#kesken

“Thinking of you turned into a bad habit, like pressing on a bruise or picking at a scab: it slows down the healing but it leaves a weird feeling on my skin that I can’t get enough of”

“He still fascinates you, doesn’t he?”

“No, no. Absolutely not! I’m over him”

“Melanie, c’mon. I have known you for a quite some time now and I know you miss him”

Melanie and her friend, Katherine, are sitting in this very fancy, and expensive, coffee shop. They are talking about men. And to be precise, Melanie’s men. There’s only a few, and they all were “true loves”, until they all went crazy, or something like that.

The first “true love” was Luke, when Melanie was 16 years old. They dated almost half a year but then Luke cheated Melanie. When she asked ‘why?’ Luke said that Melanie wasn’t pretty enough anymore. This drove Melanie to the edge. She became depressed and started dieting. When Luke and Melanie were together, Melanie weighed close to 70 kilograms, which is normal for her height. After three months, when Luke cheated, Melanie weighed nearly 55 kilograms. No one even noticed, they were just too busy with their own lives. Luckily Melanie’s best friend, Katherine, drew attention to Melanie, her eating and her weight.

To this day Melanie hasn’t fully recovered but she is healthy, at least.

The second “love of her life” was at the age of 18. Melanie met this guy at some bar and they had an amazing night. That was Melanie’s first time. The only problem with this guy was that he never told his name to Melanie and in that morning he had just vanished. Melanie never saw him again and this “mystery man” still left a hole inside of her. He still crosses Melanie’s mind time to time.

Melanie hasn’t been the luckiest woman, what it comes to men, and her bad luck continued.

“I want you to tell me more about Matt” Katherine begged.

“There is nothing more to tell about him. I have told you everything that you should know.”

“Please Melanie, tell me. You can trust me.”

“Yes I trust you. And I love you more than anything but I will not start opening up of him at here.

Melanie pauses herself.

“Can we go to your place, it’s closer than mine”

“Okay, if you want”

Katherine’s place is only a few blocks away from the coffee shop. Katherine lives alone in this apartment house, on the top floor. She has a cat named Oliver. He likes Melanie, he always purrs for her. They arrived to flat and right away they started talking.

“So, Matt”

“What about him? What do you want to know?”

“How did you two met?”

Melanie closed her eyes and took a deep breathe.

 Half a year ago

He’s dressed in black from head to toe, he even has black hair. With his ice blue eyes he charms every female that looks at him. This man is looking an inspiration for his new poem. And yes, he is a poet. Quite good actually. He likes to write love poems, because love is an illusion for him. He doesn’t believe in it. It’s fake, bullshit even. Every person who “falls in love” is weak and doesn’t respect themselves. The man walks to this park, where birds are singing and there is children playing with their parents. He despises children, so he doesn’t stay at the park for long. A couple of kilometers from the park there is an alley. An alley where so called “bad people” live. This man likes those “bad people” because they give him heroine. He is an addict, a drug addict. This addiction started when he was around his twenties. He has used drugs now seven years. First they were for entertainment. He only used heroine, or some other drug, with his friends at some parties. But then the addiction became worse. He started using when he was bored or he was in a bad mood. Then the downhill started.

There is no turning back, he is so deep that he can’t rescue himself. The man’s family doesn’t care anymore and his friends? Well he doesn’t have any good friends. The only friends he has are his drug dealers and they obviously don’t care about him, they only care about money.

The man walks to the alley and immediately one of his dealer recognizes him.

“You’re here to pick up?”

“Yep. The usually batch”

“Okay, it would be the same as usually then”

The man gives the dealer one hundred euros for exchange he gets 100mg of pure heroin. They don’t say anything to each other, the dealer just turned around and walked away. Our man puts his bag of heroin to his inside pocket.

Just a few blocks away at the park, which our man passed, Melanie is sitting and reading her favorite book, Hannibal by Thomas Harris. She doesn’t think that it’s a horror or a thriller book. She thinks it tells about love. How in a weird way Starling fell in love with Lecter. Melanie has read Hannibal over three times now and this is her fourth time. Some young boy comes over to her and says:

“You look really pretty. What are you reading?”

“Well thank you and you’re really handsome. I’m reading this book which tells about an FBI-agent and a cannibal. This is my fourth time reading this.”

“Yok, cannibalism is gross, you’re gross.”

Then the kid skips to his mother and apparently he is happy of what he said. Melanie is confused of what just happened. She just freezes to stare at the boy. Then she sees a shadow in front of her.

“Don’t mind that. Kids are annoying as hell, even the cute ones”

Our man is standing in front of Melanie. Still continuing to stare at this little boy, she answers:

“Yeah, I try not to mind but I can’t help it. Little kids are just like drunk people, they tell the truth. Their mouth doesn’t have any filter.”

Our man sits next to Melanie and asks:

“What about drug addicts? Do they have a filter on their mouth?”

“I don’t know, never met one but I guess they have. At least a better one than kids and drunk people”

“Well now you have met one. Matthew but please call me Matt”

Melanie turns her face and her whole body to Matt.

“You’re a drug addict? Why in the name of the world you are telling me this?”

“I saw you reading Hannibal and I thought you wouldn’t mind so much if I tell you”

“So just by that you thought that I could handle that, that you are a drug addict?”

“Yes”

“Well…I don’t know how to response. I could say thanks but then I would admit that what you said would be a compliment. And if I say something like, I don’t know, something mean you would just leave”

Melanie smiles her little flirt smile. She likes when strangers come to talk to her. Melanie doesn’t have many friends, only a few really good one and they have really busy and messy life. So they don’t have so much time for Melanie.