Page 3 of Creatures Like Us

My mouth turns up at the corners. “Hi, Kayla.” I have less than perfect control of my bodily movements, and even less of my facial muscles. I’m floating, and I feel good, and that’s all that matters for now.

“Are you having fun?” she asks, looking me up and down with a smile.

“Uh, sure.”

She reaches out and ruffles my messy blond locks. “I love your hair.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I keep smiling at her. Don’t really know what else to do. Don’t really know anything at the moment.

She leans in, putting a hand on my thigh. “Your name is Asher, right?”

I nod, head leaning on the backrest.

“You’re so freaking cute,” she says with a giggle. The puff of her breath smells like vodka and bubble gum.

Sometimes, people mistake my friendliness for flirting. I didn’t want to kiss her a few weeks ago, and I don’t want to kiss her now, but I’m too far gone to express it. My mind is floating somewhere above my head, and my ability to say no is dampened by that warmth spreading all throughout my body. Her face is too close, the press of her hand too heavy on my thigh, and I don’t?…?I don’t know what to do?…

“Ash, what the fuck!” Lilith yells somewhere in the distance. “Again?”

I snap my eyes open to see her standing right in front of us, fuming. She rips me out of the couch. I stumble and would have fallen on my ass if she hadn’t grasped my arm.

“I step away for two minutes, and this is what happens!” she snaps.

“I-I didn’t?…”

“Do you want us to have an open relationship, is that it?” Eyes narrowed, she observes the crowd on the dance floor for a second before she sets her target on a random guy with a scruffy beard. She rips him away from the dance floor and asks, “Hey, do you want to kiss me?”

“Uh, okay,” the guy says, face drunkenly flushed and a goofy smile on his lips.

Before I have time to do anything, Lilith slides up to the guy and grabs both his cheeks, planting a kiss on his mouth.

Wait?…?What? It feels like I’m on an episode ofThe Twilight Zoneor something. Everything is skewed and uneven.

“Lilith!” I put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her away from the guy. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Getting even,” she says, as if it’s some obvious fact I’m too stupid to realize.

“Getting even? But?…?I didn’t even do anything!”

Without a reply, she slings her arms around the random guy’s shoulders and keeps kissing him, sliding her tongue into his mouth.

“Hey!” I pull her away again.

“I thought you wouldn’t mind,” Lilith says casually, black lipstick smeared all over her chin.

“Wouldn’t mind? Lilith, we’re together!”

“I know that.”

“Do you mean?…?you don’t want to be together anymore?” Is this some kind of messed-up way of breaking up with me? What the hell is going on? I feel like I’m losing my mind.

“What’s wrong?” Lilith reaches a hand up to stroke her fingers through my hair. “I thought you wanted to be in an open relationship. What else was I supposed to think about what you just did?” Her hand slips from my hair and strokes my shoulder, down my arm.

I shiver at her touch. It feels cold and calculated. It feels like I don’t know her at all.

“Come,” she says, taking the random guy’s hand. “We’re going upstairs. I’m about to get fucked by someone who doesn’t flirt with other girls behind my back.”

“But it was nothing! It meant nothing.” How the fuck am I supposed to make her understand?