Lovesick

Disassociated from my body, my sweaty hands struggled with the front door’s deadbolt. The second the lock clicked, I ran inside my house, slammed the door, and steadied my pulse on the other side. Adrenaline left me air hungry as I wiped the moisture from my palms onto my jeans.

Demetria had waved at me from her porch, and I, a coward, had fled indoors. Like always.

Mom said hello, oblivious to my distress, eyes focused on the tablet in her lap. I hurried to my bedroom and shut the door. My backpack crashed against my wooden bed frame as I peered through the gap between my navy blue curtains. They swished against my puffer jacket and the sound grated against my nerves.

From my window, I watched Demetria flip through a magazine with perfect, pink nails. She perched on a wicker chair in a yellow summer dress, porcelain skin ignited by December sun that reflected off fresh snow.

I never could tell what color her eyes were. I never got close enough, but in my dreams, they shone emerald. For months, all I thought of was her.

###

Demetria didn’t go to my school, and as summer turned to autumn, it became clear that she never left the house. Rumors spread like wildfire through our small town about the mysterious beauty trapped indoors, whose parents never saw the light of day.

Soon after, my classmates switched from mocking my father’s accent and my messy curls to a hailstorm of questions about Demetria. Does she really never leave the house, not even for school? Can you give her my number? Come on, Ari, don’t be a dick. I never had the courage to say what I wanted—that no, I wouldn’t give Demetria their numbers, because I wanted her just as badly, and they were all assholes.

Drawn to her like a magnet, anxiety repelled me backward. Trapped by my own misery, a constant push and pull, I observed Demetria from the safety of my bedroom until the sun fell low and snatched away her reading light.

If I had the power, I’d drag the sun back just for her.

At night, I lay awake and berated myself for the way she preoccupied my mind. When I slept, I dreamed of her pale lips against my neck, my hands in her thick black hair. I woke in the morning feverish, sweat sticky on my chest, and dreaded another day of school, not to mention the brief encounter with Demetria that followed like clockwork. She greeted me from her porch the second I left my car. I ran away.

Some might call me lovesick. It felt like insanity.

###

Friday afternoon, the day before Christmas break, I met Jake in the cafeteria. He was a lanky boy with messy blond hair and light freckles, too awkward for his own good. We loaded our trays with chicken tenders and a substance kind of mashed potato flavored, and passed crowded tables on the way to our lonely island in the rear of the monochrome room.

But no one ate. Instead, they spoke in whispers, hands cupped over their mouths.

“What’s with everyone?” I asked.

Jake’s tray clattered onto the table. “The seniors started a bet. First person to go out with her wins. There’s a group chat and everything.” He didn’t have to say her name. I knew who he meant. Demetria.

“What do they win?” I scooped my mashed potatoes with a chicken tender, though my stomach lurched.

“What’s more important than Demetria?”

I ate my lunch in silence as Jake typed on his phone. Near the end of our designated half hour, I nodded toward his plate. “Eat, or you’ll run out of time.”

Jake pushed his tray toward me, and it screeched against the metal tabletop. At once, every tray in the cafeteria squealed as well, rejected by their owners, food untouched. The sound clawed at my brain and a horrible vibration ran through my spine.

I stood from my seat and hurried from the cafeteria as the click click click of phones and whispers grew to an insufferable din.

By four o’ clock, my classmates had gathered on Demetria’s lawn and spilled onto mine. I found Jake toward the rear of the crowd, hands in his pockets as he receded into his gray puffer jacket like a shy turtle. Meanwhile, I sat twelve feet and a thousand miles away from them all.

From her.

I scoffed at Jake, though envy burned in my ribs. At least he’d been brave enough to go outside.

Colossal bouquets of roses, fluffy teddy bears, and heart-shaped chocolate boxes littered Demetria's yard. There were singers, guitarist, violinists. A girl from biology class painted a mural of Demetria on the side of my neighbor’s house.

Alone in my room, a pitiful spectator, I cast my eyes away, shoved in my earbuds, and focused on a book report not due for two weeks.

Within three hours, I’d written an essay about Gatsby. I glanced over my computer screen in time to see Brighton, my lifelong bully, get down on one knee and present Demetria with a red velvet box.

Was this a proposal?

She stared at him for a moment, put a hand to her chest, and burst into laughter. Everyone started as Brighton shoved the ring back into his wool coat, slammed his car door, and raced down the street in his red Mustang.

His engine roared through the neighborhood.

I hadn’t noticed the way I clenched my fists until my palms stung. Tiny red crescents lay in a row on my palms and pain emanated from each indent. Flexing my fingers, I forced my eyes back to my computer and read my essay:

As Gatsby falls in love with Daisy, he struggles against Demetria, Demetria, Demetria.

I scrolled through three pages of her name.

My vision turned bleary white and drifted to the novel face down on my desk. Uncanny eyes stared back at me. Two nude figures in the irises tumbled for eternity, trapped inside the vicious grasp of an apathetic woman.

I swiped the book off my desk and crawled into bed. Eyes glued to the ceiling, I wracked my brain for an explanation. I’d written the essay and ensured I’d made it clear that yes, unlike my classmates, I had read the book because I had nothing better to do.

I tossed and turned until I fell asleep to the crowd’s murmurs outside.

Demetria appeared in my dream minutes later, pale form liquid in my vision. I craved her like water. Like air.

She arched her back, sighed with pleasure. The sound reverberated off the walls. Green eyes illuminated my room in an emerald hue.

My phone spasmed against my nightstand and I gasped awake. The sun had set, my bedroom cast in a yellow glow from the amber streetlights outside my window. I reached for my phone with a clumsy hand. “Hello?”

“Ari!” Jake said. “You alive?”

He’d texted me from the neighbor’s lawn two hours ago and had begged for help with a Christmas gift for Demetria.

I didn’t know how to articulate that helping him make some lame gift for the girl I was in love with was the last thing I wanted to do, so I texted him a bland sure, which he’d apparently taken to heart.

Drunk on the fantasy of her skin against mine, I dragged myself downstairs. Garlic and onion filled my senses halfway down the steps. Mom popped her head out from the kitchen doorway and asked where I was going. Dinner would be ready soon.

When I didn’t respond, Baba lazily told me to be nicer to my mother, his eyes fixed on the television as he popped a handful of cashews into his mouth. I assured them it was urgent as I shoved my hair into a black winter hat.

I trudged down the driveway and threw my backpack in the trunk, unlocked the car door, then hesitated. My neck prickled and air puffed from my lips as if I’d been punched. I imagined the vapor as a bit of my soul running for safety.

My body’s visceral reaction to Demetria’s gaze caused me to tense each muscle and grind my teeth. I didn’t have to see her to know she was there. I felt her, and the rest of me wanted to run, too. But something new in my mind, faint as a whisper, said stay.

She stared at me from the border of our two lawns. Her lavender sundress danced in the arctic chill and her pale toes flexed over fresh snow. “Hello.”

I shoved my ungloved hands into my pockets to keep them steady. “Aren’t you cold? It’s like negative five out here.”

She cocked her head like a puppy. “Why are you the only one who doesn’t visit me?”

My face grew hot. How could I answer in a way that wouldn’t make me sound like a complete loser? I couldn’t tell her the truth—that I watched her from my bedroom for hours at a time.

When I gave no reply, she wrapped her arms around herself and pouted. “It’s alright if you don’t like me. I just thought, since we’re neighbors, we might be friends.”

Guilt washed over me. I’d been a terrible neighbor, a borderline stalker. The past few months, she’d tried to be friendly to me, the weird kid next door, and I’d been inconsiderate. I’d been terrified of her. Why was I like this?

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Ari.”

“Are you afraid of me, Ari?”

I wanted to tell her it was more than fear. It was paralysis, and I’d break my bones to escape it. Anxiety trapped me in a vice while Demetria tangled herself around me.

Trapped. I was always trapped.

“No. I’m not afraid of you,” I lied. “I’m just not great at talking to girls, especially pretty ones.”

Demetria beamed, and my pulse rapid fired. “You think I’m pretty?” She stepped toward me with a ballerina’s grace.

I nodded. “Everyone does.” A lull fell between us. It dared me to say more. I mustered what little courage I had. “Doesn’t it get boring staying at home?”

“I leave my house, Ari.” She laughed. “Of course I do. I crawl through your window and eat your dreams every night.” Demetria smiled so wide her eyes squinted.

An adorable quirk.

“Funny.” I let out a nervous chuckle. “You don’t even leave your yard, not that I’ve seen.”

Demetria glided toward me and stopped inches from my face, so close I could kiss her. She laid a hand on my chest, and I prayed she wouldn’t feel my frenzied pulse beneath her palm. “See?”

Up close, her teeth were brilliant white, eyes an extraordinary shade of green. They shone in the dark as if lit from behind. “I only leave at night so no one sees the awful things I do to you.” She rose on tiptoes and whispered into my ear. “I crawl into your room and lick dreams from your brain like frosting off a cake. You’re especially delicious. You’ve resisted me, skittering away like a frightened little mouse at every opportunity. But I’ll always find you, Ari. I like you.”

My breath escaped my mouth in one heavy puff.

“You make me salivate,” she moaned. “I know you imagine me without my clothes on, how badly you want me in your bed—”

“I don’t—”

The sugar in her voice curdled to poison. “Yes, you do. It’s alright, I like to watch. We’d have some real fun if you weren’t such a loser.”

I pressed my eyes closed. This was a dream. It had to be. But when I opened them, Demetria stared back at me. “Why are you telling me this?”

She kissed me on the cheek, and it burned my skin. “Because you’re my favorite. I’m going to gorge myself on you. You’re invisible now. Soon you’ll be dead.” Demetria ran the back of her hand down my face.

I shivered, whether from fear or cold, I couldn’t tell. “What are you?”

She stepped away and slid her long, pointed tongue over her teeth. A sharp click like the hammer of a gun rang out, and she spat her teeth into the palm of her hand. When she smiled again, she revealed a blackened mouth filled with rows of tiny daggers. She placed the false teeth into her dress pocket.

Gracefully, she looked up toward the sky and pinched at her eye with her thumb and index finger. A thin film lifted out, coated in a sticky green substance that pulled from her iris with a moist snap. It hung loose from the film in glistening strings.

Demetria faced me, sockets filled with green and nothing else, whites and pupils discarded on the ground. “What does it matter? No one will believe you anyway.”

Before I could speak, before I could run, she grabbed the collar of my coat and kissed me. Warmth coursed through my body, and I’d never tasted anything so good. My bottom lip popped from her bite.

Iron and salt filled my mouth. When we parted, I wiped my chin with the back of my hand and blood smeared against my knuckles. Her scent filled my nose—rose mixed with acrid sulfur.

My pocket buzzed. I’d forgotten why I’d gone outside.

“Go on, answer your friend, little mouse.” Demetria shoved me and I stumbled back. She retrieved the teeth from her pocket, polished them with her skirt, and popped them back into her mouth.

Her faux eyes were left abandoned in the snow.

I watched numbly as Demetria climbed into her bay window. Her limbs contorted like a spider’s, shoulder blades pulled so far back I thought the bone might burst from her skin.

Was it skin at all?

The buzz restarted. “I’m on my way,” I answered.

“It’s been an hour!” Jake yelled.

I hung up and ran to my car. My hands shook as I opened the door.

I pressed the lock button four times, leaned my head back, and tried to calm down. Maybe Demetria was just a bored home school kid who took pleasure in scaring people. But those sharp teeth and green eyes were inexplicable. I didn’t think a person could fake those, and sulfur still burned in my nose.

I turned on the engine, clicked on the headlights, and checked the rear-view mirror. One arm behind the passenger seat, I turned my head to back out.

Demetria sat behind me.

I slammed the brakes and the car jolted violently. My head crashed into the plastic siding.

Her nail slid down the side of my neck and triggered an uncomfortable tingle down my spine. I tried and failed to stop myself from hyperventilating.

I’d let her swallow me whole if she wanted to. But she was dangerous, wasn’t she?

I squeezed my head between my hands. I feared it might split in two. God damn it, I couldn’t think. Tears ran down my face as I turned to her. “Stop it! Please!”

But she was gone, and I was helpless to save myself. I screamed into my palms, rested my head on the steering wheel, and sobbed like a child.

My phone buzzed and buzzed.

When my tears slowed, I pulled down the vanity mirror and examined my swollen eyes, chin covered in blood, face wet and sticky. More blood dripped down my neck. I couldn’t walk back inside like this. I’d have to go to Jake’s, though I had no idea what I’d tell him.

I flipped the vanity mirror and found Demetria perched in her window, eyes cast down on a book. I felt the snap in my brain the instant she looked up at me and waved.

God, how I craved her.

Eager and defeated, I turned off the car and walked toward her house. My anxiety quieted, my fears silenced. This was what I wanted. I’d only ever needed her. When I knocked on her window, she dropped her book and undid the latch. It swung open and I jumped inside.

She took my hand and lead me to her pink and white bed. Dainty, floral wallpaper spun in my vision.

Demetria climbed atop me and kissed me. I kissed her back. She sank her teeth into my neck. As blood saturated her white quilt, I relished in my triumph, overcome with glee, delirious with desire. Laughter burst from my mouth, followed by a squelch and a gurgle.

As my vision faded and my ears rang, a meek voice in the back of my mind cried out in terror. I suppressed it easily.

Demetria was mine and nothing else mattered.