I'm hunched over on the ground spewing my guts out while faint snide laughter rings behind me.
"Damn, Petey, at least you could make it to the bathroom!" He taunted.
I turned around at him, my eyes burning, attempting to pierce his anti-shatter glass shield. Dammit, he did this to me. He lied when he said he just bought the milk, and now I'm paying for believing him.
"Why are you looking at me like that, Femme-Boy? I didn't do anything wrong. You didn't read the expiration date."
Yeah, it's hard to believe, but this asshole is my best friend. Sad, right?
I couldn't talk, because if I did, I knew I'd throw up more, but I could speak through my eyes. You're a jerk, Gary.
"Oh, Pete, you look angry. I'm so scared!" He exaggerated, making his body tremor falsely. Sometimes I wish I was stronger than him. I wanted the last laugh.
"Hey, guys, I heard Petey was hacking up stuff, is he all right?" It was Jimmy to the rescue. Thank God.
Gary looked up at Jimmy with a satisfied grin plastered evilly onto his pale face. "I showed him a picture of a naked woman, and this was his reaction." He chuckled to himself lightly.
I turned to look at Jimmy, who was massaging his temples. He had had a long and difficult day, I knew. "Gary, just leave him alone. I'm sure his healing process will continue more smoothly without you pestering him."
Gary sighed. "Oh, sorry, didn't know you were so protective of your girlfriend, Jimmy-Boy. I apologize deeply, no really. I'll let you two alone so you can apologize to each other in the gayest way possible then follow that with an awkward silence and an intense make-out session. I'll be doing my homework if you two little girls need me."
I looked up at Jimmy and nodded my head signifying my gratitude. He was still not used to my eye-communication, so head and hand gestures would have to do for this moment.
"No problem, Pete. Do you need a towel or something? Maybe some Tums?"
I nodded, covering my mouth. The inside of my throat was burning. My mouth was slick with the mix of vomit and saliva.
I've always pondered why Gary is my best friend and not Jimmy. I'm not masochistic, am I? No, I am not. I hate it when Gary teases me. He knows it just gets right under my skin and just pulses painfully, just like a blister. Gary is my blister, the blister I haven't got the heart to remove.
Jimmy came back with paper towels, Windex, my tooth brush, water and a whole packet of Tums. What the hell? Am I supposed to do all of this in a set amount of time? I didn't even know how it was possible to carry all of those things at once. All that was missing was a stopwatch to time how long it takes me to do all of this crap.
The floor was clean, and so was my mouth after scrubbing down for a full 10 minutes with my old tooth brush.
"Thanks Jimmy," I said as I walked passed him in my dorm.
He nodded back. "I'm going back to my dorm, are you just going to chill here?"
"Yeah, if Gary comes, I'll just ignore him." I tried to smile to assure him that I'll be fine.
He gave a final nod and turned to leave.
I plopped down onto my bed and began reading a historical fiction novel about WWII. I sighed. Peace, at last. No annoying roommate, no insults, and best of all, no puke. But it did not take too long for the quiet to feel uncomfortable. Unnatural.
Forget about blister, he's turning into caffeine, I'm becoming dependent on him to preform daily functions. Dammit, Gary.
I can't say I missed him, I just wanted him to be sitting on the bed across the room, saying rude stuff while I pretend to ignore him and read my novel. Like how it usually is.
I laid my head down. I didn't really know how tired I was until my body felt so heavy on the bed. My eyes grew heavy. My body sunk. I was drifting into sleep...
I woke up, to what seemed like hours later. I opened my eyes carefully. Gary was sitting up in his bed in the middle of the night, watching me.
"Rise and shine, Femme-Boy. Sleep well?"
Gary was asking me how I slept? That was strange. It was unusually compassionate of him.
"What do you want, Gary?"
"Only to know how my best friend slept. Is that so wrong?"
Finally, it had been acknowledged. I was confirmed as his best friend. It felt somewhat warm. He is my best friend. My best friend. Finally, something I could call my own, someone I could call my own.
Wait. No. This was all wrong, all off, this was Gary. He wouldn't let me know that he cared, would he? No, he was up to something.
I eyed him carefully as soon as I saw his body twitch in movement. I followed him as he came closer to my bed.
"Don't look at me like that, Petey. It hurts that you don't trust me." So much sarcasm dripped from that sentence alone. It reeked with sarcasm. It was disgusting. "I thought we were friends. Best friends."
He cupped my cheeks in his big hands. "Or are we not best friends?"
I averted my gaze and looked at the tiny hairs on his hands. They were colorless, if you weren't this close, you wouldn't even notice them.
"Not gonna answer, huh?" He let go of my cheeks and turned around. "Well, G'night."
"We're best friends, Gary..." Pity was what I felt, wasn't it? No, not Pity for myself, but Gary. Gary is so much like me. We have no one, and that's why we have each other. It makes little sense, I know.
He kept walking to his bed and crawled under the covers.
Now he was ignoring. No, I'm not letting him have the satisfaction of this.
"Get up," I demanded.
I could feel his eyes on me from across the room. "Growing balls, I see?" He snickered.
"Stand the fuck up, Gary, or I'm filling your bed with snakes."
He sighed. "You'd piss your pants at the sight of a snake, Pete."
I shook my head. "No, back at home I've had pet snakes, frogs, salamanders, I even volunteered at a zoo for the summer when I was 13 and fed and petted a crocodile."
It was silent. Gary thought he knew everything about me. That's where he was wrong. No, he knew nothing about me. If he wanted full control of me, he'd have to know everything about me. That's why he seems so unsettled right now.
"Sorry," He finally said.
"What?" I was confused.
"I should've told you the milk expired," he finally said and unplugged the lamp. He obviously didn't want me to answer.
I smiled and pulled the covers over myself.
Goodnight, Gary. Perhaps you'll have a chance of full control of me tomorrow, today, though, you're mine.