Image via Pheebyweeby
Amélie lay sprawled out over Jamie’s faded tartan sheets. Her bleach blonde hair jutted out at awkward angles, rather than fanning elegantly out over the pillow. She’d taken a bottle of peroxide and some kitchen scissors to it on Tuesday night in her friend Melanie’s bathroom, because Jamie had said a blonde bob wouldn't suit her. Her boyfriend was right - her face was too round and too pale to pull it off - but she’d done it anyway. Jamie’s head was buried in the crook of her neck, fat beads of perspiration forming between the lines on his temple. His laboured panting began to irritate her. He sounded like an overgrown Labrador. Lately, everything Jamie did irritated Amélie in one form or another. The way he ate with his elbows propped lazily on the table. His undying love for Oasis. His inability to tuck a fitted sheet in properly. His aversion to proper skincare. Amélie was watching that sloppily tucked sheet now, the corner slowly peeling away from the mattress with the motion of the bed. Her nose was nestled in his collarbone and she breathed him in. Amélie did like how he always smelt of his mum’s fabric softener - it made him smell boyish rather than manly. She traced her thumb over the hard edge of his jawline; his face was rough to the touch, all sharp lines and prickly five o’clock shadow.
A soft September breeze filtered in through the blinds, providing Amélie with a brief respite from the stifling heat Jamie radiated. Her body felt limp as his clammy hands reached to pull her closer, constricting her. God, why was the boy always so fucking warm? She writhed around underneath him like a snake caught in a trap. Amélie wished she were a snake, able to crawl out of her own skin. She pictured herself slithering away on her belly, exposed as a raw nerve, leaving nothing but a dead shell of skin cradled in Jamie’s arms.
His steady rhythm faltered, snapping Amélie out of her trance. She remembered that she was not the ridge-nosed rattlesnake.
“You alreet Amélie?” Jamie asked, voice laced with genuine concern. What irritated her most of all was his nasally accent and the way he intonated their names at the end. Amyleh and Jaymeh: worlds away from the classy French Rom-Com of her namesake.
They’d met during Freshers week, though Jamie was from the other Uni, as her friends loved to ceaselessly remind her. Amélie didn't care much for clubbing - too loud and too dirty - but Melanie had dragged her out regardless. Jamie had never liked her friends, he didn't really like Southerners generally, but their opinions never offended him. Amélie wished she cared less what her friends thought. In their minds it was still better to date a boy who thought Pilates was training for those in the aviation industry, than to actually get with a girl. They joked about ‘turning lezza’ after one too many bad situationships, but the idea of actual sex with an actual girl made them screw up their stiff faces in disgust and confusion.
Amélie couldn't bring herself to pry open her eyelids and see Jamie blinking back at her. She wished it was because she felt guilty. Instead, when she closed her eyes, her hands ghosted over powdery soft skin, her slender fingers raked through silky black curls that smelt of orange blossom and patchouli. Leah’s eyes weren't soft or kind like Jamie’s: her steely gaze sliced you open, bared your soul and then swallowed you whole. Like an Anaconda. Amélie tried once again to stop thinking about cold-blooded carnivorous reptiles. She tried to forget the smell of Leah's expensive shampoo and how it felt to be utterly consumed by another person. Jamie’s hair didn't smell like anything at all.
He rolled off her with an unceremonious grunt and immediately lit a cigarette. Amélie rolled he eyes and reached for her phone, waiting for a message that was never going to come. Her lock screen was her and Jamie on Halloween: she’d bought him a matching costume he’d refused to wear. Amélie was looking straight at the camera, Jamie was looking at Amélie. She thought of Leah’s lock screen - the two of them outside of Sagrada Familia. They weren't looking at the camera, or the gorgeous Cathedral behind them. They were staring into each others eyes, faces tantalisingly close, the world around them fading into colourless oblivion. She wondered if Leah had changed her lock screen yet.
It had been twelve days and five hours since Leah had last messaged. They’d been sat in The Wellington on the same side of the booth when Amélie had spotted Melanie across the bar. Sometimes a split second can last forever. The second that would never end for Amélie was this one: at the same moment she locked eyes with Melanie, she dropped Leah’s hand under the table. Leah had stood up and, with a curt goodbye, left both the pub and Amélie’s life behind. They'd met in the library four months ago, Amélie had been absentmindedly leafing through a dog eared copy of 'Wuthering Heights' while sketching a little garter snake up the margin of her planner. Leah had leant over her shoulder, curls tickling the nape of Amélie's neck, sending small shockwaves of electricity through her body. She'd complimented the drawing, and after listening with a look of quiet amusement to Amélie prattle on about her top three favourite neurotoxic snakes, asked her if she knew what a Special Interest was. Her voice had been soft and gentle, a far cry from the clipped tones of their final conversation.
Leah was getting her masters degree in psychology and did not have time for second years with ‘avoidant attachment'. That was what her last text had said. Amélie re-read the message now and considered the possibility that she was The Worst Girl in the World. She pushed it down, swallowing the thought that stayed lodged in her throat like a spongy cherry pit. She muttered a silent prayer through clenched teeth that Jamie hadn't stared in her eyes and seen reflected in the glassy black of her pupils the flickering image of Amélie and Leah. A monochromatic film reel of tangled limbs, Oud scented sweat and satin sheets, ran indefinitely on an agonising, continuous loop in Amélie’s mind. The ratty tartan duvet scratched her calves. She thought of Leah’s Egyptian Cotton bedsheets, how nice they felt against freshly shaved legs, sprinkled with scented body glitter. Then she thought of the Ouroboros - eating its own tail, its self destructive cycle spinning on forever.
