7days7authors

Thursday: "So What if We're Disfunctional?"

Lenina

There’s no such thing as the perfect couple. There’s the couple that everyone says is the perfect couple, but I know different. You see, I’m a part of this so called perfect couple. Lenina and Aiden, perfect ‘emo’ couple. I happen to also be rather smart. Aiden? Dumb as a rock. But don’t let him know I said that, he seems to pride himself on thinking he’s smarter than I am.

We know people. Actually, we know everyone. At school, I have to constantly wave, and smile, and nod, and greet people or else they’ll think I’m stuck up. Which I’m totally not, I’m just too lazy to say hi to each and every individual person. We’ve won every popularity vote there is, together and individually. So it seemed natural for us to get together right?

Ugh. The truth is, I can’t stand Aiden. There are some days where I wish I could just punch him in the face and shut him in a locker. We hate each others guts. And it also doesn’t help that we’re living together in the same apartment. My parents gave me the boot once I turned eighteen. They weren’t exactly the best parents in the world. Actually, they were more like college frat boys. I don’t know why they decided to adopt me. What a waste.

Anyway. So here I am, cooking dinner for his lazy ass while he’s sitting on the couch watching whatever mindless television he watches when I ask him, very nicely, to bring me the soy sauce from the pantry. I couldn’t just leave the food there because something would burn.

“Honey, can you go get me the soy sauce?”

“You get it. You’re the one cooking.”

“I can’t get it, I gotta watch the food.”

“The goddamn food isn’t going to burn if you leave me for a second.”

“You’re right next to the pantry!”

“So? Go get it yourself.” I almost let out a scream of fury and stomped across the kitchen, purposely bumping into him when I passed the couch, and opened the pantry to find that we were out of soy sauce.

“Why didn’t you tell me we were out of soy sauce?!” He turned around on the couch and looked up thoughtfully.

“Oh right. We’re out of soy sauce baby. Used it up last night. Totally slipped my mind.” And that’s when I proceeded to scream at him. And yell, and lecture, and scream some more. Most of the time it wasn’t even words and I just screamed. And pulled at my hair, and stomped, and hit stuff.

By the time I was done, he just looked up and me and said, “The food is burning.”

—

I glared at him from across the table as he poked at the burnt rice with a spoon.

“This is burnt. There’s no way I can eat this. It’s unsafe, unsanitary. Are you trying to kill me woman?” He pushed his plate away from him and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed across his chest, shaking his head.

I screamed and grabbed the knife I used to cut the rice apart, since it was so burnt, and stabbed it point down into the table, letting it quiver as I let go.

“Jesus! What the hell!” He shrunk back in his chair as I leaned across the table over the knife with rage in my eyes, breathing hard.

“I may have been raised by two gay men, but I am NOT a pansy! I swear to god if you don’t eat your goddamn plate of food, you are going to sleep OUTSIDE on the balcony. NOW EAT YOUR GODDAMN FOOD!” I stayed there until I saw him cut off a portion of the burnt food and put it in his mouth, grinning gingerly as he swallowed it almost choking on it.

“Good. It’s your own damn fault it’s burnt.”

“How? You were cooking!”

He shut up and ate the rest of his food after I slammed a butcher knife onto the table.

—

Aiden

This woman is crazy! Sure I may have agitated her a little bit, but there’s no need to get so angry. Jeeze. I wonder if all girls are like this. Maybe it’s her time of the month. I keep forgetting when that week is so I don’t get myself killed.

This crap she calls fried rice is disgusting. It’s not my fault she decided to yell at me so long for forgetting we were out of soy sauce. Who remembers that kind of thing? What kind of guy goes ‘oh yeah honey, we’re out of soy sauce.’? No straight guy. No guy with a will of his own.

“FINISH YOUR GODDAMN FOOD!” I gulped and took the last excruciating bite of food before setting my place in the sink. Then she gave me this cheeky grin and said, “And since you’re over there already, and I cooked dinner, you can do the dishes!”

Then she did that little wave of her fingers before disappearing into our bedroom. I just stared after her and rolled my eyes. “If you can even call it dinner,” I said under my breath. And in a flash, there she was at the doorway again looking like she’s going to murder me.

“What did you say?” Her eyes were narrowed at me and her claws in the wood.

“I was just talking to myself about how wonderful your dinner was.” She gave me this sarcastic smile and disappeared again. What did I do to incur the wrath of this harpy? ‘Nina used to be so nice, so shy. Why oh why?!

—

After I finished scrubbing the dishes spotless (because if I don’t, she’ll kill me), I stripped down to some shorts and plopped myself down onto the couch to watch some quality TV. ‘Nina says it’ll kill my brain cells and make me fat, but there’s no way that’s happening. I’d kill myself before I got fat.

The clock struck ten and there she was, at the doorway glancing at me curiously. After about five minutes of that I finally looked at her. “Yes? Do you need something?”

“It’s past ten. We have school tomorrow. I don’t want you to be grouchy. It’s your turn to drive tomorrow.”

“But the Ninja Warriors Marathon is today. I’ll go to bed a little late.”

“But you’ll be cranky in the morning if you don’t go to sleep before eleven.”

“Then I’ll be in bed by eleven.”

“The last time you said that you went to bed at three, and almost pushed me down the stairs because I said you had bags under your eyes.”

“Well, you would have fallen if you didn’t grab a hold of my belt making me grab the railing.” See? Playful banter. She knows I’m kidding. It’s obvious I’m kidding. Right?

“You wanted me to break every bone in my body and be in permanent rehab for the rest of my life?!” Her voice started to get higher with every word until it was almost a screech. Ouch. I guess she didn’t know I was kidding?

“I was just kidding!”

“No you weren’t! Why would you joke about something like that?! You’re such a jerk! You can go to bed at whatever time you want because you’re sleeping on the couch!” She slammed the bedroom door close and I heard the lock clicking.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. That’s okay. I can take a shower in the morning.