The Cycle

Twinkling Possibilities

June 29th, 2013

(Chrys’ Parent’s Arrival)

As I reluctantly tapped the controls on my phone, hitting the commands that would change my life in a way I had never imagined, my heart wasn’t heavy with sorrow. There may have been a time when things like this would have been hard to me, but now it didn’t seem important. It was trivial; childish even.

With one swipe, my self-enforced Channing purge was completed. My phone’s wallpaper had reverted back to one of the defaults, my fanpage on InstaGram--@ChanningTatYum--was deactivated, and a whole album of shirtless photos had been deleted. After everything was gone it was apparent that the reluctance I was feeling wasn’t for the deleting itself, but rather, knowing that I’d have to find someone to take Channing’s place. No one came to mind.

Well, that wasn’t true; many different guys came to mind. There were male models, singers, actors, even a few YouTube sensations that I found highly attractive and would look great as a lock screen. But what would be the point in putting them up? It’s not as if I would ever see them or establish a connection. The most I would be able to do was have a one-sided relationship, staring at them day in and day out like an art aficionado obsessed with memorizing every contour of a piece, but never receiving any reciprocation. And wasn’t that what it was all about?

Liking someone so much that you couldn’t imagine going a day without seeing their face, hearing their jokes, and without a doubt, knowing that they felt the same about you. I couldn’t have that with a celebrity. Life isn’t a fanfiction.

I looked over at Sam, who was lying in my bed, her nose in whatever explicit book she was reading this week. Fifty Shapes of Girls?

 “Done. My phone has been completely de-Tatum-ized.” She shut her book and turned over. I gave her my phone to check. Her face broke into a smile after a few seconds and she threw her arms around my neck, pulling me into a hug.

“So does this mean you love me more than Channing” she said while we embraced. It was the first thing she’d said since she’d arrived about ten minutes earlier.

“Duh. Chicks before,” I half-repeated the slogan she’d said to me three times before.  

The first time was when she’d deleted all of her Chris Brown photos when she’d missed my birthday to go on a date with a boy. The second time was one of the guys from One Direction—Louis maybe?—after she had kissed Noah Mahler even though I’d told her I liked him. And the last and most recent time, when I’d made her delete all the pictures of my brother that she had creepily downloaded from all of his social networking sites.

“Dicks, Chrys, ‘chicks before dicks’. It’s just a word.”

“Yeah, but it sounds dirty.”

She laughed. “If you think that sounds dirty,” she grabbed her book and opened to a dog-eared page, “read that paragraph right there.”

I started reading, but she stopped me. “Out loud, I mean.”

I started again, reading aloud this time, warily at first. “As they made out, they each became more and more sexually charged, exploring each other’s bodies sensually with their hands. Robert had gone back to her protruding nipples.” I giggled and then continued, “Each time he tweaked them he was rewarded with another of her erotic moans. Her soft hands were roaming over his body too. They had started at his neck, gone under his shirt and caressed his chest, and then kept making their way lower. Now, she was rubbing—Yeah, I’m not finishing this.” I laughed loudly and shut the book.

Sam was laughing too. “Super dirty right?”

“Yeah. You are such a perv.”

“What? A girl has to read, right?”