Annabelle’s boyfriend had left her so for a while, she became my best friend. Sometimes she’d come over at eight, or at midnight, or at two in the morning, or at noon when I wasn’t even at home.
“Tell me,” she said, “why are men so cruel?”
She never got used to how much food I didn’t have. She came over after drinking once, searching my pantry.
“Do you have food?”
“I have frozen water.”
“Do you have any leftovers?”
“No.”
“Have any chips?”
“No.”
“What do you have?”
“I have frozen water.”
We talked about the books she didn’t read. We talked about my Instagram drawings. We talked about alcohol, its feeling, its purpose. We talked about old souls and new souls, about falling leaves and new leaves. We talked about her ex boyfriend, how he gave her back the Playstation she bought him.
“Where is the Playstation now?” I asked her.
“With me.”
“Give me the Playstation.”
“No.”
She sat down next to me. We looked at each other.
“I’m hungry.”
I got used to using her – she filled a void that was missing; she made me feel important, invulnerable. She used me too, and I knew, that once she’d flushed herself of her past, she’d stop coming by and looking for food. She’d disappear like all those other evenings. One evening she came by and found some wine. She drank it, and she showed me a book she bought, and she tore out pages and laughed. She took her clothes off and looked at me, and the next morning the text messages stopped; she was gone.
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