sensed genuine concern beneath his heated outburst. She lifted her plate, smiling stoically up at him, and smacked it upside down, splattering it against the countertop. She snarled up at him, daring him to do his fucking worst. She could take it. She’d heal.

He nodded down at the flipped plate, tight jawed. “Well that’s the last time I cook for you, ya dick.” He grabbed a sponge to wipe up the tiny smashed taco. “But I’m taking the moral high ground on this one, Natalie. I’m not gonna starve you, no matter how much you’re asking for it. You just go ahead and let me know when you’re ready to eat and I’ll get you something.”

He washed her plastic plate, dried it off, and stacked it atop the others. He rummaged through the cupboards overhead, pulling out a small tea tin. He pushed the teabags aside to hide the tiny plastic dishes beneath them, adding, “Can you at least be a good toy and drink your water so I can put your little toy cup away?”

She seethed with loathing and snatched up the tiny teacup, hurling it as hard as she could off the edge of the counter in a spiral of water and Trev’s hand swiftly dropped down to catch it as it fell. His gaze descended upon her. 

“I am not,” she snarled. “Your toy.”

“Okay,” he said serenely, wiping down the tea cup and adding it into the tea tin. He snapped on its lid before setting it back in the cupboard overhead. “You wanna big girl cup?” He pulled a pint-sized water glass from another cupboard. “Have a big girl cup.” 

He tilted the glass below the counter, the circular rim rising before her, and his other hand whacked into her from behind, knocking her forward to slide, headfirst, down the glass, smacking hard at the bottom with an “Umph!”

Natalie hurriedly scrambled herself up to her hands and knees, bellowing, “Fuck you, Trevor!” her voice echoing against the glass, just as the cup jerked violently forward and she smacked downwards again. Through the bottom of the glass she could see Trev’s incredibly long legs stalking swiftly across the kitchen floor for a couple of steps before stomping to a halt before the counter. She lifted herself frantically to her hands and knees, looking up to see his hand wrapped around the side of the glass, the lines and wrinkles and ridges of his palm and fingers pressed up and smoothed against the clear surface. His tee-shirt drew quickly away as the glass lowered into the kitchen sink and the faucet loomed into view overhead. 

Before she could make any attempt to protest, his other hand shot past to turn on the faucet, and she lurched back, ducking against the side of the glass with her arms over her head, taking a deep breath as a cylindrical torrent of water came crashing down. It smacked against the bottom of the glass and she clamped her eyes and mouth shut as shockingly cold water crashed against her, knocking her under the violently rising rapids. This lasted for only a couple of seconds before the faucet switched off again and Natalie kicked madly to the surface, sucking down breath.

“FUCK YOU TREVOR!” she screeched, struggling to wade in the water as it waved and vibrated with every step he took, smashing up and down and side to side against the glass wall. He’d only filled it about half way, so she was level with his hand, the sloshing water magnifying and distorting the bottom half of his palm and fingers. His torso rose up from the back of the glass while the kitchen swept by from the front and sides, his chin and nose above and his magnified legs stalking in and out of view below. 

He plopped down in a barstool and slammed the glass down on the counter with a vigorous wave that swept her under. She kicked to the surface again, gasping and sputtering, looking out through the glass at his arms crossed atop the counter, his chest leaning over her. She looked up, paddling her legs and swaying her arms to keep herself afloat, to see his face through the rim, leaning over the glass, smiling down at her. “That better, my little big girl?” he cooed, his voice echoing into the glass.

She ground her teeth, glaring up at him, shivering and treading water in the freezing pool, the film of his foot sweat rinsing off of her to float around her in a greasy ring. He leaned his chin down against his crossed arms so that his face was directly on the other side of the glass, his huge green eyes just above her paddling body.

“You’re not drinking,” he said, tapping his finger against the side of the glass with a series of loud, echoing clinks that sent angry ripples through the water.

“I’m not thirsty,” she panted stubbornly, her teeth chattering.

“Drink anyway.” His hand lifted from the countertop to clamp over the top of the glass, swirling it around and she took a deep breath as waves crashed over her, sweeping her underwater again. He kept it up for a few seconds before slamming the glass back down. But rather than kick to the surface she swam down to sit cross-legged at the bottom of the glass, like they used to sit at the bottom of the swimming pool for tea parties and breath-holding contests. His voice warbled through the water, “The fuck you doing?”

She squinted her eyes open to glare out at his wobbling, magnified face, grinning down at her through the water, her lips tight and her hair floating madly around her like a vengeful little mermaid.

“You know you’re gonna lose this game, right?”

She flipped him a middle finger and he snickered and flipped one back, then he whacked his palm against the side of the glass repeatedly, calling, “Nataliiiie!” until she ran out of air and kicked to the surface to suck down a gasping breath.

“There she is!” he said brightly. “You done fucking arou–?” but before he could finish she dove back under and swam down to sit at the bottom again. “Oh, okay,” wobbled his voice from the other side of the glass. “Let’s see how long you can keep this up.”

He sat with his chin against his crossed arms on the counter, his finger tapping the side of the glass, his eyes following her up and down like a kid watching a goldfish as she swam up for breath and dove back down to sit cross-legged at the bottom of the glass, over and over again, for no real reason but to display spiteful indifference for his little ‘cup’ gag. 

His phone buzzed and his face rose from view as he pulled it from his pocket, holding it in both hands against the counter in front of her to read a new text message. His thumbs started typing a response as she kicked back to the surface and treaded water to catch her breath, her heart pounding and lungs aching.

“You’re doing it all wrong, Nat,” he said absently as he typed. “Water goes in the mouth.”

“Get bent Trevor,” she panted.

He snickered lightly as he finished writing his text message, letting her tire herself as she treaded water in the glass below, gasping for air. Then he hit send and set his phone on the counter. His hand wrapped around the glass again, tilting it towards him as he looked down at her through the rim. “We’re gonna have to speed this along. You need me to show you how it's done?”

She scowled up at him, catching his drift. “GET BENT TREVOR!”

“Okay, then, I’ll show you how it's done.”

The glass jerked off the countertop, the water waving madly, and she sped upwards towards his parting lips. The rim of the cup met with his bottom lip, his teeth letting out a ringing clink against the outside of the glass, his huge top lip curling over. The cup tilted towards him, the surface of the water growing into a rocking oval shape and she was swept automatically in the opposite direction. She paddled madly to keep herself on the opposite side, inches from the infernal chasm that was his mouth, while his eyes looked down at her through the glass. She kept her face blank, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing the terror she felt as water rushed between his lips with an ominous, echoing gurgle, cascading in rapids into the dark cavern within, sweeping over his tongue and crashing against his teeth as the glass drained and his mouth filled. 

Then his lips smacked together and receded as the glass jerked upright with a couple of violent waves. His face leaned over the cup as he sent his mouthful careening down his gullet with a loud, squelching gulp.

“Ahh,” he said, smiling down at her in the glass, his lips wet and glistening. “Refreshing.”

“Jokes on you, ya dickass,” she panted up to him. “Ya just drank your own foot sweat.”

He snickered, the sound bouncing across the glass. “Ooh, you got me. But I also detected a hint of your sweat, and it was oh so sweet. Your turn.”

She glared.

“Come on, Natty, you can do it,” he said encouragingly, lightly swirling the glass around in a mini whirlpool. “One big gulp. Or do you need another demonstration of how it’s done?”

She huffed and ducked her face under, filling her mouth with water and glaring back up at him as she gulped it down. She gestured irritably towards herself. “There! Happy?”

“Yay!” Trev called exuberantly, clapping his other hand against the glass. “Good girl, I knew you could do it! Okay, my turn again.” 

The glass tilted towards his mouth again and Natalie bellowed, “YOU FUCKER!”

His huge lips grinned around the rim of the glass as water gushed into his open mouth. The water level dropped rapidly as he chugged it down, the bottom of the glass tilting higher and higher as Natalie swept away from his mouth, until the water was nearly drained and the bottom of the glass rose higher, creating a water slide down into his gaping maw and she shot down towards it. But just as she reached his mouth, the gap narrowed and she smacked into his top lip with a squeak. She clung desperately to his plump, moistened lip to avoid getting swept into his mouth as the rest of the water drained away around her, gurgling down his gullet.

His lips smacked together, with her still clinging to his top lip, as he swallowed his mouthful with a final gulp. The glass lifted away from her as he leaned forward and spat her into his other hand with an “Umph.”

“Awe,” he said, grinning down at her. “Did you just give me a lil kiss?”

“YOU ARE UN-FUCKING-BE–!”

Her words cut off as his huge, wet lips puckered and planted a sopping smooch against the entire side of her face, as well as most of her torso, rocking her sideways from the impact. 

“UUUGH!” she wailed, swatting his spit from her face.

“You kissed me, first, ya harlet,” he teased, stroking his huge finger down her nose. He grabbed a napkin and wrapped it snuggly around her, setting her lightly on the counter. “Well that was a fun tea party,” he said brightly, patting the top of her head. “Now you be a good girl and stay right there.” He flipped over the empty water glass and smacked it over top of her, trapping her beneath it. 

“Oh come on!” she yelled, her voice echoing, as his torso rose up from the barstool. 

He leaned over to grin down at her through the bottom of the cup from his full height. “Awe, you gonna miss me, little mouse girl?” he called, his fingers rapping loudly against the glass, knocking loose a couple of water droplets that rained down upon her. “Now don’t you worry, I’ll be right back.” 

He turned and she pounded her fist on the glass, yelling, “I’m worried about the limited air supply, Trevor!” But he either didn’t hear her or pretended not to as he walked off, the glass rattling on the counter with every step he took, growing weaker as he drew down the hallway to his bedroom.

She huffed, wrapping the napkin around her head, like a particularly bitter babushka, as water droplets dribbled down the side of the glass into a ring on the counter. She considered trying to push the glass along the slick surface of the countertop to hurl it over the side, but she decided she’d better not push him any more at the moment, lest she embark on another hellish waterslide ride. Or worse. 

She reached over to the glass wall to catch a droplet of water, letting it pool up into a dome in the palm of her hand. She stared at it for a second, shimmering with dancing lights and her own gloomy reflection, before she scrubbed it irritably against her cheek to wash away the clinging remnants of Trev’s sopping kiss.

Polly Pocket

A few minutes dragged by before Trev’s phone suddenly began to blast the deafening tunes of his obnoxious ‘Gold Digger’ ringtone, rattling the cup against the countertop with its aggressive vibrations.

Natalie clamped the napkin tightly over her ringing ears beneath her palms, clenching her face and screeching at the top of her lungs, “TREVOOOOOR!” 

The glass rattled rapidly with approaching footsteps and Trev’s hand descended to snatch up the phone, clicking off the ringer, while his other hand whacked into the side of the glass. “I heard it.”

She craned her neck to glower up at him through the bottom ring of the upside down glass, while, high above, he read the caller ID on his phone and huffed, rolling his eyes. He swiped his finger across the screen before jamming it to his ear, hollering, “Bro! Qué mierda quieres, eres peor que mi novia!”

Diego’s voice hollered indignantly from the receiver, “Eih, no compare me to Blondie, man, I find that offensive!”

“You are being very needy.”

“I am needy, bro! The fuck is taking you so long? I’m growing old and bitter down here, waiting for you to blow your fuckin’ load already!”

“Go harass Danno if you're so desperate for attention.”

“Danno’s already here, man, we’re both aging! He’s gone completely gray!”

“Whaddup, playaaa!” hollered a second voice from the receiver and Natalie groaned, rubbing her already pounding temples. “Bro, let us up! We wanna shoot some friggin nazis!”

“Gimme five more minutes,” Trev grumbled, also rubbing his temples.

“No way, man!” Diego hollered. “You can keep slappin’ your lil meat stick around if you want, we’re comin’ up! You’re the only one with a PS5, we ‘bout ready to commandeer that shit if you ain’t even usin’ it!”

“Gimme five fucking minutes, Jesus!” He hung up before he could interject. He scratched his head for a moment before his gaze dropped down to Natalie, scowling back up at him from beneath the glass. “Soo, the guys are coming over.”

“I gathered,” she sneered. “Mind turning off your ringer? You’ve already deafened me once today.”

“Certainly.” He clicked his phone to silent and jammed it in his pocket before setting the glass aside and reaching towards her.

“Can I have something to eat?” she asked quickly.

Trev’s hand froze before her while, high above, his face scrunched into a scowl. “Is that a joke?”

“No,” she said innocently. “You did say you’d feed me when I asked. I’m hungry.”

His jaw tightened and he grumbled under his breath, “Oof course you are.” He snatched a banana from the fruit bowl, yanking down its peel and ripping off a small chunk. “Here.” He shoved the banana chunk into her arms, the size of a beach ball. “Make it quick, you got one minute.” 

Natalie used two fingers to scoop off a bit of banana. She took a deep breath, her stomach twisting from the pungent aroma, and stuck her fingers into her mouth, grimacing at the blast of flavor. She ignored her nausea to force down as much of the banana as she could, assuming she wouldn’t have another chance to eat for a while. Trev stood anxiously over her with his arms crossed, tapping his heel, his eyes on the kitchen window, alert for approaching footsteps, and Natalie reveled in his perceptible trepidation. She wondered irritably where he was planning on stashing her for the next few hours.

Exactly one minute later he said, “Okay, times up,” yanking the banana from her and hurling it across the kitchen into the sink. 

He snatched her from her napkin towel and she called, “I have to pee!”

“Are you serious!”

“Well, I’m sorry Trevor, all that water just went right through–”

He huffed, clamping his hand around her to shut her up. He stalked into the bathroom and dropped her roughly onto the wobbling metal plug in the bottom of the sink. “Go.”

“Ugh, in the sink, Trevor?” she called up to him, her voice echoing in the gaping porcelain bowl. 

His torso rose up beyond the rim of the sink, arms crossed, glowering down at her from above. “You’ve peed in a sink before.”

“Okay, I was very drunk and fucking Danno was puking all over the toilet.”

“You got ten seconds.” 

“Can I at least have some priva–?”

“Eight seconds.”

“Don’t watch ya perv!” 

“Go!”

“I can’t go if you are watch-ing!”

“Agggh!” He turned around, knocking his knuckles against his forehead and grumbling under his breath in Spanish. He gave her more than ten seconds, tapping the heel of his foot impatiently until he heard the light tinkling dissipate. He ripped off a tiny corner of toilet paper and handed it down to her behind his back, waited another couple of seconds, then called, “You fucking done?”

“Yeah, I’ve been done,” she called. “Just need to wash my ha–”

His hand whipped down to snatch her from the sink and he stormed back to his bedroom. He slapped her down on his desk beside a pair of scissors and a red handkerchief that he had cut a slim ribbon from. He yanked the ribbon off of the desk and held it down to her. “Tie this around your mouth.”

She scowled up at him. “For real?”

“Or I can do it for you. Just thought you’d be able to do it gentler than I could.”

She huffed and took the cloth from between his massive fingers, wrapping it around her mouth.

“Make it tight,” he grumbled as he used the scissors to cut off an inch of string from her escape rope. “If you get yourself out of it I’ll use tape instead, and I can’t imagine that’ll be pleasant for you when it comes time to rip it off.”

She glared up at him as she tightened the cloth tighter, knotting it behind her head. She crossed her arms.

“Now scream.”

She huffed, rolling her eyes, and called softly, “Mmm,” the sound muffled against the cloth.

His palm whacked into the side of her head, knocking her to the desk. “Quit fucking around! Scream!”

She snarled up at him and drew in a breath, screaming as loud as she could, “MMMM!”

He nodded, satisfied. “Okay, that’s fine.” His fingers pinched around her arm, jerking her upright and pivoting her around on the desk. He pulled her hands behind her back, wrapping her wrists together with the piece of string.

“Mmm!” she moaned in protest, craning her neck back to glare at him upside down.

“Don’t look at me like that, Houdini,” he said as he knotted the string. “I’da been happy to make you a fun little box-house to hang around in, full of snacks and activities and I’da even set up my iPad to play you movies, like your own little movie theater, but you’ve shattered my confidence that you’ll still be in there when I get back. Now I gotta carry you around with me and I’m not convinced you won’t try’n climb out of my pocket.”

When her hands were sufficiently tied he sighed in relief before snatching her up. She soared up from the desk in his fist, coming to a halt before his giant face. “Now Natty,” his voice boomed crossly, blowing her hair from her face. “I was going to keep you nice and comfy, right here in my chest pocket,” he said, giving it a couple of pats. “But since you decided to go and be a little fuckass when you knew my friends might barge in any moment, you’ll be spending the evening down here, instead,” he patted his jeans pocket. “I hope you’ll take this time to get it through your tiny little head that you’re a toy and you belong to me, now, and there’s a price to pay for fuck-assery. And keep in mind there are far worse places I can stick my fuckass little toy when she displeases me.” 

She scowled up at him from his clenched fist, her mouth gagged and her hands bound behind her back. He stroked the tip of his finger over her head. “Now you be a good girl and behave down there while I have fun hanging out with my friends, got it?”

She continued scowling. 

He smiled and cooed, “Ooh, how can I stay mad at that cute little face. Come ‘ere.” His mouth drew upon her, his giant lips puckering with a loud, “Mmmm…” Natalie let out a muffled squeal, cringing away, but his boa constrictor fingers effortlessly held her in place as his plump lips smacked wetly around her face. He squished her into his puckered lips, squelching her entire head with a massive, wet, slobbering smooch. Then his lips popped back with a, “MWAH!” strings of saliva still clinging to her.

“Mmhmhm,” she whined, trying to rub his spit from her eyes against her shoulder.

“Ehehe, so cute,” he tittered, and his face rose above, his eyes following her as he lowered her down his torso towards his pocket. He held her in his lap for a moment while past his waist, up the length of his tee-shirt, he smiled cheerfully down at her and said, “Bye bye, Natty. Have fun down there.” His lips puckered to send her down a couple of little air kisses, before he slipped her through the denim rim into the softer fabric of his pocket. He plopped her onto her stomach at the very bottom, facing down the curving slope of his inner thigh.

“There you go, Natty, it’s nice and cozy down there in my pocket, isn’t it?” he purred, patting her against his leg a couple of times. “Now don’t you worry, I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”

His fingers lifted back up through the rim as he rose to his feet and Natalie slid face first into the corner of his pocket with a muffled, “Umph.” It was not nearly as hot or tight as Brittany’s pocket had been, but with the extra space she bounced and smacked against his leg with every step he took as he walked from the bedroom, back down the hallway. The denim was thick enough to prevent any light from passing through, yet she found she was still able to see perfectly well in the pitch black pocket, and she was also somehow able to see out through the fabric as clearly as she’d been able to see through his tee-shirt and Brittany’s stretched faux-denim leggings. She wondered dully if pocket-vision was another of her new abilities, and if that made her the lamest superhero ever.

She let out a muffled huff of irritation, laying at a downward angle with her legs above her head, and wriggled and rolled with his momentum until she was able to flip her legs around and kick herself out from the corner of his pocket to lay in a more comfortable position within the rising, falling, swinging, pounding hammock. She glared irritably up at his lower abdomen while the towering apartment panned by beyond her denim prison, cast with a dark blue tint, coming in and out of view past the inner thigh of his other leg with every pounding step he took. 

His feet planted before the bookshelves in the living room, and, far above, his arm extended to turn on his Bluetooth speaker. He pulled his phone from his other pocket to put on music, loud enough to ensure that even if she managed to wriggle lose the handkerchief around her mouth, no one would be able to hear her scream over the heavy base. 

He needn’t have bothered. The idea of either Diego or Danno discovering her tiny and tied up and naked within the confines of his jeans pocket was incentive enough to keep her fucking mouth shut. She had a hard time believing either would ever do anything to harm her, but she never would have believed Trev would, either, until he was stripping her down for a round of tonsil hockey between himself and the hamster fucker.

He walked back across the living room to open the back door and was immediately met by the screen door yanking open on the other side and a bellowing call of, “Hola, mi amor!” A pair of skinny brown legs in blue hightop converse and knee-length denim shorts leapt overhead, wrapping around Trev’s waist as Diego kissed him repeatedly on the cheek.

“Get outta here!” Trev grunted, throwing him off over the side of the couch, where he plopped onto his back with a most damsel-like squeal. 

“Bout time, ya dick!” came Danno’s deep voice, and Natalie cringed against Trev’s leg as a huge fist came barreling towards his groin.

Trev dodged the punch, whacking him in the head. “Bro! Quit tryna grab my dick!”

“Aha, someone’s gotta!” Diego called from where he was still sprawled across the couch, controller already in hand, turning on the PS5. “Don’t seem like your girl’s very impressed by your love-making skills if you’re at home wankin’ it on Friday night. ’S no wonder Pobrecita out there lovin’ hamsters.”

The three of them laughed and Natalie groaned, bonking her head against Trev’s leg, feeling like one shouldn’t have to feel in such a precarious position so close to a guy’s dick amongst a group of (supposedly) heterosexual males. She prepared herself for a long evening of pot-smoking, dick jokes, and video games. 

Tweedle-Di and Tweedle-Dan had both moved to the complex in the first grade, within a couple months of each other. Diego was the smallest of the boys, though still half a foot taller than Natalie, with thick black hair and rich brown eyes. Danno had a midnight dark complexion, and kept his hair meticulously buzzed into a burst fade mohawk. He and Trev had spent most of their childhoods competing over which of them was the biggest and strongest of the group, until Danno finally won the battle in their sophomore year, when he shot up to 6’4”. He’d always been a bit of a blockhead, but had become increasingly obnoxious over the previous year after making the varsity football and basketball teams.

Danno collapsed into the armchair, snatching up the second controller, while Trev knocked Diego’s feet off the couch and plopped down on the other end, causing Natalie to drop rapidly and collide into his thigh. The denim compressed her against his leg as he leaned across the couch to swipe the controller from Diego’s hand.

“Yo!” Diego called indignantly, throwing a hand up.

“Yeah, fuck you, get your own PS5,” said Trev, sitting upright again. His hand descended towards Natalie, holding the controller. She groaned and tried to kick herself out from under it but the edge of his pinky flattened down across her belly from the otherside of the pocket, pinning her against his leg beneath the controller, ignoring her as she squirmed and kicked angrily against him through the heavy fabric.

“Aight man, but I get next round,” said Diego, utterly unaware of the commotion taking place on the other side of the couch. He leaned over the coffee table, pulling a sandwich baggie of weed and some papers from his pocket. “Will el Capitán be joining us tonight?”

“Naw, he’s out till Wednesday,” said Trev absently as he geared up his Call of Duty avatar.

“Mannn,” said Danno. “Your dad is so fuckin’ cool. Think he gets a lotta action, flyin’ around the fuckin’ world and shit?”

“Oh fuck yeah, dude,” said Diego. “He told me once he’s been laid on every continent.”

“No way.”

“It’s true! Capitán’s a fuckin’ balla!”

“What about the cold one? Who you think he’s fuckin’ at the North Pole? Fuckin’ Rudolph?”

Trev snorted. “You mean Antarctica? The one that’s South?”

“Yeah, whatever, dick, there’s nobody fuckin’ there is my point.”

“People go there all the time, stupid!” Diego laughed. “He was prolly down there bangin’ some fine ass scientist babe!”

This riveting debate gradually evolved into the logistics of performing romantic maneuvers in subarctic conditions as Trev and Danno started up their round of Call of Duty, and the room blared with the sounds of battle and gunshots emanating from the television. Trev’s hand pressed down against Natalie, his thumb, index, and middle fingers smacking madly around the controller atop her. Far above his knuckles, above the length of his tee-shirt, the underside of his jaw was locked in concentration, his gaze straight ahead. 

She huffed and rolled her head to the side to watch their game on the TV across the room, beyond the ledge of his knee, her denim tinted view occasionally obstructed by Diego’s arm or back as he leaned forward over the coffee table to roll a joint. The scene felt eerily melancholy. 

Trev’s dad had gotten him a PS5 for his sixteenth birthday and the four of them, and Nick, had spent most every night for a month crowded around the TV, Natalie sitting in Trev’s lap, his arms wrapped around her, holding his controller against her waist with his chin on her shoulder, occasionally digging into her as he grumbled some taunt into her ear when they played against each other. There had been a set hierarchy, the same their group had had since they were children—Trev and her played first, then the winner played either Tweedle-Di or Tweedle-Dan, whoever was being less annoying that day, and poor little Nicky, as the youngest, always had to go last, his turn besieged by twenty minutes straight of flirtatious trash-talk between Trev and Natalie as they geared up for their rematch. 

She wasn’t the only one who seemed to detect the weight of her absence. “So,” said Diego as he rolled the joint. “You got Natty Light stashed up in here witchu, or what?”

Natalie jolted at the sound of her name, but Trev, like a true narcissist, was not the least bit phased. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno, couldn’t help but notice you two and Blondie all ditched, today. Thought maybe y’all excused yourselves to, uh, squash your beef, so to speak.” 

“Mmm,” Danno smirked. “Squashed beef sandwich.”

“Mhm, okay,” Trev grinned, his attention never leaving the game. “That’s why my girlfriend and I ditched, don’t ask me where Diablita went. Prolly back down to rule over the underworld.”

The other two snickered as she gave his thigh an ill-tempered kick and his pinky ground down on her belly from the world beyond his pocket.

“To hell with her, anyway,” said Danno. “When’re you gonna bring my beautiful princess over?”

Diego laughed out loud as Trev said, “Never.”

“Awe for real? What’s the point of you fucking the hottest girl in school if you ain’t even gonna bring her ‘round?”

“Bro, you ever actually talk to Blondie before?” said Diego. “I’d rather chug a bottle of fuckin’ bleach, man, save some brain cells.”

“I could care less ‘bout the conversation, bro, I just wanna ogle them titties.”

“Aha, well you ain’t be oglin’ ‘em for long she comes ‘round here, man. Diablita’s gonna bounce those tig ol’ bitties all the way down the fuckin’ stairs.”

Danno smirked. “You really think Natty Light could take her?”

“Oh, fuck yeah, dude, she could kick my ass.”

“Well, yeah, that’s ‘cause you’re kinda a little bitch. I bet my princess could throw down, though, she’s, like, an athlete and shit.”

“Psh, cheerleaders ain’t no athletes.”

“You kiddin’ me, bro! They out there doin’ flips and shit! And she’s got those fuckin’ nails, man, she’s like a sexy tiger. Plus she’s like, twice Light’s size.”

“Size don’t matter, man, Natty Light’s a fuckin’ G,” Diego mumbled with his joint between his lips, holding a lighter against the other end. He took a hit and said with his inhale, “I give it two seconds ‘fore Blondie’s fuckin’ sleepin’.” 

“Whatchu think, Trev?” asked Danno, nudging him with his elbow. “Who’d win in a fight?”

“Brit,” said Trev, and Natalie snorted humorlessly from within his pocket, rolling her eyes.

Diego snickered, sending a dank fog across the living room. “Ah, whatever, you liar. You’re still just salty cause she dumped your stupid ass for lil hipster boy. Yo, pause it.” He held the joint up to Trev, and Natalie groaned in dread. 

There were many distinct Trev personas, chief among them were happy, fun, goofy, touchy-feely Trev, and angry, spiteful, mean, psychotic Trev. While alcohol might summon either/ or in the course of an evening, weed tended to bring out the extremes of Happy Trev, which, when they were dating, had often resulted in him not being able to take his hands off of her. While she had once rather enjoyed the boundless affections of Happy Trev, he may prove to be a bit of a nightmare at his current size. Perhaps he thought so, too, because he passed the joint along to Danno without taking a hit.

“You ain’t smokin’ man?” 

“Naw, not tonight,” he said, without offering further explanation.

“Still want my twenty bucks, man.”

“Yeah, yeah, ya broke ass record.”

“Yeah, yeah, ya cheap ass fucklord.” 

Time dragged by and Natalie’s mind glazed over with boredom; stuck listening to fatuous conversations she could neither join, nor mock, watching a game that turned out to be rather stupid when you were doomed to never have a turn. She felt a dull throb of sympathy for Tommy; stuck forever at the very bottom of the totem pole, too low to even have a place in the hierarchy. For all the times she’d dragged him over to Trev’s with her when she was stuck babysitting, only to ignore him the entire time, hollering at him to shut up any time he made so much as a peep, and never—absolutely never—permitting him to lay a grubby little hand on one of the holy PS5 controllers. She supposed there was some level of karmic justice in all this, for all her years of cruel, borderline authoritarian rule over her younger brothers, only to find herself at an inconceivably lower level of the totem pole. 

*                                                *                                                *

Sometime after dark, when it was Diego and Danno’s turn to play again, Natalie shot suddenly upwards as Trev rose to his feet. “Be right back,” he said as edged out around the coffee table. “Nature calls.”

She groaned against his swinging thigh, wondering what the odds were he’d be courteous enough to remove her from his pocket before answering the call, as he walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. His feet planted before the toilet and she groaned louder, kicking his thigh as he lifted the toilet seat up with a loud clank. 

“Sorry, Nat,” he muttered from above, though he didn’t sound sorry at all. “All that water just went right through me.”

She was jostled around in his pocket as he undid his jeans beside her, flopping his whale of a dick through the zipper like Free fucking Willy. A powerful stream of piss clanged and echoed into the toilet bowl like a firehose and she wailed indignantly against her handkerchief, kicking his thigh repeatedly until he suddenly jolted and let out a laugh, covering his mouth with his free hand, and snickered under his breath, “Damnit!” His palm barrelled into her from the outside of his pocket as he whacked her repeatedly. “Quit doing that, Natty, you’re giving me a boner! I just about pissed all over the place!”

He gave his semi-erect dick a couple of sharp shakes before jamming it back into his pants, and Natalie felt a peculiar sort of kinship towards it, as if her fellow captive of Trev’s jeans had mindfully betrayed their fiendish overlord on her behalf.

As he emerged from the hallway, Diego called, “Yo, you got any snacks?”

“Yeah, I gotchu.”

He rummaged through the kitchen cabinets, grabbing a couple bags of chips. He plopped back down on the couch, tossing the bags on the coffee table, blocking Natalie’s view of the TV. And so she was stuck watching Trev munch mindlessly on chips for what felt like hours, while she lay smooshed against his thigh, glaring irritably up at him as he lifted chip after chip to his mouth with a tumultuous CRUNCH! his jaw chomping and crunching and grinding, making an irksome racket, reaching for another before he’d even sent it squelching down his gullet. 

There came a sudden loud rapping on the screen door and she was tugged across his thigh as he turned to see who it was. “Come in, bro, it’s open!” he called, while his fingers quickly slid down through the pocket to clamp around her. 

She understood why when, a moment later, the screen door opened with more thunderous footsteps and Danno said, “Sup, Nicky Boy,” and Diego said, “Què pasa, Natty Jr.?” and her heart skittered as she heard her brother’s booming voice say, “Howdy neighbors. My sister over here?”

Trash Talk

“Naw, man,” said Trev overhead. “You know she’s too cool to slum it with us low lives no more.”

“Yeah,” said Nick irritably, plopping down on the couch next to him, his leg mere inches from where Natalie was struggling with all her might against Trev’s clenched fingers, letting out a desperate, muffled squeal against her handkerchief, no longer giving a flying fuck about being discovered in such shameful position, trusting her brother to keep her safe, to have her back against Trev and the other two, no matter how they reacted to finding out she’d been there the entire time, bound and naked and tiny and helpless. Trev’s grip tightened around her to keep her restrained, further smothering the faint sounds of her muffled squeaks within his fingers. 

Nick went right on talking, completely oblivious to the struggle taking place below, his voice booming in the sky above, “Frank’s losing his shit cause she hasn’t come home and she apparently ditched school today. Thought she might be crashing at your place.”

“Check her boyfriend’s,” said Trev dryly.

“I did, he hasn’t seen her either. She usually texts me where she’s staying in case she gets murdered or something, but she’s not picking up the fucking phone.”

Natalie tried to think where her phone even was. She supposed it was still in her backpack at school. She imagined the dark interior of her locker being illuminated by the eerie glow of her phone’s background—a painting she’d done of an ocean sunset, the water appearing disturbingly like blood, the beach a pale, lifeless corpse. She imagined her ‘Truth Hurts’ ringtone echoing across the dark high school hallway, with no one around to hear. 

“Don’t stress, man,” said Trev. “You know what she’s like.”

Nick huffed. “I’m not, it’s just fucking annoying. She’s prolly pissed at me cause I got her in trouble with Frank this morning.”

“Yeah, bro, think we all heard,” Danno laughed distractedly from the armchair, his focus on the game. 

“Yeah, the Tank sure can carry a tune first thing in the morning,” Diego added from Nick’s other side. “Lo siento, Nikito, but I don’t think hermana’s comin’ home any time soon.”

“Ugh,” Nick groaned, rubbing his temples. “He’s gonna go bat shit if she’s run off, again. And now, like, I got fuckin’ Mattie texting me all freaked out ‘cause they were supposed to hang out tonight but she ditched him and I dunno how to be like, ‘I dunno, bro. Get a better girlfriend.’” 

“Aha, yeah, well,” said Danno. “He’s gotta know by now she’s out fucking some poor other prick.”

“Dude,” Nick sneered, throwing a hand up.

“No offense, bro, but fuck your sister, she’s been a right biotch to my boy, here. Jokes on her, though, eih Trev, ya fuckin’ dick?” He whacked the back of his free hand against Trev’s groin, rattling the fist in his pocket that held said biotch. “Someone please explain to me how this dopey fuckwad managed to go from fucking little flatty Natty to an actual Goddamn Goddess.” 

Nick scowled in the exact same way that, unbeknownst to him, Natalie was scowling from within Trev’s clenched fist. 

Even from her angle, she could see Trev’s smirk as his fingers gave her a couple of mocking squeezes in his pocket. “Yeah, it’s definitely an upgrade in the tits department.” 

Diego took a hit of his joint and said, “Awe, shit, man, you finally done moping over Natty Light? That mean I can ask her out?”

Trev stiffened, his expression darkening in an instant, but before he could respond, Nick grumbled, “She’s gotta boyfriend.”

“Yeah, sure, I met him,” said Diego with an indifferent shrug, passing him the joint. “He’s aight, but he’s kinda a lil bitch boy, ain’t no way it’ll last. She gonna get bored of that nice guy shit real quick.”

Natalie ground her teeth, wishing these dicks would shut up about that sweet gentleman when he’d never uttered an unkind word about anyone in his life. Not even Trev. Not even when Trev punched him in the face.

Nick huffed out his lungful of smoke and said, “Regardless,” holding the joint out to Trev, who shook his head irritably, so he reached across the coffee table to pass it to Danno. “I must insist all neighbors back the fuck off the Jordan residence. I’m still dealing with the aftermath of the Dalton fiasco.”

“Ah, bro, come on, I'd treat her nicer than fuckboy, here,” said Diego. “I’d take her over Blondie any day.”

“For real?” Danno laughed with his exhale. “She’s short as shit with no ass and no tits.”

“Naw, man, she’s fine as hell,” said Diego. “And she’s funny as fuck. And she plays video games, I’d kill to take her out.”

“I mean,” said Danno. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t fuck her. I bet she’s fucking tight, right Trev?”

Trev’s fist clenched even tighter around Natalie, so hard she could feel his rapid heartbeat pulsating through his hot, increasingly sweaty palm. She wondered dully which of their dumbass friends was about to get pummeled first.

“Agh,” Nick groaned. “Seriously, bro?”

Danno smirked. “As a heart attack my brotha. Plus I hear she’ll let you do anything you want for a dollar a minute. You heard about that party the other night, right? She was fuckin’ dudes on the dining room table, right in front of everyone. There was a whole crowd of guys, scrounging together dollar bills and loose change and shit. That’s how she got the shiner.”

“That’s bullshit,” said Nick. “No joke, man, quit talkin’ shit about my sister or I’ma legit beat the fuck outta you.”

“It’s true, bro, I was fuckin’ there!”

“You didn’t see shit,” said Diego.

“Yeah, okay, but I heard the whole thing. You could hear these fuckers hollerin’ all the way from outside. And I came in right at the end of it. I was ‘bout ready to whoop somebody’s ass when I saw her face all bashed up and shit, but she was totally cool with it, just, like, drunk as shit and laughin’ her fuckin’ ass off, takin’ bids with all these dudes for who got the next round while her lil boyfriend was tryna drag her crazy ass out. I ain’t even judgin’ her for it, homegirl can take a punch, might as well make some money offa it. My boy Craig gave her a fiver, did shit you wouldn’t believe.”

“Aha, you’re right, I don’t believe,” said Diego. “I think prolly your boy, he’s full of shit. I offer her twenty one time just to hold my hand, so I can look cool for this cute girl I liked, and she fuckin’ hit me, bro, all like, ‘Do I look like a fuckin’ whore to you!’ Right in front of the cute girl, too, I nearly died.”

“I mean, just cause she’s a bitch don’t mean she’s not a fuckin’ trash who–”

Nick jolted forward to punch him in the leg, bellowing, “You don’t wanna finish that sentence, dickass!” 

“Woah!” Danno yelled with a groaning laugh, rubbing his leg as Nick huffed back to the couch again. “Take it easy tiger, don’t get all hissy with me! I ain’t makin’ this shit up, am I, Di?”

“Yeah, man, I heard it,” said Diego. “Don’ make it true. It ain’t cool what these dickboys are sayin’, bro. Dudes hear shit like that, they get fuckin’ creepy. Remember all that shit that went down in middle school, when she kept gettin’ fuckin’ pushed around and harrased and shit? It’s like Booty-licious Smackdown all over again. Worse, bro, it’s bad.” 

“Since when you got such a boner for her anyway?” 

“Ay, c’mon, man, don’t be like that. She’s our friend.”

“No she’s not,” said Trev flatly, who’d allowed this conversation to carry forth for the sole purpose of annoying Natalie, but had had just about enough of it.

“Yes she is,” said Diego. “Look, I already told you, okay, I’m Switzerland, I don’t want no parta whatever fucked up fuckin’ revenge war y’all got goin’ on. But Nick, for real, bro, guys’ve been sayin’ some messed up shit. Yesterday, this fuckboy in our English class, asked her how much to break a finger. A fuckin’ finger, bro! And she told him to go take his, um, ‘violently repressed homoerotic fantasies’ out on his boys like the rest of the football team, and he got all mad, like, ‘Oh, cool, so, free?’ I’da beat the shit outta him, but Natty told me to just ignore it, she didn’t wanna draw any more attention to it. And that wasn’t even the worst, man, she’s had it out with half the guys at school. If she ain’t pickin’ up the phone, that might actually be kinda fuckin’ concerning.”

Nick scowled while Danno laughed. “Awe, shit, Natty Light really gotta quit callin’ dudes homoerotic, she gonna get fuckin’ gang bang–”

“Shut the fuck up, Danno!” Trev burst out. He scowled at Diego. “And you didn’t think to tell me any of this?”

“Naw, man, I ain’t tellin’ you, now, either, I’m tellin’ Nick. Ya think we don’t all know that your girl’s the one that started the rumors in the first place?”

“Yeah? So?”

Diego grumbled something in Spanish that no one but Trev understood.

Trev scowled. “Yeah, okay. I didn’t start that shit, okay? And even if I did, the rumors started after she got herself punched in the fucking face. I literally had nothing to do with any of it.”

“Whatever bro,’ said Diego, shrugging. “Like I said, I ain’t gettin’ in the middle of it. Wouldn’t wanna get on your bad side.”

“Okay, get out.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, right the fuck now. That goes for you, too, fuckhead,” he added to Danno, snatching the controller from him. “Get the fuck out.”

“The fuck did I do?” Danno laughed. “Di’s the one that wants to bone your ex.”

Diego scoffed and wrenched to his feet. “Whatever, man, see ya,” he said, tossing the other controller onto the coffee table before stalking out the back door.

Danno’s eyes were still on the TV. “Can I least finish this–”

“Get out, Danno!”

“Alright, alright!” he laughed, following after Diego. “Jeez, girl, didn’t realize you were on the fuckin’ rag. Later, Nicky Boy!”

“Mmm,” Nick grumbled, glaring after him.

Natalie craned her neck back to try and peer between Trev’s clenched fingers, through the denim of his pocket, to glimpse the underside of her brother’s glowering face, high above and upside down, biting his fingernails.

Trev’s elbow lifted up to nudge him. “You good?” 

Nick exhaled, shaking his head. “Yeah, man, just, like, why’s she gotta be such a shit-show all the time, you know? I don’t see any other girls getting finger breaking propositions.”

“I hear you, bro. Your sister’s got a real talent for pissing dudes off enough to see past the whole ‘Don’t hit a girl’ thing. Equality and all that.”

“Equality for who, she’s like, ninety pounds.”

“Pretty sure she’s less than that,” said Trev dryly. “Don’t worry about it, she can take care of herself. She prolly just got fed up with all this trash whore shit and wanted to get the fuck out for a bit. She does this all the time, she’ll be back.” 

“Yeah, it’s just, like… she’s usually with you. And she always fucking texts, you know? Even when you guys took off on that fucking beach trip, she gave me the address and was texting me the whole time about your sketchy ass cousin.” 

“Huh,” Trev grumbled, unaware this correspondence had taken place.

“Think I oughta tell Dad what Di said? About the threats and shit?”

“If you want, man, but honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it. She’s been on a warpath lately. If I had to guess, she’s prolly tryna get back at you for whatever went down with Frank this morning.”

“Yeah, probably,” Nick grumbled, his brows furrowing, and Natalie’s brows furrowed, too, because she would never do that to him. To anyone else, maybe, certainly to fucking Trev, but not him. Both she and their dad, no matter how much they fought, always kept their phones charged, always kept them nearby with the ringer on, specifically because they knew how stressed Nick got when he couldn’t reach one of them, going into a panic that they were dead and he was never going to see them again. “Not gonna lie,” he muttered. “I’ve been getting all kinds of weird vibes all fucking day. Like, don't ask me why, I know you guys don’t really hang out anymore, but I really thought she was over here.”

“Huh,” said Trev, frowning. “That’s weird.”

“Yeah. And it was kind of a fucking relief, like, oh, cool, maybe they finally made up and things can go back to fucking normal, you know?”

“Sorry, Nick,” Trev muttered, and meant it. He looked him up and down, noticing how he, while not nearly as skinny as his sister, was still looking rather slim. “You hungry? I was about to make something.”

“Um,” said Nick, rubbing his forehead. “Naw, I’m good. I should prolly get back. Dad ran out to pick up some pizzas, tryna make a peace offering for going the fuck off on everybody this morning. You wanna come? It’s tense as fuck over there right now, but he’s been asking about you. Might take his mind off Nat.”

“I don’t think your sister would appreciate that,” said Trev, which was true on so many levels.

“Yeah, well, fuck her anyway, I’m so done with this shit.” He rose from the couch, and Natalie watched miserably as his legs drew away and out of sight around the armchair. “Lemme know if you hear from her, would you?”

“Sure thing. Take it easy.”

“Later,” he said, and the back door shut behind him. 

Trev waited on the couch for another moment before he rose to his feet and followed after him, locking the door. He turned to walk back to his bedroom, his hand lifting Natalie from his pocket. He slid the cloth down from her mouth and she immediately burst out, “You’re a real piece of shit, you know that!”

“Well hello to you, too,” he said as he walked. 

“You are not seriously gonna let my little brother go home thinking I’ve been murdered by a buncha dumbshit fucking high school jabrones.”

“I doubt he’ll lose sleep over it.”

She sneered. “Well then you’re an actual fucking sociopath.”

He sneered back before roughly releasing his fingers from around her, dropping her onto the surface of his desk, where she landed hard and toppled onto her butt, unable to catch herself with her hands still bound behind her back. “You’re just bitter that he’s pissed at you,” he said as he plopped down into the desk chair.

“No he’s not! He tries to act tough in front of you dipshits but he’s sensitive as fuck! If he doesn’t hear from me he’s gonna flip out, thinking something happened to me, and he’s gonna blame himself for the fight with Frank, and he’s gonna spiral himself into a fucking panic attack!"

“Jeez, you think I’m the sociopath?” He grabbed the scissors to cut through the string binding her hands. “You run off all the time, you really think anyone’s gonna be that worried?”

“Nicholas will be, yes! He’s a little momma’s boy who’s momma fucking died, okay! He never had to deal with seeing her lifeless corpse, but for him it was just, like, she just vanished into thin air one day and never came back! Whaddo you think he’s over there thinking about right now? So just, like, sign into my Snapchat or something. You can message him whatever you want, that I ‘took off’ or whatever, just tell him something.”

He glared down at her. “And why the fuck would I do that.”

She glared back up at him. “Common courtesy.”

“I’m showing you a shit ton of courtesy right now by not gagging you again. Not really sure why my toy is tryna tell me what to do right now.”

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

His fingers wrapped around her and he lifted her to his face. “And you’re a manipulative fucking bitch to try and use your little brother and dead mom to guilt me into bringing you home.”

She scowled up at him, too pissed to be intimidated. “I’m not manipulating you, dickweed. That unpleasantness you’re experiencing is called having a fucking conscience. So how bad you wanna hurt me, Trev? Because you’re gonna have to deal with the fact that you’re hurting Nick way worse right now. And depending on how long you wanna play this fucked up little game of yours, you’re also gonna hurt Tommy, and my dad, and our friends.”

“You mean the guys that just spent the last twenty minutes objectifying and belittling you? Those friends?”

“Yep, those friends. Even fucking Danno. He acts like a piece of shit around you, but you know when we broke up and you were losing your shit he told me he’d have my back if your crazy ass tried anything. They’re all gonna blame you if I go missing. Diego already blames you for the trash whore thing.”

“Yeah, about that,” he snarled. “Did you tell him I was the one who started all that shit?”

She sneered. “No. I told him that Brittany started it, which was true. But if your own friends suspect you of being maniacal enough to orchestrate something so sinister, maybe you oughta do some self-reflection on the way you treat people.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were getting threatened?”

She laughed coldly from within his clenched fist. “Why the fuck would I tell you?”

“Because I’d have beat the living shit out of anyone threatening you.”

“First of all, take a look in a fucking mirror, you monster. Second of all, that is exactly why I did not tell you, when you were already harassing the shit out of me about the shiner. And it wasn’t just one guy, okay? Like Diego said, it was, like, half the fucking school.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I beat up half the fucking school for you.”

“Yeah, that’s my point! It’s always the same with you guys; just beat somebody’s ass and it’ll all go away, but it doesn’t! It only makes it worse! That slut-shaming shit in middle school was the worst fucking month of my life and it was all a big fucking game of hero vigilante to you!”

“No it wasn’t,” he said flatly. “You have no idea what that shit was like for me.”

“Ooh my God,” she laughed incredulously. “I’m so sorry, Trevor, it must have been just awful, for you.”

“Yeah. It was. It was fucking awful. Every time I turned my back some dickboy was groping you or pushing you around or calling you names. And no matter how many I beat up they just kept multiplying, like a fucking hydra. You think that shit didn’t fuck with me, too? You think I wasn’t laying awake at night, wishing I could trade places with you so that they’d come after me and leave you the fuck alone?”

“Well, I’m touched, Trev, but it was my problem and I was the one that had to deal with it. Just like the trash whore situation is my problem, and there’s really nothing you or anybody else can do to fix it.”

“Well, actually, you’re wrong. I can make it so no one ever threatens you, or talks shit to you, or fucking looks at you, ever again.”

She reeled back, scowling. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Do I sound like I’m fucking with you?”

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “Trevor,” she said sternly. “You can not keep me here.”

“Sure I can. Easily.”

“No you can’t, Trevor!” she bellowed, losing all sense of calm in an instant. “It’s abduction, it’s a fucking crime! This isn’t a game, anymore, okay? My family’s getting worried, and you need to bring me home, now, or they are going to end up going to the fucking police!”

“I don’t. Care.”

“HOW can you not CARE!” she squealed, hammering her tiny fist against his index finger. “How can you do this to me! How can you hurt me so bad and just, like, not even give a shit! How can you treat me this way!”

He snorted. “You know, I dunno how many times I’ve asked myself those same exact questions about you over the years.”

Her brows drew together. “So then, just, let me go,” she pleaded. “Just let me leave.”

“Awe.” His thumb rose up past her face to stroke the top of her head. “No.”

“I don’t understand you, Trevor. You keep saying all this stuff like you wanna protect me… So why do you wanna hurt me so bad?”

His thumb rubbed down harder against her. “Oh, but Natalie, I’m not doing this to you because I wanna protect you. I mean, I did, once upon a time, but not now. How could I ever give a shit about you, you’re a toy. I just don’t like other people touching my things.”

Despite everything he’d done to her that day, despite the pain and the torment and the abduction and the humiliation, hearing those words still felt like a dagger twisting through her heart. “And what are you doing to me, Trevor Dalton?” she asked quietly. “How does this game end?”

He smiled and lifted her up between his eyes, his thumb pressing painfully into her scalp, his fingers constricting tightly around her ribcage. “The game ends, Natalie Jordan, when I break you.” 

She frowned up at him, her heart pounding and ribs straining, while he grinned mercilessly down at her. Then he said, “You want some dinner?”

Sleepover

Everything was in slow motion as Trev’s eyes bore into her’s. She was kneeling beside Mattie, who was hunched up on the icy cement, clutching his bleeding face. Her friends stood between them and Trev, shoving him back and Katie was screaming in his face, “What’s the MATTER with you, you PSYCHO!”

Their group had been hanging around on some snow covered picnic benches by the little coffee stall on the river-walk, chatting and laughing and drinking lattes and hot chocolates beneath hanging string lights while a late winter snow settled on their hats and gloves and melted into the raging waters of the river below. She and Mattie had been huttled together atop one of the tables, tittering about the persistent cold, when out of nowhere a fist collided into his face, hurling him off the table. 

Trev ignored the hollering hipsters in his face, his eyes locked on Natalie’s. His brows were furrowed, his green eyes glassy and fluttering, his mouth twisted into a frown, his teeth bared. Natalie knew that look. He was either about to break something or start fucking sobbing. Or both.

Her gut reaction was to comfort him. She started to rise automatically, just as Danno appeared over Trev’s shoulder, grabbing him by the arm and shooting her a disdainful glare as he yanked him back. Trev squeezed his eyes shut as he turned away, wrenching his arm from Danno’s grasp as he stalked off down the river-walk, Diego and Danno flanking him on either side to make sure he didn’t go punching anybody else.

And for a second she just knelt there on the icy cement, gaping after her ex’s retreating back as snow settled on her beanie and frost splintered through her veins. There was no stopping this runaway train she’d sent catapulting into motion. Everything was fucked. 

Truly. 

Royally. 

Fucked.

She was thinking the same thing as she sat hunched up and shivering on a cold countertop with her arms wrapped around her knees while Trev towered above, cooking himself a simple dinner of beans and rice and chatting amiably about God knew what. She wasn’t listening, her mind still spinning and turning over what exactly he intended to do to her.

There was a decent chance he hadn’t meant what he’d said about keeping her there. He could very well have just been messing with her, knowing how she would stew over his words, obsessing over their meaning. He despised whenever anyone tried to analyze him, and sometimes said or did crazy things just to confound all analysis. 

Or maybe, she said to herself. He’s just that fucking crazy.

“Yeah, that, too,” she said back, nodding.

And now you’re talking to yourself. 

She groaned, lowering her face against her knees, pressing her hands over her ears to try and muffle the sounds of Trev’s incessant rambling, booming from above. 

Maybe this was what he wanted. To send her spiraling into dismay. 

Or maybe he truly planned on keeping her like a pet. Of tormenting her until she lost her mind. Her heart picked up speed, panic gurgling up from her stomach with the realization that there was absolutely nothing she could do to prevent him from keeping her here if he chose to, from doing whatever the fuck he wanted. She squeezed her eyes shut against her knees, gasping for breath, digging her nails into her scalp, trying to ward off the encroaching panic before it consumed her. 

“Hey.” A huge finger suddenly prodded into her side. “Are you listening?” She lifted her gaze to find herself level with a set of giant green eyes, Trev having squatted down in front of the counter before her. His irises shifted and flickered, taking in her hunched, quivering form. Then he smiled. “Dinner’s ready.” And the shadow of his hand fell over her. 

She sat on his lap on the couch while he ate his dinner, watching Netflix, holding the bowl high above, the sky an insufferable thunderstorm of spoon scraping and chewing and swallowing and digestive gurgling. True to his word, he neglected to make her her own portion, but after he’d had his fill, he scooped a single remaining black bean from his bowl and lowered his spoon down to hover before her.

She blinked at it and craned her neck to scowl up at him with one eyebrow raised. But he was not looking at her, his attention on the television, completely indifferent to whether she accepted his offering of scraps or not. She lowered her gaze back to the football sized black bean before her, sitting within the curve of his spit smeared spoon. Her stomach grumbled. She sighed in defeat and reached out to take the black bean in both hands.

Trev’s reaction may have been imperceptible to someone normal sized, but Natalie felt the slight shifting of his thigh beneath her, heard the long intake of breath overhead, saw the twitching of his fingers around the spoon held before her. 

Her irritation swiftly overpowered her hunger—that sick mother fucker was loving every fucking second of this. She lifted the black bean to her mouth, spat on it, and tossed it back onto the spoon.

A snicker came from above. “Charming.” He leaned forward to set his bowl and spoon onto the coffee table. “Well, it’s just there if you change your mind.”

 He leaned back again, his hand coming towards her to curl around her, lifting her from his thigh. He held her in his hand as he watched the show, his fingers mindlessly stroking her and kneading her and fidgeting with her while she scowled and squirmed fruitlessly within his abrasive grasp, keeping herself sane by imagining the carnage she'd bestow upon him if only the roles were reversed.

When the show ended he stretched and said, “Ready for bed?” He turned off the TV and stuffed her in his chest pocket. He tramped around the apartment, tidying up the kitchen and brushing his teeth before returning to his bedroom. The fabric around her trembled ominously, then wrenched suddenly upwards as he pulled his tee-shirt off over his head, with her still in his pocket.

“TREVOR!” she screeched, clutching to the fabric for dear life as she was jostled about.

“Whoops." The fabric chamber flipped upside down and shook violently and she tumbled from his pocket to collapse onto his bed. “Sorry Natty,” he smirked, tossing his discarded shirt into the hamper. “Forgot you were in there.”

She scowled up at him, level with his groin as he unbuckled his jeans, revealing his blue checkered boxers. “So where do I sleep?” she called, dreading the answer.

He smiled down at her, patting his bare chest.

She groaned, sitting upright. “Trev. Come on.” 

“What’s the problem?” he asked, pulling his jeans down his long, slender legs.

“You’ll crush me.”

“No I won’t.” He stumbled onto one foot, pulling one leg from his jeans, and then the other, before tossing them into the hamper. “Don’t you miss sleeping with me?”

“Particularly the way you always rolled on top of me.”

“Yeah, cause you were cute and comfy and I liked having you squished beneath me like a comfy little pillow.” He stepped up to the bed, so close she could barely see his face, smiling down at her past the stretch of his body. “I won’t roll on top of you.”

“And if you do?”

“Then wake me up.”

“And if I can’t wake you?”

“Then I’ll squish you. Now, can you promise me you’ll be a good little mouse girl while I sleep, and won’t try to run away again?”

She glared up at him, averting her gaze from the giant appendage dangling before her, concealed only by the thin checkered fabric of his boxers.

“Okay, well you don’t have to,” he continued when she didn’t answer. “But you are gonna sleep with me. And if I can’t trust you to stay I’ll have to tie you to my hand with a piece of string and I’m not sure how restful a night that’ll be for you. My hands tend to roam south, if you catch my drift.”

“Fine,” she spat.

“Fine, what?”

“I promise not to run away while you sleep,” she snarled, although she planned to do just that.

“Good girl,” he cooed, petting the top of her head with the tip of his finger. “And Natty,” he tucked his finger under her chin, raising her face to look up at him. “If I catch you breaking your promise, which, rest assured, I will, you’ll be sleeping in my southern regions from now on.” 

His hand released her face to jostle his dick and balls within his boxers while he grinned devilishly down at her. 

She scowled. “Ew.”

He turned off his desk lamp, leaving on the string lights over his bed to cast the room in a dim glow. He climbed into bed in just his boxers, and Natalie scampered out of his way as he climbed overtop of her, then plopped down and settled himself under the blankets, lifting them like a tidal wave that flung her off her feet. She lay on her back for a moment, huffing at the ceiling, before his palm came barreling into her to scoop her up and dump her atop his warm chest, his hand plopping down on top of her to keep her there.

His free hand held his phone in the air above, its screen casting a bluish glow over his face as he swiped mindlessly through TikTok, blank-faced, occasionally grinning slightly with a light snicker, sending a vibration beneath her. She rose and fell with every breath he took, his breathing growing gradually deeper, his rhythmic heartbeat calming. The thumb of the hand draped over her gently stroked up and down her back, his fingers twitching unconsciously every so often. 

She didn’t think she’d have to worry about falling asleep on top of him, surrounded as she was by the constant gurgling and rumbling and rocking of his stupid, hot, sweaty, loud, colossal body that would very likely crush her the moment he fell asleep. But exhaustion clouded over her and she found herself dozing off immediately.

“Goodnight, my little mouse girl,” Trev murmured, his voice rumbling his chest beneath her.

“Sleep tight, dick wipe,” she grumbled back, too quiet for him to hear.

* * *

She awoke at some point in the night. It was dark; the string lights switched off and Trev’s phone facedown on the desk beside the bed. He had rolled over onto his side, and had Natalie tucked into the crook of his elbow, hugging her against his chest. His whole body seemed to curve around her, as if by gravity, wrapping around her on all sides; one arm beneath her with the other draped overtop, his chest arching over her and his sleeping face angled down from above. His mouth was opened slightly, his warm, deep breaths gently wafting over her. He looked rather peaceful in his sleep, his brows twitching ever so softly, his long lashes quivering. He looked younger, too, less like the psychopath who had tormented her for hours the previous day and more like the boy who had been her best friend for as long as she could remember.

She stared up at him for a while to make sure he was definitely, deeply asleep, before she carefully lifted herself from his grasp, and crawled up the crack of his elbow to peer out under the arm draped overtop of her, into his darkened bedroom. As per usual, he had kicked the covers off his feet, and they were hanging over the side of the bed. 

She could climb down his bedspread, and this time she’d brave the vent beneath his bed, in hopes her pocket-vision would come of use in the dark tunnel. Then she’d get into her dad’s room. But how would she wake him up? No, scratch that, she’d get into her brothers’ room, where there were always a bunch of toys and shit lying around all over the floor, and she’d find one of those obnoxious ones with a button that makes it flash brightly and make a huge racket. And Tommy would likely sleep right through it, but Nick would curse and kick out of bed and storm over to pummel the offending toy and she’d stand atop it, waving her arms and screaming at the top of her lungs and he would do a double take and say something stupid and befuddled like, “The fuck?” and she would be saved. Yes, this was a marvelous plan. 

But as she was climbing out from under his arm, ready to jump off onto the mattress below, Trev let out a groan and lifted his arm away. She whipped around, eyes wide, going completely still. His eyes were drooped open, but barely, as his hand lifted to scratch his forehead. Then his arm rapidly dropped back down and she grimaced up at it as if flattened down on top of her. 

She dragged and crawled herself out from under it to collapse, panting, back into the relative safety within the crook of his elbow. She was startled to find his sleepy gaze upon her and she quickly went limp, closing her eyes, her heart pounding. His arm lifted and he ran a finger down her arm and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep her breathing steady. 

“Nat?” he muttered groggily, his finger sweeping her hair from her face. 

She grimaced again; clearly her sleeping facade had not fooled him. But being awake wasn’t a crime; he hadn’t caught her trying to escape, and he had no proof she’d been thinking about it. 

“Mmm?” she moaned, feigning grogginess.

“You okay?”

“Mmm,” she moaned again, snuggling against him in a way she hoped he’d find cute and lacking in schemes.

It either worked a little too well, or not at all, because Trev smiled sleepilly and mimicked her little, “Mmm,” wrapping himself tighter around her to snuggle her, back; and Natalie cringed as his cheek descended upon her to grind lovingly against her entire body, before he fell still with the side of his face pressing down on top of her; using his elbow as a pillow with her smushed up into the soft skin of his cheek.

She huffed and wriggled backwards, wedging herself deeper down into the crook of his elbow, glaring up at the imposing wall of his cheek that curved up to the corner of his open mouth, breathing hot, humid air down upon her as he drifted back to sleep. She supposed this aggressive canoodling was a subtle warning; an acknowledgement of another escape attempt in the midst. He knew her too well. She’d just have to figure out some other way to get away from him, sometime when he wasn’t literally right on top of her. She fully believed his threat of making her sleep in his underwear if he caught her trying to run away, again—which he most definitely would have if he’d woken up just a few moments later as she was sprinting across the bed. 

She imagined he’d have groggily watched her run beside him for a second, then he’d snicker sleepily, something like, “Where ya goin’, Nat?” and his hand would smack down to block her path. Then he’d scoop her up and she’d wriggle desperately in his grasp as he dangled her over his face. “You do know where you’re goin’, right?” And he’d lower her down the length of his body, plopping her onto his lower abdomen. 

And she’d beg and holler and plead up at his distant face, a smirking mountain on the horizon of the vast terrain of his bare torso, while the waistband of his boxers lifted behind her. Then the index finger of the hand holding up the waistband would hook around her belly, effortlessly overpowering her struggles to drag her backwards, beneath the fabric. “Nighty night, Natty,” he’d call cheerfully from the distance, puckering his lips to send her an air kiss, before his waistband snapped shut, imprisoning her within his musky depths. 

And she’d heave with all her might to try and lift the waistband up again, yelling, “I’m sorry Trevor! Please! Let me out of here!” until the fleshy ground beneath her lurched violently and she’d be tossed around as he settled himself into a comfortable position, landing on his thigh as his flaccid member flopped down on top of her like a zealously affectionate beluga whale. And she’d struggle and kick beneath the mass of wrinkly skin, succeeding only in evoking a jolting twitch from her fleshy chamber and a blissful moan in the distance as the giant was pleasantly tickled by her tiny movements, until he dozed soundly back to sleep. 

And he’d gradually fall still and immobile, besides the gentle swaying from his deepening breaths, the light throbbing of his pulse, the occasional twitch or jerk, and she’d give up trying to struggle, and would instead lay smushed against his thigh for the rest of the night, snuggled up with his massive dick, the humid air stagnant with the aroma of his nether regions. And she’d be jostled and smashed every time he adjusted in his sleep. And his huge hand would occasionally slip down beneath the waistband towards her, and she’d have a brief moment of hope that he was freeing her from this hell at last, until his clawed fingers descended upon her to scratch himself, whilst unconsciously smashing and grinding her body against his genitals. 

It sounded awful, and hot, and agonizing, and… oddly arousing?

She imagined herself trapped beneath his dick until the sun began to rise, and he rose with it, as he always did—an ‘early riser’ he used to joke. And she’d kick and struggle beneath the increasing weight, but this would only serve to escalate the growth of his dick, until there came a deep groan from the distance, rumbling her fleshy prison.

And everything would tilt sideways as the giant rolled onto his back, and she’d smack against the side of his morning wood, towering over her like a tree, holding up the fabric of his boxers like a tent pole. Then his hand would slither through the waistband, drawing towards her like a bird of prey and she’d call out, “Trev?” praying he remembered she was still down there.

But he wouldn’t hear her, as his hand smashed her up against his erect cock; the very cock that she had been the first to stroke, and jerk, and suck, and fuck, that could now easily crush her beneath its weight. 

“TREVOR!” she’d scream, squirming against his fingers as they wrapped around both her and his shaft, keeping her trapped tight in between. And she’d struggle even harder, evoking another deep groan overhead as he stroked himself, half asleep, not even aware he was dragging his tiny prisoner along for the ride.

Natalie snapped herself from what was undoubtedly the start of some horrific nightmare, to find her own fingers stroking between her slickened thighs. 

She remembered seeing his erection pressed up against his jeans as she dangled above his lap, how it had reacted to her; convulsed with the sound of her voice. She felt the same queer kinship towards it that she had felt when she saw it in the bathroom, as if it were it’s own entity, separate from Trev, innocent of his misdeeds. It had lifted towards her at the sound of her voice, just as she had gotten wet, at the very thought of it. It was like they were calling out to each other, longing to reunite. 

She remembered the feel of his cock inside of her, stiffening every time she let out a moan, how the feel of its convulsion would send a burst of pleasure through her veins and her toes would curl and she would moan louder and Trev would groan something romantic like, “Oh, fuck,” and clench his hands around her slender waist, digging his fingernails into her skin and wrenching her up and down on top of him and she would throw her arms around his neck, biting down against his shoulder, screaming against his sweaty skin.

Natalie closed her eyes, letting out the softest of moans as she lay wedged into the crook of his elbow, beneath the side of his sleeping face. 

Then she smacked herself across the face, giving herself a stern mental reprimand: Snap out of it, Natalie, you fucking pervert! You do NOT want to fuck Trevor Dalton, because he is a fucking PYSCHOPATH out to DESTROY you, and you ABSOLUTELY do NOT find ANY part of that ATTRACTIVE! And even if you DID want to fuck him, you STILL wouldn’t, because his cock is a massive fucking MONOLITH that would literally crush you beneath it, with complete indifference for your thrashing and struggling beneath its thick, convulsing… colossal… AAAGH, STOP IMAGINING HIS DICK, YOU WEIRDO! Need I remind you of everything he’s done to you today? Kidnapping! Torture! Get your head in the game, old girl, this is FUCKING WAR!

Yet, despite all logical rationale, she found herself feeling quite cozy and content with his giant arm wrapped so tightly around her, his body radiating more than enough heat to keep her warm in the large, drafty room. She found herself breathing in his smell as she closed her eyes; counting his slow, steady breaths with the rising and falling of his chest, matching her breaths to his, as she had so many times since they were were children; when she’d wake up in the middle of the night to find him on top of her; one leg draped over her and his arms wrapped tightly around her, his cheek smushed against the top of her head and her’s smothered against his chest as he cuddled her like a teddy bear. 

She never, ever, not in a million years would have admitted this to him, but despite his sweatiness, despite his oppressive body heat, despite his heavy weight bearing down upon her, there were few things she loved more in the world than being wrapped so tightly in his arms, and the feeling of protection it gave her. 

* * *

They were eight the first time they kissed, in the little treehouse in the elementary school playground, in the midst of some sort of pirate-themed game of hide and seek. They’d been crouched together beneath the window, listening as the other team closed in around their hiding spot, and she’d growled, “Aih, the gig is up Cutthroat, ye old scallywag.”

And he’d growled back, “Not yet, Daggertooth.” And he’d grabbed her face between his palms and yanked her into him, smacking his lips against hers. He popped back with a grin, still clutching her bewildered face. “See ye in hell, me heartie.” 

And he shoved her back while he took off running, leaving her to get captured by the enemy as she bellowed after him, “I’ll kill you, Trevor!”

Natalie had merely thought of it as part of their game. It was a game to Trev, too, of course; one he really really liked to play. Kissing started getting incorporated into all kinds of activities; superheroes, freeze tag, monopoly. They were always quick, never any tongue. Their tongues were added when they were twelve, in the midst of a game of truth or dare, when Trev dared her to make out with him.

It was the summer before seventh grade and the two of them, and Danno and Diego, were sitting around on some rocks by the part of the river that ran through the Southside, in the overgrown, needle and condom infested woodlands at the end of their block that the neighborhood kids referred to as the ‘Murder Woods’.

Natalie sneered, crossing her arms. “Why do you always make me do the weird stuff?”

“Cause you’re a girl,” said Trev reasonably. “You wanna play, or what?”

“No! Every time we play one of you pervs makes me show my tits or something, I’m sick of it!”

“I don’t!” said Diego quickly, raising his hands.

“You don’t look away, either,” she snapped, jamming her finger in his face.

“Don’t be such a pussy,” said Danno. 

“Bite me, Daniel.”

“That a dare?” he smirked, baring his teeth, and she punched him in the gut.

All three boys cackled and laughed as Natalie stomped to her feet and stormed dramatically into the Murder Woods.

“Natty, c’mon!” Trev called after her. “I’m only messing with–”

“You wanna play or what?” she yelled back, without turning. “I’m not making out with you in front of the Tweedles!”

Trev jolted, mouth agape. He nearly tripped over himself as he scurried to his feet and hurried after her. “You serious?” he asked breathlessly when he caught up with her.

“Yeah, whatever,” she grumbled. “Let’s get this over with.”

They walked a ways into the trees, then stood facing each other, Natalie with her arms crossed, glowering at the ground.

“Hey,” said Trev, pinching her arm. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I really was just messing with you.”

“It’s not that,” she grumbled.

“So what is it?”

Natalie glowered at the ground, tight-jawed, then stomped up onto a nearby rock to put their faces at a relatively equal level. Trev raised his eyebrows, then laughed.

“Shut up!” she hollered, shoving him.

He grinned, grabbing her blushing face between his palms. “Com’ere, shorty.” He yanked her into him, pressing their lips together. And a pleasurable feeling began to pulsate through her lower abdomen. Her knees buckled slightly as the feeling coursed through her veins, spreading through her entire body. She let out a moan against his mouth, tilting her head, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He groaned in response, pressing into her so hard that she stumbled backwards off the rock. He followed after her, stepping over the rock, holding her face up to keep their mouths locked together, hunching over her while she stumbled on the tips of her toes until her back collided into a tree.

They returned to their friends sometime later, their cheeks flushed and hair disheveled, smiling sheepishly, fingers laced through each other’s. 

And they were never the same.

They were constantly sneaking off to play the kissing game after that; under the bleachers in the middle school gym, in the laundry room of their apartment complex, in the walk-in section of the convenience store. 

The first to catch them was Nick, when he opened the door to the bathroom to find her sitting on the counter with their limbs tangled around each other, and he let out a howl of disgust and slammed the door shut again. And a moment later Trev wrenched it back open and chased him down, tackling him to the ground and promising to murder him slowly if he ever told a soul what he’d just so impudently intruded upon. 

Nick had gladly kept his mouth shut about it, preferring to never speak aloud of the horrors he’d seen, but they were terrible at subtlety and Frank soon caught them, himself, in the courtyard stairwell. They’d anticipated certain death, but he’d been surprisingly chill about it. He’d sighed and said, “It was bound to happen, eventually,” and they both received a far worse punishment then either of them ever could have possibly imagined; a long, disturbingly graphic sex talk from Frank the Tank, who knew a thing or two about teen pregnancy and had bore witness to the miracle of childbirth three times—each of which he described to them in vivid detail as they sat cringing on the couch, unable to look at him, or eachother, for a good week afterwards. 

Another consequence of their discovery was that Trev wasn’t allowed to sleepover in her room anymore, not even on the floor, and when he stayed over it had to be in Nick and Tommy’s room, where Tommy was constantly watching him like a little hawk, unfazed by threats of violence, on high alert for any sign of funny business in the night. So they devised new ways to have sleepovers. 

Trev’s dad was rarely home and wouldn’t have cared much anyway if he discovered his girlfriend stashed in his bed, so Natalie would scheme with Kiera, Danno’s older sister of a year, to spend the night at her place so she could sneak out as soon as their parents went to sleep. She’d never talked to Kiera much, but she turned out to be pretty cool and was more than happy to aid in her shenanigans. The only problem was that she also had to spend a lot more time with Danno, which would have been fine with her, but he bugged the living shit out of Kiera and was always threatening to rat her out if she didn’t let him hang out with them. 

On other nights, Trev would sleep over at Diego’s, who’s bedroom was directly beneath Natalie’s, and she’d climb down the storm pipe to sneak in through his bedroom window. The three of them would stay up most of the night, playing video games and smoking pot, shoving Natalie under blankets and pillows with the other contraband any time his mom peeked in to check on them. She’d sleep jammed into Trev’s sleeping bag with him and he’d wake her up at the crack of dawn, and they’d make out for a while before she’d begrudgingly climb over Diego to climb back out his window, up the storm pipe to her own bed.

Their fooling around meandered around the bases at a slow, leisurely pace. Hands were introduced up the shirt; Trev’s fingers always fumbling around behind her back to get her bra undone while she snickered against his mouth and he’d snicker back, “Shut up.” And then their shirts were coming off completely. And then one day she unbuttoned his jeans, sliding her hand into his boxers and his hand went down after hers, wrapping her fingers around his dick with his hand held over hers, showing her how to stroke it and he’d groaned against her mouth, his brows drawing together and his whole body going rigid as he came immediately. 

Getting her to come had taken a bit more work. He’d made a poorly educated attempt at fingering, and she found she didn’t particularly enjoy having his fingers ramming in and out of her, his fingernails clawing her insides, and she’d shoved him, snapping, “Ow, quit that.” And he’d made sure to keep his fingers out of her from then on, instead gently circling and fluttering his fingertips around her nethers, gaging the ways that made her moan and moisten until he got into a good rhythm, and eventually found the little button that, when pattered just right, had her thrusting up against him, digging her fingernails into his hair and curling her toes.

Mouths and tongues came into play next, and they quite happily messed around on third base for a long time, until his fourteenth birthday. She’d already been fourteen for three months and a week, a fact she’d teased him about relentlessly, as she did every year during her three months and a week of being a year older and wiser, invoking relentless reminders from him that she was still the size he was several years prior. 

They’d had a small party with a bunch of their neighborhood friends at his place, where there was never any supervision; listening to music and playing drinking games around the kitchen island with a twenty-four pack of Natty Lights (jokes were made) that Diego’s cousin had bought for them with the wad of cash and loose change they’d all pooled together. And then she’d stood on her toes to whisper into his ear, “I have a present for you,” and slipped a condom into his hand, wrapped in a little bow, and he’d grinned his crooked grin and said, “Really?” And she’d grinned, too, biting her lip, and he smacked his hands around her butt to hoist her legs up around his waist and stormed into his bedroom without a word to their friends, who were quite used to them storming off without a word and simply whistled and cat-called after them and then went right on drinking without them. 

But he grew a bit awkward when they were alone and naked in his bedroom, dimly lit by the string lights above his bed and the lone candle he’d lit, for romantic atmosphere. He ran his fingers around her slender waist with furrowed brows, and she asked what was wrong and he went beet red, his eyes lowering with bashfulness uncharacteristic of him as he scratched his forehead. “Um, it’s just, we’ve never done this before, and I, um, I dunno if I’m gonna be too, like, you know…” He gestured awkwardly between the two of them, indicating the size difference. “I don’t wanna hurt you.” 

He had never said anything like that to her, in all their lives, not ever. He was always yanking her around and lifting her up and wrestling her to the ground; always teasing her about how small she was. It delighted her to see him so unexpectedly nervous and tender, and she desperately wanted to be closer to him, to be one with him. “Don’t be stupid.”

But it had hurt; as Kiera had warned her it would and her Auntie Rita had warned even earlier, when she’d given her a far better sex talk than Frank had provided, along with a box of condoms. But she hadn’t believed them, feeling certain it would be different for her and Trev, because they were so madly in love. And she’d felt ashamed by her own stupid, scrawny body, and she didn’t want to ruin the moment and she didn’t want to spoil his birthday, so she tried to hide her discomfort, grinding her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut. But he noticed, anyway, murmuring, “Are you okay?” And she nodded vigorously with her face all scrunched up. And he kissed her cheek and pulled out and tears filled her eyes and she whimpered, “I’m sorry,” and he bonked his forehead against hers with a soft smile, murmuring, “Don’t be stupid.” 

It took a while before they tried again, and even longer before either of them were able to enjoy it, because her petite frame turned out to be a bigger complication then either had anticipated, and any wrong moves would result in a jolt of pain and she’d suck in breath and he’d go limp and wouldn’t be able to get it up, again. But it got better over time, as their bodies grew to understand each other and move with each other. And the first time she came with him inside of her, he came, too, at the same exact moment. And he’d been so happy that he cried, holding her tightly and whimpering into the crook of her neck, “I love you, Natty… I love you so fucking much it hurts.”

The memory brought tears to her eyes as she lay wedged in the crook of his elbow. She drew in a raspy breath and, as if in response, he moaned in his sleep and readjusted, lifting his face away from her, to be replaced a moment later by his hand draping gently over her. She sniffed, snuggling against his arm, feeling suddenly certain that he would never crush her in his sleep; that his body had developed some kind of internal recognition of her—even in sleep, even in her shrunken state—that would never allow it. His unconscious self still yearned to protect her, even while his conscious mind yearned to destroy her. 

At least his body still loved her. At least some part of him did. 

She could only hope it would be enough to prevent him from killing her, long enough for her to escape.

Perpetual Revolutions

It was the day of the county fair. She was ten. It was September. Her mother had been dead for one month and twenty days. And it was hot. 

The last hot day before the winds cooled and the leaves changed. The smell of fall was already in the air, blending together with the smells of funnel cakes and corn dogs and cow shit. The sounds of laughs and screams blurred together with the vibrant colors of the surrounding rides and fair games, beyond the rim of a spinning teacup.

She wasn’t sure if it was she or Trev who kept the teacup spinning after the ride was over, even after the ride operator called apathetically to “Please exit the teacup”, so that he tsked, shaking his head, and started up the ride again. And again. And again.

They worked their hands around the spinning wheel without pause, each blaming the other for keeping it spinning while their own hands were simply following along, as your fingers might follow along the little triangular block as it seemingly slid itself over the letters of a Ouija board. Perhaps it was a combination of mutually involuntary muscle exertions that kept the teacup spinning. Perhaps it was a ghost.

Little Nicky’s voice whined from beside her, smelling of cotton candy, “Can we do something else, Natty? I’m sick of this ride.”

“Who invited you, anyway?”

Their heads spun as fast as the teacup, their arms aching, their stomachs churning and their eyes burning into each other’s from across the spinning wheel. Lights and shadows passed over Trev’s determined face, illuminating the fresh bruises on his left cheek, deepening his contours, giving his young face flashes of something ghoulish, and sinister.

“Please Natty,” Nick whined, a hint of fear in his tone. “Let’s go!”

“As soon as he, ‘lets go’.”

Round and round and round they went, faster and faster, the sounds and colors of the fair blurring together beyond the realm of their teacup, as if they were in their own alternate, spinning dimension.

“This isn’t even fun.”

“He’ll let go, soon.”

“Why can’t you just let go?”

“I can win this.”

“Natty, you’re bleeding.”

Blood drifted from her nose, floating behind her in ribbons, leaving a twisted, spiraling trail in their wake, glowing scarlet beneath the ride’s flashing lights. The pressure of their accelerated revolutions squeezed against her stomach, compressing her lungs, crushing her ribcage.

“Natty the ride’s breaking!”

“I can win this!”

“It’s all breaking, Natty, you gotta get off!”

“YOU GET OFF!” She turned to whack him, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Nicky?” she called nervously, still working her hands around the spinning wheel. Her long ponytail whipped around her as she tried to scan the blurring fairgrounds for her little brother. “NICOLAS? Oh my God, Trevor, where’s Nick!”

“We ditched him, remember? He wouldn’t quit whining, it’s always more fun when it’s just you and me.”

“Oh crap! We gotta find him! Dad’s gonna kill me!” 

“That mean you give up?”

“What? No–!”

She turned back to face Trev, only to find his seat vacant. A snicker came from above and her gaze rose to find his giant, grinning face, spinning in the sky above, his fingertips striking against the outside of the teacup over and over again to keep it spinning. 

“Ha!” she yelled, pointing up at him. “Ya lose, dicksneeze!”

His grin widened. “Do not.”

“Do so! You let go!”

“No I didn’t.” His fingertips smacked around the teacup, bringing the spinning to a jerking halt and she slammed forward onto the spinning wheel with an, “Umph!”

“Game over, Natty,” he smirked.

“Nuh uh!” she yelled, slapping her hands atop the spinning wheel. “I haven’t let go, either!”

“Not yet…” His face grew larger as the teacup rose towards it. “But you’re gonna.”

“That’s cheating, Trevor!”

“Yeah? So?” His mouth opened wide and she grabbed tightly to the spinning wheel as the teacup tilted upside down towards it. She dangled from her hands over his gaping maw and he snickered, wiggling the teacup. “Let go, stupid ass.” 

“Get bent, Trevor!” she yelled, struggling to keep her grasp on the violently jolting teacup as his other hand whacked lightly against its side to knock her loose. “You cheated! You lose!”

He laughed. “If you say so.” And with one final whack she lost her grip and fell from the teacup, plummeting down his gullet, plummeting down, down, down.

And when she jerked awake with a squeal, grasping her chest, she was still plummeting, toppling over the ledge of a massive shoulder and careening down a steep, fleshy cliffside towards a huge open laptop in the valley below, before a hand appeared beneath her and she smacked into it with another squeal.

She lay sprawled on her back and gasping in the center of the palm, gaping up at a set of huge green eyes that grew even larger as she rose towards them. “You good?” 

She panted in confusion for another moment before the memory of the previous day crashed over her. “Agggh,” she wailed, smacking her arm over her face. “You’re still huge.”

Trev snickered lightly, stroking his finger over her head. “Well good morning to you, too, my cuddly little mouse.”

“Get off,” she snarled, swatting his finger away. She pushed herself to a sitting position in his palm, peering groggily around to get her bearings. He was sitting upright against the pillows, his computer open in his lap. The clock in the top right corner of the screen read 8:17 A.M. “Wow,” she grumbled dryly. “You let me sleep in.” He was always obnoxiously chipper in the mornings, bouncing her awake at the crack of dawn to hang out with him, even on weekends.

“Well, okay,” he said. “I did actually try to wake you an hour ago but you snuggled up with my finger and it might’ve been the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life so I let you keep sleeping a bit longer. Figured I’d get a jump on the shit ton of makeup work I have from skipping school yesterday.” He closed his laptop and reached over to set it on the desk beside the bed. “How’d ya sleep?” he asked brightly.

“Not great,” she sneered, mimicking his bright tone. “You decided to use me as a pillow at one point.”

“Oh yeah,” he grinned. “For being so little you’re surprisingly comfy. But I didn’t squish you, now did I?” 

“You didn’t crush me,” she amended. “You squished me all fucking night.”

“And how was that?”

“Hot.”

“Ooh, okay.”

“Not like that, perv. I mean your body is like a giant, sweating, flaming boa constrictor of constant movement and funny noises.”

“That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me. Well I slept great. Only…” he lifted her closer to his face, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “I could have sworn I woke up at some point to find a little mouse girl crawling around on my arm. You weren’t plotting another getaway, now were you?”

She smiled coldly. “Must’ve been a dream.”

He smiled back. “I assumed as much; you’re a good girl, you stay when told. And you certainly know better than to break a promise to me. Do I take this to mean you’ve accepted that you’re my toy, now?”

Her smile withered into a scowl.

“It’s perfectly fine if you haven’t,” he added. “I don’t have any plans today, I can spend the whole day playing with you. I’ll get you to admit it at some point.”

“What’s up your butt?” she grumbled. “You’re coming in hot this morning.”

“Nothing, I’m in a great mood. I’m certainly not irritated that a certain little mouse girl tried to break her promise to me, and then lied about it, even though I was kind hearted enough to let it slide because she looked so cute and cuddly and my desire to snuggle her overshadowed my desire to punish her. But, really, I’m not mad. I did warn you that I’d catch you if you tried to escape. You know why?”

“You’re an obnoxiously light sleeper?”

He smiled. “You can’t get away from me,” he said, poking her in the nose with the tip of his giant finger. “Not only because I’m astronomically bigger than you, and faster than you, and stronger than you, but also because it seems that fate has given me an uncanny intuition for when you’re trying to escape, strong enough to pull me from sleep, at the exact moment you’re about to make a run for it. It’s like you’re bound to me by some cosmic leash, trapped in my gravitational pull, stuck to me like an adorable little refrigerator magnet. If you’re going to go anywhere, it will be because I go there and you go where I go. That’s not to say I’ll never let you go home, but it will be because I brought you there, not because you escaped. In the meantime, stop trying to run from me. It irks me. It’s a big scary world out there for a little mouse girl, and I’d hate for you to have to keep learning that the hard way. Got it?”

She glared.

He tucked his finger under her chin, raising her face. “Got it?”

“You know, Trev,” she said cooly. “You’re starting to sound more and more like your dad.”

He sneered. “Believe me. I’m not. If I was, you would not be talking to me like that right now, because you would not be talking, period.”

“Ooh, cryptic.”

“Mhm… You know, Nat, I get the feeling you’re tryna grind my gears right now. You’re gonna wanna cut that shit out real quick, I don’t appreciate my toys tryna play with me.”

“Noted,” she smiled, shooting him a thumbs up. He smiled back, returning the thumbs up, then whacked his thumb against her forehead, knocking her to her back and she slapped her palms to her forehead with a groan.

“Mhm, remember that next time you give me lip.” He pivoted around to rise to his feet, tossing her aside. She plummeted into the crumpled comforter, then rolled down the slope to land on his bed in a sprawl while he stalked across the room to his dresser, pulling open the middle drawer. He rummaged through his tee-shirts, mumbling, “I’ma need to get some more shirts with pockets.”

Natalie pushed herself to a seated position, grumbling, “Or maybe you could just–”

“I can’t hear you over there,” he said, pulling a pocketless tee-shirt over his head. 

“I SAID, ‘OR MAYBE–!’” 

“Don’t gotta yell,” he said, opening the bottom drawer. “No response necessary; if I want your opinion I’ll ask for it.” He pulled on a pair of athletic shorts, then grabbed a pair of socks from the top drawer and walked back over to sit down beside her, his weight sinking into the mattress so that she had to quickly take hold of the fitted sheet to avoid tumbling into the crevice beneath his thigh. As he pulled on one of his socks, he grumbled, “What?”

“What?” she grumbled back.

“What!” he snapped, throwing up a hand and she hunched her shoulders. “What were you tryna say?”

She blinked, lowering her head, her heart picking up speed. He was clearly in a testy mood and she felt it wise to avoid further confrontation. “Nothing…”

Her reserved response did nothing to improve his irritation, however, as he yanked on his other sock, grumbling, “Fine, whatever.” He stomped his foot to the ground with a huff, leaning forward with his arms across his thighs. 

Natalie looked nervously up at him, contemplating whether she should apologize for basically everything she'd said since she’d woken up. She was particularly prickly in the mornings, while he was typically bubbly and boisterous and had the emotional wherewithal to recognize when she was in a sour mood and found it thoroughly entertaining to push her buttons. But that was the old Trev. This new, evil Trev was spiteful and unpredictable. She should apologize. She took a deep breath and called, “I’m sorry, Trevor.”

He didn’t respond right away, and she couldn’t see his expression from this angle, his gaze on the floor between his feet. Then he grumbled, “For what.”

“F-for, um,” she stammered. “For comparing you to your dad? It wasn’t cool.”

He turned his head, his eyes slowly falling to her and she recoiled under his sinister gaze. He glared at her for a moment before his face cracked into a grin. “Well aren’t you just the fucking sweetest.” And then his hand swept over to scoop her up, lifting her rabidly up his torso and dumping her onto his shoulder.

She stumbled for balance on her hands and knees on the slanting platform, looking nervously up at the side of his face. “Wh-what’re you–”

He leaned forward slightly and she squealed and latched onto the collar of his tee-shirt as he rose to his feet.

She squeezed her eyes shut, clawing her nails into the fabric of his tee-shirt, trying not to look down at the hard ground, a hundred feet below, and whined, “Aggh, Trevor I don’t like this I don’t like this I don’t–!”

“Well you better hold on tight, then,” he said as he turned around, leaning over to make his bed and she immediately toppled over the ledge of his shoulder with a squeal, hanging onto his shirt collar as she dangled from her hands over the bed, far below. He snickered, “Awe no, Nat, what happened? I told you to hold on tight!” He let her hang there, jostling her around as he continued making his bed, occasionally smacking against his collar bone. 

When he was done he stood up straight, standing still for a moment to allow her to climb back up onto his shoulder. “Come on,” he said in mock encouragement, poking her in the back. “Thought you were a good climb-er.”

She clenched her teeth, groaning as she attempted to pull herself up, kicking against his tee-shirt for leverage, but her arms were weak and shaky from lack of food and she could not lift herself.

He sighed. “You're gonna have to get better at this, Nat, I can’t do everything for you.” His palm pressed up beneath her feet to give her a boost, plopping her back up onto his shoulder and he immediately took off walking across his room, without giving her a chance to secure herself. With every step he took the platform of his shoulder rapidly rose up and forward, then crashed back down with a jolting tremor, and she clutched desperately to his collarbone to steady herself.

He walked into the kitchen and opened up the fridge, a gust of freezing wind blasting into her. She grasped to him as he leaned forward to peer around the fridge.

“Hmm,” he said, tapping his chin. “What do I want for breakfast…?” He took his time rummaging around the fridge, every movement of his arm sending Natalie lurching and pivoting and swinging around on his shoulder. He lifted the milk jug mumbling, “Cereal?” then shook his head and set it back down, “Nooo, I’m not in the mood for cereal.” He opened the freezer with an even colder blast of air, pulling out a box of Eggo Waffles. “Waffles?”

“SURE!” she screamed from his shoulder, attempting to wrap herself in his tee-shirt to shield her exposed skin from the arctic winds of the freezer. “WAFFLES! SOUNDS GOOD!”

“Mmmm,” he said, swaying his head in contemplation. “Nah, I don’t feel like waffles.”

“Can you put me down, please?” she whined loudly.

“Certainly. Once you concede to being my toy.”

She groaned, bonking her spinning head against his shoulder. “Fuck you, Trevor.” 

“Awe,” he laughed, patting her head. “Fuck you, too, Natalie.”

Finally he settled on what was likely the most complicated breakfast he could think of; eggs and bacon with a side of hash browns. He hummed cheerfully to himself as he collected the ingredients, then set to work grating the potato, working his arm up and down and up and down while Natalie bounced and smacked against his shoulder repeatedly, growing increasingly nauseous.

He kept her on his shoulder the whole time he puttered around the kitchen, preparing his breakfast. He was just about to crack an egg into the skillet with the frying bacon when there came a sudden loud buzzing from below. He set the egg on the counter to pull his phone from the pocket of his athletic shorts and went rigid. He stood still for a moment and Natalie took the opportunity to collapse onto his shoulder, relaxing her arms and panting to catch her breath. 

His hand rose up and clawed around her, plucking her from his shoulder and setting her gently on the counter by the egg. She scowled suspiciously up at him but he wasn’t looking at her, his eyes on his buzzing phone, his brows furrowed. Then he swiped his finger across the screen and stuck it to his ear. His voice was quiet and gloomy as he muttered, “Hola Mami…”

Natalie’s scowl deepened as she heard the voice of Elena Dalton (or whatever her last name was these days) rabble cheerfully from the phone’s receiver. She’d only spoken to Elena a handful of times since she took off; and she’d been very cold towards her, never having forgiven her for up and abandoning Trev.

“Si, todo bien,” he muttered, picking up the spatula from the counter to flip the frying bacon, without a glance in Natalie’s direction. “Y tu?” 

Trev went back to cooking as he talked to his mom. Natalie understood bits of his side of the conversation, but not much, as her understanding of Spanish was mostly derived from the teachings of Trev and Diego, and therefore mostly consisted of insults and swear words. He talked about school, and his new art project, and what kinds of summer jobs he had started applying for. Natalie’s brows furrowed at this last part. 

Every summer since they were twelve, they’d both worked for Frank’s lawn service company, ‘Lawn Demand’, along with Nick and Danno and Diego and half the boys from the neighborhood, everyone always grumbling about the long hours and criminally low wages, but reaping the benefits of getting ripped and tan and making eyes with the Northside girls laying out by their pools. But apparently Trev was planning to work elsewhere that summer. She supposed it made sense, given that they were now mortal enemies (and also she was tiny and in no condition to be operating heavy machinery). Still, she couldn’t help feeling rather gloomy at the realization that they might never work together again.

Trev groaned a couple of times, in a childish way he only ever did in Spanish, when speaking to his mom, and Natalie gathered that he was adamantly refusing to talk about her, Natalie, while his mom kept pressing for information. It seemed that she was aware of their breakup and was aggressively trying to offer unsolicited advice.

The conversation didn’t last long before his mom had to go. Natalie heard her voice say through the receiver, “Te amo mijo.”

“Y tu tambien mami,” Trev mumbled and hung up.

He stood there for a moment, staring at his phone, before he threw it down on the counter with a BANG! and Natalie let out a squeal, ducking down. She panted for breath, hunched up with her arms over her head. She could hear Trev breathing heavily above, and through the cover of her arms she could see his giant hand before her, his fingers clasped tightly onto the edge of the countertop. She peeked up at him to see his face angled down, his free hand pressing into his forehead, staring at the phone. He dragged his hand down to cover his eyes, groaning under his breath, “Fuuuck.” He spun the burners of the stove to turn off the flames, then stalked across the kitchen. Without turning to look back at her, he grumbled, “Stay right there.”

Natalie gaped after him, prickling with dread as he stormed into his bedroom, leaving the door open behind him. She listened intently, but couldn’t hear any noise coming from his bedroom and had no way of knowing what he was doing in there. She didn’t wait to find out. He was clearly upset by the conversation with his mom and was likely plotting some horrific torture to take it out on her. She scrambled over to the edge of the counter, peering over the ledge at the hardwood floor, far below. She’d never survive a fall from this height, and even if she did, she’d be too injured to make a run for it. She looked desperately around at the window over the kitchen counter. She might be able to climb up the tiled wall to get to it, but she’d never get it open. Then her eyes fell onto Trev’s phone, laying on the counter in the distance. 

She clambered to her feet and took off sprinting towards it, her ears alert for any movement from Trev’s bedroom behind her. When she reached the phone, she threw herself onto its screen, tapping madly against it to bring it to life, but it seemed her fingertips were too small for it to read. But there might be another way. When Trev got this phone after his old one had been stolen, he’d been too annoyed to bother setting up any of its settings. As a joke, Natalie had set up a bunch of the settings herself and Trev, finding this funny, never changed them back, so that he was always having to manually type in his password to unlock his phone unless she was around to use her face for facial recognition, her finger for fingerprint ID, or her voice for voice command.

She whispered, “Hey Siri…”

There was no response. She grimaced, looking out at the hallway, wondering if he’d finally changed his phone’s settings after their breakup or if her voice was just too quiet to recognize. She leaned towards the microphone and said, louder, “Hey Siri.”

Nothing. 

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes, and called, “Hey Siri!”

The phone’s screen lit up, a little circle popping up at the bottom of the screen, filled with little revolving waves of colors and Siri’s voice said, “Mhm?”

Natalie drew in breath, adrenaline rushing through her, and immediately burst out, “Call Frank!”

After a brief pause, Siri’s voice said, “I don’t see a 'Frank' in your contacts. Who would you like to call?”

She grimaced. She kept her eyes on the hallway to his bedroom as she tried again, “Call 'The Tank'.”

A list of businesses containing the word 'Tank' popped up as Siri started rambling loudly about the different options and Natalie jolted and snarled, “No! Stop! Shut up!” 

The phone finally went quiet again and Natalie sucked in breath, closing her eyes, cursing the entire Southside for everyone’s annoying ass habit of bestowing stupid nicknames on each other. Through clenched teeth she snarled, “Hey Siri?”

“Mhm?”

“Call Frank,” she spat. “The Tank.”

“Calling 'Frank the Tank', mobile,” said Siri, and the phone darkened to the call screen and Natalie’s heart lit up, then sputtered immediately, as booming footsteps came from Trev’s bedroom. 

The phone rang as she leapt off of it, darting behind the nearby carton of eggs. It rang again as she ducked down, peering through one of the triangular archways beneath it, down the hallway as Trev appeared from his bedroom door. His eyes went immediately to the spot where he’d left her and he huffed, rolling his eyes and called out, “You serious, Nat?” 

The phone rang again as he stalked into the kitchen, his booming footsteps rattling the countertop. “You really wanna play this game?” he hollered as he searched around the countertops, lifting canisters to check behind them, unaware that his phone was in the process of making a call.

Pick up, Dad, she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears as she stared at the phone, for it was just now occurring to her that it wasn’t even nine A.M. on a Saturday, and he was probably sleeping. Pick up the fucking phone.

The egg cartoon wrenched upwards and her eyes shot up to Trev’s as he scowled down at her, throwing his hand up. “What was the fucking point of that! God you suck at hide and–”

The phone rang again and his gaze shot to it, his brows furrowing, just as the call was finally picked up, not by Frank, but by Nick. “What up, bro?” his sleepy voice groaned through the receiver.

“NICKYYYYY!” Natalie screamed at the same moment the egg carton dropped to the countertop and Trev’s hand swatted towards her while he yelled over her, “WHAT UP BRO!”

She dove to the countertop, rolling out from under his hand, still screaming at the top of her lungs while Trev tried to cover up her screams, yelling, “ONE SEC, MAN, YOU’RE ON BLUETOOTH!”

His hand smacked down on top of her, knocking the wind from her and flattening her to the countertop while his other hand wrenched the phone up to his ear and he said casually, “Hey, yeah, um, whaddup?”

“Um,” Nick grumbled. “Nothin’ man, you good?”

“Yeah, man, I was just calling to see if, um,” Trev squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his hand ever harder against Natalie to smother her desperate screams, struggling to come up with any kind of reason to have called this early on a Saturday morning. Only one thing came to mind. “You heard from Nat?”

Nick was quiet for a moment before he mumbled, “No, not yet.”

Before Trev could respond, another voice grumbled incoherently in the background and Nick responded, “It’s Trev.” 

There was a shuffling sound as the phone was passed around and Frank’s voice grumbled sleepily, “Heyya, kiddo. What’s up?”

Natalie went slack against the countertop at the sound of her Dad’s voice, knowing he was just there, but unaware of her presence in the apartment next door. 

“Yeah, hey,” said Trev stiffly. “Sorry to bother you, just looking for Nat.”

“Ah-ha,” Frank chuckled darkly. “Welcome to my life, kid. Guess I can rule out your place for once.”

“Ah-ha,” Trev grunted, his eyes narrowing. “Yeah, okay, thanks anyway, talk to you later.” He hung up before Frank could respond. He lifted his hand from Natalie and she peered up at him. But he wasn’t looking at her, his attention on his phone as he clicked around, disabling voice command.

She stared up at him, her face blank, while on the inside her heart was performing a drum solo against her ribcage. Now was not the time to engage. She needed to stay calm. It was just Trevor, even if he was giant, and she knew him better than anyone. Diffuse. Make light of it. Banter. Make a joke, make him laugh. Just say something. Oh fuck, just say anything!

“I–”

He stalked off without a word. He flipped the burners back on and went back to preparing breakfast. Her eyes followed him anxiously as he stalked around the kitchen, blank-faced and tight-jawed. 

Fuck. He was mad. Like, really mad. Like, step-on-you mad. 

He grabbed the egg from the counter and cracked it into the same frying pan as the bacon, then grabbed another from the cartoon beside her, his gaze never falling to her.

Then again, maybe she was overreacting. Maybe he recognized his own anger and was simply avoiding confrontation while he calmed himself down.

He let the eggs cook while he set a couple of slices of bread in the toaster, then turned his attention back to the sizzling pan of eggs and bacon. She sat quietly the whole time he finished cooking his breakfast and fixed his plate with the eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast. Then he smacked his plate down onto the counter beside her and she hunched her shoulders and looked nervously up at him, but he still wasn’t looking at her. He grabbed the salt grinder from behind her and gave it a couple of aggressive spins over his eggs and hash browns.

“Trevor?” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm. “Are you mad?”

He didn’t respond, nor show any indication of having heard as he reached over her head with the salt to replace it on the counter, then grabbed the pepper grinder.

“Oh-kay,” she said as he peppered his plate. “You’re mad. Got it.” He reached over her to set it back and Natalie called, “Look, I was only–”

His arm came barreling back towards her, smacking into her and swiping her onto his breakfast plate.

Chewed Out

 The plate spread out around her, the size of a living room. Hash browns took up one half, next to the still sizzling strips of bacon and fried eggs, sprinkled with salt and pepper flakes the size of quarters. Natalie scrambled to her feet, only to tumble over again as the plate launched upwards, knocking her into a piece of buttered toast, the height of a coffee table. The ceiling scrolled overhead, beyond the underside of Trev’s chin as he carried the plate towards the couch. 

A series of emotions ricocheted through her; chief among them terror, shrouded by a heavy layer of exasperation and she yelled up at him, “The fuck you doing, Trevor!”

He ignored her as he plopped down on the couch, the fall knocking her over again. He set the plate in his lap and the shadow of his torso fell over her as he reached forward to grab the TV remote from the coffee table. 

She huffed and stormed towards the edge of the plate, but her path was blocked as his hand lowered down to pick up the fork, knocking her back into the pile of hot, greasy hash browns.

“Oh, what, now you’re gonna eat me cause I tried to make a phone call?” she hollered, stomping to her feet, half her body smeared with hash brown grease. “Can you fucking BLAME ME?”

But his attention was on the TV and not on the plate below as he absentmindedly twiddled the fork between his fingers. 

“To be fair!” Natalie yelled. “You made me promise not to ‘run away’! You never said ANYTHING about calling for help! So technically, I didn’t do anything worth losing your shit ov–!”

His fork stabbed down into the hash browns before her and she squealed, toppling backwards. The fork lifted back up again, skewering a hunk of hash browns larger than her entire body, then dunked into the eggs and lifted over her, dribbling yolk down upon her.

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE, TREVOR!” she screeched, swatting the yolk from her face as the fork rose to his mouth, the tip disappearing between his lips. “Calm down, it didn’t even fucking work!” He chewed slowly, then swallowed with a loud gulp, the muscles of his throat flexing and his stomach gurgling above her. “Chill the FUCK OUT before you do something you’re gonna–!”

The fork lowered back down in her direction and Natalie jumped backwards as its prongs sank into the hash browns, then swept towards her, scooping up everything in its path and she darted out its way, taking shelter behind the slice of toast. “This isn’t a fair reaction!” she wailed, tears forming in her eyes as they followed his fork up to his mouth for another bite. “I didn’t run away!”

Her eyes were so focused on the fork above that she didn’t notice the movement of his other hand until his fingers were suddenly crunching into the toast on her other side and she yelped, whipping around as the toast lifted upwards, knocking her to her back. He took a loud, crunching bite, raining crumbs down upon her. As he chewed he lowered the toast back down upon her and she scrambled out from under it, smacking hard on her knees in the bite mark with her arms over her head. She looked up in time to see the fork sweeping towards her again and hurriedly sprung herself over the toast, rolling through a smear of melted butter and landing on a greasy strip of bacon on the other side.

She gave up trying to reason with him, as he was adamantly refusing to acknowledge her as anything more than part of his breakfast, and instead focused her attention on vacating the plate. But even with his eyes overhead, he must have been able to see her in his periphery, because every time he brought the fork stabbing down, it was directly in her path, forcing her back into the center on his breakfast, until it finally knocked her shins out from under her and she collapsed onto her stomach atop the scooped up pile of hash browns. She tried to push herself to her elbows, just a heavy, slimy blanket of egg was scooped up on top of her.

She screamed her throat raw as the fork rose up his torso towards his face, his gaze still overhead, slowly approaching his mouth as it opened wide, like the Cave of fucking Wonders, revealing chunks of food lodged between his teeth, his tongue coated in gunky saliva, and, at the far back, the endless black abyss of his esophagus, the entryway to his digestive system.

“TREVOR STOP!” she screamed, genuinely afraid, now.

He paused, peering around without looking down at his fork. “Huh, that’s weird,” he said, his eggy breath blasting over her. “I coulda sworn I heard a little mouse girl.”

“Oh my God, Trevor!” Natalie wailed, grasping to the slickened hash browns with one hand while the other slapped around behind her back, trying to shove the fried egg off of her. “This is insane! Put me down!”

“But that can’t be right,” Trev continued, gunky saliva stretching between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. “I explicitly told the little mouse girl to stay right where she was. She’s not dumb enough to go running around, again. Not when she’s so hard to hear, not when she might wind up getting herself eaten for breakfast.” His lips parted, strands of saliva stretching between them, as his mouth opened wide again.

“Please, Trevor!” she cried.

His eyes shifted down to the fork. “Did my breakfast just say something?” he said, with a barely concealed smirk.

“This is isn’t fucking funny!”

“Huh, you sound like Natalie, but…” The fork jerked up to his eye level and she screamed, clutching onto the hash browns. “You look like my breakfast.” It dropped rapidly down beneath his nostrils as they took a big whiff. “And you smell like my breakfast.” His fingers pinched a corner of the egg and peeled it off of her, plopping it into his mouth. As he chewed he said, “Hmm, you taste like my breakfast, too.”

“You’re such a fucking prick!” she screeched, tears running down her cheeks.

His lips split into a crooked grin. “Oof now you really shouldn’t have said that.” He opened his mouth wide again with a “Gyaaah,” revealing the partially chewed egg already on his tongue and Natalie threw her arms around her head as the fork slowly slid into the gaping maw.

His lips smushed over the fork with a “Gyam!” and it pulled out from under her, spilling her and the hash browns onto his eggy tongue. She screamed, trying to fight off his tongue as it slammed her around his mouth, knocking her and his food between his teeth, then swiping her out of the way at the last second before they chomped down, mashing and grinding his food to mush. Pools of saliva crashed over her from beneath his tongue, treating her no differently from the rest of his mouthful.

It took all her strength to keep her arms wrapped protectively around her face as she screamed at the top of her lungs, “STOP IIIIIT!”

“Thtop iiiid,” he teased, his tongue slamming into her with every syllable, along with his chewed food. “Why’th my brea-fathd bein’ tho noithy in dere?” 

“OH MY GOD, TREVOR, OH MY GOD, PLEASE LET ME OUT, PLEASE LET ME OUT PLEASE PLEASE PLE–!”

“Food ith for eading, no’ for dalking.” His tongue mashed her into a pile with his chewed food, then tilted towards the back of his throat.

Natalie screamed, throwing her arms around his tongue and holding on for dear life. It slammed her against the roof of his mouth, pinning her there as the rest of his bite slid down his gullet with a maddening GULP.

“Wha’s thith clingin’ to my ton’ue?” His mouth was suddenly illuminated as his teeth parted and his thumb and index finger came in and pinched around her wrist. His lips puckered closed around his fingers as he pulled her out between them with a sick squelch, sucking off most of the egg and food residue. She gasped in the fresh air, swinging from her arm before his face while his eyes widened in mock surprise. “Why, it’s a little mouse girl!” Then his eyes narrowed, wagging his finger in her face, scolding, “Little mouse girl, whaddo you think you’re doing in my breakfast? Shouldn’t you be on the counter where I left you?” 

She gaped up at him, quivering with sobs, her tears leaving thin trails through the eggy saliva smeared across her face.

“Awwwe,” he pouted with a big frown. “Poor little mouse girl.” He lowered her back down his torso, dangling her from her arm, then dropped her onto his abdomen, where she landed with an “Umph” and toppled over. She shakily tried to lift herself just as the palm of his hand slammed down on top of her, patting her against his belly. “Why don’t you sit right there and think about your choices. It coulda been a lot worse. You could be in my belly right now.” 

She shoved at his hand, screaming, “YOU CRAZY MOTHER FU–!”

“Shut up, Nat.” His palm slapped over her, smothering her against him, while his other hand picked up the fork again. 

He went back to eating, holding her against his belly so she could hear his breakfast gurgling around inside, could feel it rumbling against her. Rage boiled in the pit of her empty stomach and she panted for breath, struggling beneath his palm, knowing it was useless, hating him with every fiber of her tiny, weak, pathetic body. 

With every beat of her pounding heart, she was struck by another image flashing through her mind. She saw the tons upon tons of food breaking down inside him. She saw his refrigerator, loaded with milk and eggs and fruits and vegetables, and then another, empty but for expired condiments and Natty Lights. She saw one brother, pouring his pathetic little half bowl of cheerios into the other’s, so that at least one of them could go to school with a full belly. She felt the slime of chewed food coating her skin, more than she’d eaten in days. 

Oh how she hungered to hurt Trevor Dalton.

When he finished eating, he sighed a dramatic sigh of content. “Ahh, I’m stuffed.” He leaned forward to set the plate on the coffee table. “You hungry, yet, Nat?” His fingers pinched around her waist and plopped her back onto the plate and she toppled into a scattering of crumbs and smeared egg yolk. He pressed his forearms against his knees to lean over the plate, smiling down at her.

“I figure you must be if you’re so adamantly trying to share my breakfast with me. So I’ll give you two choices; if you ask me very, very nicely, I’ll let you lick the scraps from my plate, otherwise–sit still, I’m not finished.” For she had risen to her feet, fists clenched, snarling up at him. He whacked the heel of his hand against her forehead and she plopped backwards into a puddle of egg yolk with a splat! “Other-wise, you can go back in my mouth and pick the scraps from between my teeth. And I won’t let you out until my teeth are fucking sparkling. Whaddo you think, Nat? Gotta preference?”

“You’re fucking sick,” she snarled.

“What was that?” He scooped her onto his fork, lifting it up to his mouth again. “Didn’t quite catch that down there, you wanna say it again?”

She clutched onto the fork’s yolky prongs to raise herself to her hands and knees, glaring up at him. “Have you ever managed to figure out why nobody loves you, Trevor?”

“Ooh, ouch,” he smirked. “What a big mouth you have, little mouse girl. When are you gonna learn that my mouth is infinitely bigger.”

“It’s because you’re BROKEN,” she spat. “I knew it, and your MOM KNEW IT, TOO!”

His grin vanished in an instant. 

“That’s why you’ve been left here all alone,” she continued. “That’s why everybody leaves you. That’s why no one will ever stay, why no one will ever love you, and why you are so, fucking, obsessed with me!”

He glared. “What makes you think I give two flying fucks about you?”

“I know you do. I know I’m the only fucking thing you’ve ever cared about in your entire, lonely, miserable goddamn life. And that's why I terrify you and why you're trying so hard to break me. Does it make you feel strong to torment me? Does it make you feel powerful? Your dad was right about you all along. You’re FUCKING PATHETIC!”

His free hand shot up, squeezing around her, and the fork clattered to the plate below. “You really wanna call me pathetic right now?” 

Her ribs strained in his clenched fist but she choked out, “You’re just like him! You’ve turned into the abusive fucking prick you hate most in the world, just like everybody always knew you would!”

His jaw tightened, as well as his grip. “This is your problem, Natalie, you never know when to shut the fuck up. I was planning on taking you home after breakfast. Now I’m thinking, ‘Man. What a bitch. Why should I take her anywhere?’”

“Like fuck you were, you broken ass piece of shit! You weren’t taking me anywhere because you love me and hate me too much to ever let me go! That’s your problem, Trevor, you just can’t figure out how to love someone without fucking hurting them!”

“And you just keep talking. Now I’m thinking, ‘Man I wish she’d shut up. How long am I gonna let her go on blabbering before I make her shut her fucking mouth.’”

“You can stop me from talking but you'll still hear me. Now you’re thinking, ‘She’s wrong. I’m nothing like my dad. I’ll prove it.’ And once you do, my voice will be right there, saying, ‘I told you so.’”

“Wanna bet?”

“Bring it, you pathetic, broken little bit–!”

He squeezed the breath out of her. His clenched fist quivered as he glared down at her. “And so what if you’re right, Natalie? So what if I am broken? What does that make you? You think a normal person would still be shooting their fucking mouth off right now? You think you wouldn’t have broken by now if there was anything left to fucking break? You think that little bitch Mattie Thompson would ever love you if he had any idea how broken you really are? 

“We’re the same, Natalie. You’re mine, you always have been. I was yours, too, once, but you blew it all to fucking pieces, just for the hell of it, and look what happened, look where you wound up, stuck with an abusive fucking prick, just like everybody always knew you would be. You could have let me love you, but instead you went and made me fucking hate you, and now you're nothing but a toy to me. You’re my little mouse girl, and I can keep you or I can break you. I can play with you when I want and I can hurt you when I want. And if you keep running your fucking mouth off I’ll stick you back in mine and this time I’ll swallow you and you can yell and yell all you want where I can’t hear your annoying fucking voice and then you’ll be stuck with me forever and never leave again.”

Natalie clenched her teeth against the agony in her ribs, and her lips split into a mocking sneer that said what she lacked the breath to say, I told you so.

Trev sneered back. “I hate you, you know that? I really fucking hate you.” He lowered her to the floor between his legs and unwrapped his fingers, pinning her to the rug beneath his palm. She sucked in breath as his socked foot arched over her and his big toe slammed down atop her entire body from her shoulders down, knocking the wind from her. Up the length of his shin she could see his arms leaning across his knees, and above that his face glaring down at her. 

“It’s your own fucking fault that I’m doing this to you, you know. I’m getting really fucking sick of you acting like you’re the victim in all this, like you left me because I treated you like shit. I know you, too, asshole. You left me because our lives were shit, and you wanted out, and you were afraid I’d drag you down, that your new little hipster friends would see you with your trashy, psycho boyfriend and see you for who you really are. So don’t act like I ever woulda done this to you if you hadn’t been such a colossal fucking bitch to me, first.

“I never would have hurt you, Natalie. Never. You were the only person in the entire fucking world I ever gave a shit about, I would have done absolutely anything for you. I would have killed for you. I would have died for you. You were there for me when my mom split and I was there for you when your’s died. You always made me laugh, even all those times my dad beat the shit out of me. And when yours beat you, you still laughed, like it was nothing, and I wanted to fucking kill him. I dreamt of running away together. Really running away, and never coming back. I always imagined we’d get out someday and get married and have kids of our own, a couple of loudmouth trouble makers, just like we were, and I’d be a better dad to them than either of ours were to us. But you crushed that dream. Without ever even giving me a fucking reason. 

“It was you that broke me, Natalie. You were more than just my girlfriend, you were my best fucking friend, you were my family. The only family I fucking had after Mom left, and you ripped it all away, like it meant nothing to you. I couldn’t stand the thought of someone else holding you. And touching you. But I could have gotten over it. We could have gone back to being friends, if you’d given me half a fucking minute to fucking process. If you hadn’t immediately started fucking Mattie fucking Thompson!

“But, yeah! Okay! I was the dick! I was the asshole! I was the fucking psycho for hooking up with a girl you didn’t like, because it was obviously all about you, right? It couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with the fact that she was actually fucking nice to me? And then I had the fucking nerve to fucking care when some mother fucker bashed your fucking face in! I had to hear about it from one of Brittany’s fucking spoiled ass friends. She’d fabricated the story to make you out to be some whore, but I knew immediately what really happened. You went and ran your big fucking mouth to someone bigger than you, only this time I wasn’t there to fucking save your stupidass.

“So some asshole threw you onto a table and hit you in front of everyone. And your friends got him offa you, but did anyone throw his ass down? Did your pussy ass boyfriend beat the ever living shit outta him? Some bitchboy piece of shit thought he could get away with messing up the pretty fucking face of the loudmouth little bitch with the dead mom and the deadbeat dad. And I wasn’t there. Do you have any idea what that did to me? And when I asked his name you know what that cunt did? She laughed. She fucking laughed. She said, ‘Whadda you care? You’re Brit’s boy-toy now.’ 

“I wanted to kill her. I wanted to kill everyone. I was so fucking angry and the only person that ever would have understood was you, just like I was the only one who’d understand how angry you musta been when that bitchboy hit you and you couldn’t hit him back, how you must have laughed. It was crushing me, eating me alive, and I just wanted to fucking talk to you, just to make sure you were okay, just to tell you that I understood, that you weren’t the only one that was fucking angry. But you wouldn’t talk to me, you wouldn’t text me, you wouldn’t even fucking look at me. Your new friends told me to fuck off and leave you alone, like they knew you better then me, like I was a fucking stalker or something.

“But now I have you back again. I don’t have to worry about some other asshole holding you, or hurting you, ever again. Is it fucked up that I would rather crush you under my toe right now than ever let you go, again? Yeah, probably. Do I care? Not really. You're mine, and I can do what I want to you. And right now, Natalie, I want to hurt you. I want to break you, shatter you, like you shattered me. I think about how satisfying it would be to feel your tiny little body crunch beneath my foot, and wipe that fucking smirk off your face, once and for all. 

“I had the biggest fucking boner of my life while you struggled around so helplessly in my mouth. How powerless you must have felt in there, how pathetic, to know what you’d been reduced to. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to swallow you, to feel you struggle all the way down my throat. I wasn’t sure if I’d still be able to feel you in my stomach, but I didn’t care. It would be enough to know you were in there, losing your shit as I sat back and effortlessly digested you, as I broke you down into a million little pieces. I couldn’t decide if I’d jerk off right away or finish eating my breakfast first, so that you’d be smothered by even more food inside me. But I stopped myself from swallowing you because I know if I kill you, it’s done, I can’t play with you anymore. I don’t need to kill you, so long as I fucking break you. And when we’re both good and broken then maybe, just maybe, I can stop hating you so fucking much.”

Natalie lay on the ground beneath his toe, gaping up at him with wide, terrified eyes as he panted through clenched teeth, glaring down at her. Silent tears ran down her cheeks and, high above, his glare slowly softened. He lifted his foot away, and his hands lowered from his knees towards her and she flinched away from them, squeezing her eyes shut.

“My poor little mouse girl,” he muttered, cupping his hands gently beneath her. “Come here.” He lifted her to his lap, pressing her up against his lower abdomen, and Natalie broke down into sobs. He stroked his huge finger down her back. “Please don’t cry, Natty. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

She buried her face against him, her tiny tears soaking into the thick fabric of his tee-shirt. She knew she should hate him, should loathe him or fear him, but right now she just wanted him to hold her, like he always did, anytime she was hurt or afraid. 

“I won’t hurt you anymore,” he murmured, holding her against him. “I really was just fucking with you. I took it too far. You want me to make you some coffee? Would that make you feel better?”

“In a minute,” she whimpered.

“You want me to keep holding you for a while?”

She nodded, nuzzling against him.

“Awe,” he smiled softly, stroking her back. “You’re so fucking cute. I’ll hold you for as long as you want. And when you’re ready I’ll make you some coffee and an itty bitty little breakfast, just for you. Then I’ll keep cuddling you and petting you and maybe we can watch a movie or something. Would you like that?”

She sniffed and nodded again.

“Okay,” he cooed. She cried against him while he gently stroked her hair with the back of his fingernail. After a while he muttered, “Only, maybe I’ll give you another bath first.” He kneaded her yolky hair between his fingers. “You’re all eggy.”

She wiped her face against his tee-shirt, grumbling, “And who’s fault is that, Trevor?”

“Awe, my cheeky little mouse girl,” he smirked, giving her tiny waist a light pinch. “It’s yours, of course.”

Psycho and the Bitch

While the coffee brewed, Natalie sat on the counter beside the stovetop, freshly clean and smelling strongly of Old Spice, as Trev towered above, scrambling an egg.

“I don’t want eggs,” she grumbled from the counter. “Never again.”

“They’re good for your growth,” he said absently as he cooked.

She chuckled dryly and he mimicked her dry chuckle.

“How much of that did you mean, Trevor? Are you really gonna try and keep me here?” 

“I don’t have to try. You really suck at escaping.”

She sneered. “Answer the question.”

He sneered back. “I did. What's a doctor gonna do? It’s not like they’d be able to grow you back. They’d just put you all over the news, then hand you over to the Tank and he’d prolly sell you off to some rich pervert or something. It’s better you just stay with me, so I can take care of you.”

“To be eaten alive?”

“Almost eaten alive. I spat you out, didn’t I?”

Natalie scoffed, crossing her arms. “Some caretaker you are.”

“Hey, I’m not the villain, here, okay, I’m not the one who shrank you. All I did was take advantage of the situation, don’t act like you wouldn’t have done the same.” The coffee finished brewing and he poured himself a cup. He took a dropper and dropped a couple of drops into her tiny plastic teacup. “Here.” He handed it down to her.

“Thanks,” she grumbled. “What about your girlfriend?” 

Trev scooped a tiny portion of the scrambled egg onto a Pixie Hollow tea plate with a single cheerio and a shred of cheese. “What about her?”

“What's she gonna say about you imprisoning your ex?”

“Believe it or not, she had a shit ton to say about it.” He handed her the tiny breakfast plate and pulled up a bar stool to sit in front of her, pulling his phone from his pocket. He scrolled through a long thread of back and forth text messages, reading a few aloud, “‘Trevy, please come back. I’m so sorry I upset you’… ‘Trevy, wasn’t that sooo hot, the way we humiliated that little skank’… ‘OMG, TREVY, WE HAVE TO GET RID OF HER BEFORE SOMEONE FINDS OUT, I AM NOT GOING TO JAIL FOR THIS’!”

“Look at you two,” said Natalie. “Like a coupla Bonnie and Clydes. Nice paper trail, by the way. Subtle.”

He smirked. “It’s comments like that make everyone wanna kill you. She keeps tryna convince me to do it sooner than later.”

“She’s just so swell. Sounds like you two crazy love birds made up?”

“She’s dumb as a box of bleach but she’s got nice tits. I went back over to angry-fuck her brains out yesterday while you were apparently MacGyvering your way out of my desk drawer.”

“Charming. So you two got a story for when the cops come looking for me?”

“Didn’t we go through this? Another hoodrat goes missing, no one's looking for your dumb ass.” 

“Only we both missed school yesterday and I was last seen by about a hundred witnesses as you dragged me off down the hallway.”

“Circumstantial. Don’t you ever watch TV? No body, no crime.” 

“My dad won’t give a shit about evidence. He’ll know it was you and he’ll fucking kill you.”

“He didn’t seem all that concerned on the phone this morning.”

“My brother did.”

“Did he though? He can’t stand you, either, he’s always liked me more.”

“He won’t once he finds out what you’ve–”

“We still talking about this? It’s depressing how little anyone cares. Your breakfast is getting cold.”

She huffed, glaring down at her plate. She tried to take a bite of the cheerio, the size of a bagel and hard as rock, but couldn’t quite get her mouth around it. She banged it against the counter to try and break it apart and Trev snickered. 

“Glad this is so amusing to you,” she grumbled. 

“Want some help?” She held the cheerio up to him and he grinned. “How do you ask?”

Her eyes narrowed and she dropped the cheerio onto the counter. 

Trev laughed. “Awe, my little mouse girl.” He tousled her hair beneath his palm. “I’m gonna have so much fun with you. You should probably try to be a bit more cordial. I’m tryna be nice, but you’re making me wanna start playing with you again.”

She gritted her teeth. “Thank you so much, master, for your kindness and generosity.”

His grin faded. “Don’t call me that.”

“What shall’st I call you, milord?”

“Trevor. You’re the only one I ever let call me that.”

“I always thought Trev was so douchie. I suppose it does suit you better.”

“Can’t you go back to being cute and cuddly? I was hoping to have a pleasant morning with you.”

Natalie laughed coldly. “Sure, Trev, whatever keeps you from fucking eating me.”

Trev scowled, watching her poke at her tiny breakfast. After a moment he huffed, snatching her plate from her. He grabbed the cheerio off the counter and smashed it between his fingers, dropping the crumbs onto the plate. He shoved it back in front of her. “Eat, would you, you fucking twig? You ever gonna tell me why you’re so skinny? This is exactly what I’m talking about, that asshole can’t even manage to fucking feed you, can he?”

She exhaled, picking at the cheerio crumbs. “Not really, no. He’s broke as shit right now and gets all pissed and defensive when we have to remind him. It’s fine, we eat at school.”

“No you don’t. You sell your lunch cards to buy fucking clothes.”

“Okay, stalker. Sorry I don’t gotta sugar momma who buys my clothes for me. All I got are two little brothers who keep growing out of everything, so don’t act like I’m so vain.”

“First of all, she don’t buy me shit, I’ve always had better fashion sense than you. Second of all, Tommy can wear Nick’s old clothes, and Nick’s a big boy, he can take care of himself. Why didn’t you come over if you didn’t have food at home?”

“Please. Would you have?”

“I have. I practically lived over there.”

“That was different, your dad was paying us to look after you.”

“That’s not what I mean. You were there when I needed you, no questions asked, no matter what dumb shit we were fighting about. And I was there for you.”

“It was different when we were kids. We could just be scared, or lonely, or hungry, we didn’t have to feel bad about it, too. Shame stings more than an empty stomach.”

“But one keeps you alive and the other kills you. Just like I’m gonna kill you if you don’t fucking eat.”

“You’re gonna kill me anyway, prick.”

“Keep asking for it, smartass, see what happens.”

She ate, even as angry tears ran down her cheeks. Trev watched her, no trace of a smirk on his face as she choked down a couple of bites, using the cheerio crumbs to scoop up a bit of egg and cheese. She stopped, her face crumpling, clutching her nauseated stomach, and groaned, “I can’t, Trevor, it’s making me sick.”

He glowered down at her and slid the teacup of water towards her and she sniffed and took a compliant sip. 

“Eat.” 

She stifled back a sob, then took another shaky bite. He sighed and cupped his hands around her, so that she was surrounded by him on all sides, his torso before her, his fingers to the sides and his palms behind, and his face in the sky above. “It’ll get easier, Natty,” he murmured. “I’ll get you better again. I’ll get you so fucking fat. I’ll never let you have an empty stomach, ever again. Not ever. I’ll stow you away and take care of you, just like all those times you ran away from home.”

“Like a pet?”

He gave her a long, almost sad look, then nodded. 

She sniffed, tiny tears falling to the tiny plate. “I don’t want to be your pet, Trevor! I have my own life!”

“I know,” he muttered, running his thumb down her hair. “I know you’ll think this is crazy, but… I know it was magic that made you shrink. I can feel it. Like there’s some mystical force in the universe that knew you were shrinking away to nothing, and you’d die without me. It brought you back to me. I know I fucked with you, and I hurt you, but I kept you safe. What would Mattie Thompson have done? He’d have taken you to the hospital like you wanted, and when they couldn’t fix you, they’d have sent you right back home and even if the Tank didn’t sell you off like a slave, he’d abuse you and stick you in a cage and forget about you and let you starve to death, all alone.”

“That’s crazy, Trevor!” she cried. “That’s something your dad would do, not mine!” 

“It’s not just him, it’s everything. All this shit you’ve been trying to deal with by yourself. I think the only way you’ll ever be able to grow back is by getting away from it all, and getting taken care of for once. If I’m wrong, and you never grow back, then I’ll keep taking care of you, forever. I told you I’d take you to a doctor, and I will, just, not till you’re eighteen, when I can be certain you won’t be taken away from me and sent back to fucking Frank.”

“Oh my God!” she wailed. “That’s over a year from now! Don’t you think they’re gonna have some questions about where I’d been that whole time!”

“You’ll tell them what I tell you to tell them,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll come with something.”

“Oh my God, Trevor, oh my God,” she panted, clutching her heaving chest. “Please tell me you’re fucking with me.”

“You’re kinda fucked either way, Nat, someone has to take care of you. It’s either gonna be me or the abusive fucking ass hole that let you starve and then chased you out a third story window.”

“Agggh, Trevor, come on! Look, I admit, he hasn’t been the best caregiver lately, but he’s not abusive! You know lawn work is stressful in the winter, but we’re dealing with it, together, like we always do! You know him, he loves me, he’ll take care of me! You have to let me go home!” 

“I’ll take care of you,” he said softly. “And Nick and Tommy, too, I won’t let them starve. It doesn’t have to be bad, I won’t keep you locked away. I’ll carry you around with me, in my pocket. You can come to school with me, so you don’t fall behind, and we can do all the assignments together, like we used to.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” she sobbed. “You’re gonna kill me.”

He huffed, rolling his eyes. “Didn’t I already say I wouldn’t kill you?”

“I don’t believe you!” she wailed, burying her face in her hands.

“Awe, well, that’s okay, you don’t have to believe me. I’ll prove it.” A chill ran through her spine and she lifted her gaze from her shaky hands. Trev leaned in closer, cupping his palm firmly around her back. “And once I do, my voice will be there, saying, ‘I told you so’.”

Her lip quivered. “Why are you doing this to me?”

His grip tightened. “Didn’t we just go through this? I meant what I said; you’re my pet now, and I’ll keep you safe and I’ll keep you fed. If you’re a good girl, I’ll be nice and take good care of you. And if you’re not, I’ll still take care of you, but I won’t be so nice. I know this is hard for you, I get it. But it’s also hard for me when you keep making me feel so fucking guilty about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. 

“Why? Did you do something wrong?”

She nodded. 

“Tell me what you did wrong.”

She swallowed. “I, um… I didn’t believe you?”

“Right. You think I’m a liar. Have I ever lied to you?”

She shook her head. 

“So why would I lie to you now?”

She held his gaze. “To hurt me…”

“And why would I wanna hurt you?”

She paused, her heart pounding. “B-because I hurt you?”

“That’s right. You’re a little fucking bitch aren’t you?”

She nodded.

“But not anymore. Because you're my little toy, now, aren’t you.”

She swallowed, and nodded again.

“Say it.”

“I’m... I’m your toy.”

Trev’s scowl broke into a crooked grin. “Told you I’d get you to admit it.” His eyes lifted to check the time on the oven clock. “10:34, I thought you’d at least last till Noon.”

Natalie let out a sob. “Is this all part of your fucking game!”

“Of course it is. Now will you chill out? I’m not gonna ‘hurt you’, I did that already. Now I’m gonna be nice to you. I never told you to bow down to me, I never told you to call me master. I don’t want you to be afraid of me all the time, it’s annoying.”

“So whaddya fucking want from me!”

“To chill out, I just told you! Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“Okay, well, you answered too quick, now I feel like you’re just nodding because you think that’s what I want you to do.”

Natalie pinched her forehead. “I will try, Trevor.”

“Great, let's try. You want some more coffee?”

“That would be nice, thank you.”

“Feels forced.”

Her head snapped up. “It is forced! Whaddya want from me, Trevor, you can’t have it both ways! You can’t use fear to make someone be nice to you, then get annoyed with them when they’re afraid of you!”

He grinned. “Sure I can. It’s my game, I can play how I want. Try again. Do you want some more coffee?”

“Forget it. It got cold in like, two seconds last time.”

“Awe, really?” He took her tiny plastic teacup and poured it onto his tongue. “I guess it’s only a couple of drops, you gotta drink it quick. Do you want some more or don’t you?”

“I already fucking said yes!”

He snickered, shaking his head as he refilled it and handed it back to her. “Here.” 

“Thank you,” she sneered.

“You’re welcome,” he sneered. “I’m gonna wash up. Stay there.”

He scarfed down the rest of the scrambled egg from the frying pan, then washed the breakfast dishes and wiped down the counters. Natalie tried to savor her coffee while it was still warm, and did not move a millimeter.

“Awe, look at that,” said Trev when he’d finished, plopping down in the barstool, again. “You did what I told you to do and nothing bad happened to you.”

Natalie’s lips tightened. “Weren’t we gonna watch a movie or something?”

“In a minute. I want you to do something else for me, first.”

She stiffened, holding his gaze, preparing herself for another game. “What?”

“Tell me who hit you.”

She exhaled, closing her eyes. “Are you serious? After everything you’ve done to me in the last twenty-four hours, does it really fucking matter?”

“Mhm.”

She huffed, shaking her head. “Fine. It was Bradley Murphy.”

Trev’s expression revealed no emotion. “Oh.”

“Happy? I didn’t tell you because you’re fucking crazy and you’d have waltzed right up and beat the living shit outta him and I’m sure that family would love nothing more than an excuse to have your stupid ass thrown in jail.”

“What happened?”

“Come on, Trevor, it doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does.”

“Are you gonna pummel me if I tell you something you don’t wanna hear?”

“I’m gonna pummel you if you don’t spit it out.”

She sighed. “Fine. But don’t pummel the messenger. We were at that Northside party Tuesday night, and I overheard him talking shit… about you.”

Trev stared blankly. “What he say?”

“He was talking about you like you were this charity case. He called you names. ‘Rags-to-Ritchie’, Brit’s ‘Project from the projects’, shit like that.”

“And what’d you say?”

“A buncha dumb shit.”

“Tell me.”

“Um,” she groaned, rubbing her forehead. “It’s all kind of a blur, I was pretty fucked up. Alex and I started shit talking Brit, loud enough for him to hear. I made fun of her hair and clothes and said she had daddy issues… I made a buncha dumb jokes, like the thing about her using her pet hamster to get off. At some point Bradley and I got into it. He said he’d pay Mattie to let him take me home with him, so the Murphys could own the whole ghetto set. I said, ‘Which home is that? Doesn’t your daddy have like ten families?’

“He laughed and said something about my dad not being able to afford a single family. I said, ‘For all I know, your dad is my dad. How many little Murphys you think are running around this town?’

“He said something gross about fucking me at his place because he didn’t wanna get his shoes dirty in the cardboard box I lived in. I said, ‘You’d fuck your sister?’

“Then he got in my face about how I was a trash whore and a cunt and I’d wind up dead like my mom. And I laughed and said, ‘Woah, my brother, take it easy! I was making an adultery joke, but your reaction makes me think you really do wanna fuck your sister!’

“And next thing I knew I was on the table and he was on toppa me, tryna rip my clothes off and hollering how he was gonna fuck me right there in front of everyone so everyone would see what a trash whore I was. And everyone was yelling and tryna get him offa me and I laughed and yelled, “Damn, Brad, you a bad boy! You oughta throw Brittany around like this so she can stop traipsing around the ghetto, tryna fuck a real man!’

“That’s when he hit me. He had the softest little powdered fist, and I told him so, but I’m not sure he understood because I was laughing so hard. It took like ten guys to drag him offa me, he was yelling how he was gonna kill me, my friends were yelling at his friends, his friends were throwing around dollar bills and shit and hollering over who got next round, Mattie was tryna stop my nose bleeding, and I couldn’t stop laughing. You’d have laughed, too, if you’d been there, it was fucking hilarious. It’s like my life is just one, big, cosmic fucking joke.”

Trev stared down at her. After a moment he said, “You called me a real man?”

She sneered. “Get over yourself. You gonna go and do something crazy, now?”

He grinned. “Who you talkin’ to? After everything I’ve done to you, my favorite person on the fucking planet, whaddya think I’m gonna do to that entire fucking family?”

“Even your girlfriend?”

“You mean the spoiled cunt who treated my little mouse girl like one of her sexy hamsters? Or the spoiled cunt who went around telling everyone that the trash whore was the one throwing guys on tables?”

“And what happens to little mouse girls when their stupid ass captors get themselves thrown in jail?”

“The spoiled cunt with the daddy issues won’t ever let her bad-boy-toy get arrested. If she does, the cops might accidentally find this not-so-subtle paper trail, as well as a shit ton of recorded confessions about the shrunken minor she kidnapped and assaulted. Even Daddy can’t erase a statutory rape charge with such blatant evidence.”

“You’re a bad boyfriend.”

“Yeah? Well while we’re sharing all our deepest darkest secrets you might as well know I really was just fucking her to get back at you for fucking Mattie Thompson. It was so important to you that you got in with the cool hipster kids, so I thought I’d up you by getting in with the dreaded Northside kids.”

Natalie laughed. “Yeah. Obviously.”

“That funny to you?” 

“Not really. It really kinda fucking stung to be honest. I wasn’t even fucking Mattie, you know. I was just hanging out with him to make you feel bad about yourself.”

Trev frowned. “Why?”

“Whaddya mean, ‘Why’? To ‘hurt you’, you spent all morning screaming it in my face. I started making new friends and you kept making fun of me and calling me ‘knockoff hipster’ and being such a prick about it. You made me feel like shit about myself and I wanted to make you feel worse, so I dumped your ghetto ass for the cool hipster kid. I wasn’t planning on staying with him until you went and immediately started revenge-fucking Princess Bleach.”

He burst into laughter. 

“That funny to you?” she grumbled.

“I fucking knew it!” he bellowed, pointing in her face. “That’s even worse than I thought! I mean, I knew on some level you were really going above and beyond to fuck with my emotions, but that is just fucking maniacal! I cannot believe you had me feeling sorry for you for one fucking second, you cruel, heartless fucking bitch!”

Natalie sneered. “Oh please, at what point have you felt sorry for me? You’ve colossally ‘upped’ me. We even now?”

“Not even close. Now I feel like a dick for punching poor Mattie Thompson. I oughta make you apologize for dragging him into your dastardly deeds.”

“I did. A lot. I even admitted that I’d just been using him to make you jealous and, for whatever reason, he just, like, forgave me. He told me that people do crazy things sometimes and that I deserved to know what it felt like to be treated with warmth and compassion, and that he’d take a fist to the face any day of the week if it meant getting to spend time with me. I do actually like him, he’s really nice. Way nicer than you. He didn’t deserve it.”

“I don’t wanna hear about Mattie fucking Thompson,” Trev sneered. “What kinda dumbshit let’s some dude get away with punching his girlfriend?”

“Just cause he didn’t beat him up doesn’t mean he’s letting him get away with it, okay? He keeps trying to get me to press charges.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that going?”

She huffed, shaking her head. 

 “It doesn’t matter, he’s just not that kind of guy. He doesn’t know how to fight, and he doesn’t want to. The closest thing he’s been to a fight was when you punched his lights out. He was scared shitless of you, you know. He never said so, but I kept inviting him to hang out at my place and he always had an excuse or some other plan in mind.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for that. Nobody wants to hang out at your place. It’s shit.”

“Oh, sure, compared to your fine estate. So why didn’t you ever bring home Princess Fat-Fuck? I’m sure she’d have been impressed by your cooking.”

“I only cook for little mouse girls.”

“Can I submit a request?” 

“Go for it.”

“Gimme my fucking clothes back?”

“Denied.” 

“Come on.”

“Mouse girls aren’t cool enough to pull off knockoff hipster clothes.”

“I’m cold.”

“Yeah? You can thank your heart of ice for that. I’ll give you clothes when you start being nicer to me.”

But he took her mug from her and wrapped his hand around her, and she relaxed slightly within his warm grasp as he hopped down from the bar stool and carried her into the living room. He plopped down on the couch, setting her in his lap and draping his hand over her like a blanket.

“Warm enough?” 

“Yeah,” she grumbled. As much as she hated to admit it, it was far more comfortable being held his hand than sitting naked on the cold counter.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yeah!”

He whacked the top of her head. “Did I tell you to yell? I only meant it’s nice not having to hear your annoying fucking voice all the time.”

“Fuck y–!”

His hand squeezed over her, smothering her against him. “What’d I just say?” He kept his hand over her as his other fiddled with his Playstation controller to pull up Netflix. “Whaddo you wanna watch?”

“Can I answer?” she grumbled beneath his palm.

“Speak up, I can’t hear you.”

She gritted her teeth, glaring up at him.

He grinned down at her. “I love you, you little fucking bitch.”

She sneered. “I love you, too, you psychotic fucking asshole.” 

God help her. She really fucking did.