Breathe Me || Completed

5.1

5.1 - Breakfast

"Let's go," says Samantha's voice through the bathroom door. "What, are you making meth in there or something? Speed it up."

I spit into the sink and rinse my toothbrush. "D-do you need to get in here?" I ask, disappointed in the tremulous shaking of my voice. The door bends in ever so slightly as Samantha leans her back against it.

"No," she calls. "I want breakfast."

Well then, go get some breakfast. I open the door without warning, but she anticipates my move and remains upright, swinging away from the door with her sheen of blonde hair flowing behind her. It's down and hangs all around her body, making her into a very mean Afghan hound.

"You can go down," I tell her.

"You think I'm tryna talk to your mom?"

". . . um."

"You're not good for much but at least you're a functional buffer," Samantha smirks. While I blink at her, lost for words as ever, she slips into the bathroom behind me and sits herself down on the counter. "Chop chop," she deadpans.

I know what my dad would say if he knew how Samantha treats me. "Stop letting her win," he would tell me. "She likes to make you uncomfortable. Take back the power. Keep cool."

The Dad-Voice in my head is right, as per usual, but, also as per usual, it's easier said (thought?) than done. My face flushes and the toothbrush shakes in my trembling hand as I replace it on the bathroom counter. I had been about to wash my face, but she is sitting right in front of my face wash soap. If I reached for it, my forearm would brush against her back and I would feel her heat and the static electricity of her shirt on the hairs of my arm . . .

Whatever. It's not like my Acne-Fighting Fresh Glow Serum my Clean and Clear is actually going to make my ugly face "glow" in any sense of the word. Who needs face wash? I splash some cold water on my cheeks and rub the crud out of my eyes while Samantha smirks down at me. Then I sigh and say, "Okay, breakfast time."

Samantha takes the stairs two at a time, completely opposite the slow, unconcerned saunter of her usual walk. She's almost falling down the stairs. I furrow my eyebrows after her, wondering if she's having a stroke. But a few seconds later, it becomes apparent that my new roommate is in fine health, just very, very hungry.

My mother has made pancakes, a rare occurrence, but I hardly even have time to notice that before Samantha grabs the stack of five on the plate and bites into all of them at once like it's some sort of pancake Big Mac.

My mom, who had just opened her mouth to say good morning, stares at Samantha with wide eyes, spatula dangling from her hand as pancakes spit and fiz in the pan. Maggie, sitting at the counter, starts to giggle around a mouthful of egg and Hannah follows suit. Samantha ignores them and takes another bite and another. She eats the whole stack in such a short amount of time that Mom has time to stop and watch the entire show before she has to flip the pancakes again.

Maggie and Hannah laugh so hard that orange juice squirts out of Hannah's nose, which makes Hannah cry and Maggie laugh harder. I hand Hannah a napkin and she starts to giggle again too, especially when Samantha takes the two steaming pancakes mom has just put down on the plate and eats them one after another in a total of five seconds. Her technique is to fold the pancake into fourths, shove it in her mouth, and then I suppose incinerate it in her built-in satanic throat furnace. I stare in shock with my mouth open which makes my sisters laugh even more uproariously.

Mom is still too stunned to tell them to quit it. She flips more pancakes with the shaken look of a woman addled from witnessing some horrible atrocity. She looks like she will never be the same again.

Samantha winks at Hannah and Maggie and sits down at the counter with them, rolling her tongue around in her mouth. The girls sneak glances at her, hiccuping with laughter residue. Samantha looks at me. The dare is, say something.

"Ummm . . ." There's really nothing to say, is there? "Can I g-get you something to drink?"

Samantha glances at Hannah, who giggles at the eye contact. "What's good?" Samantha asks.

"Orange juice!" announces the four-year-old.

"You heard the lady," says Samantha.

I go to the fridge for the juice, watching my mother out the corner of my vision as she sets three more pancakes down on the plate, eyeing Samantha who watches apathetically. "Uh, Samantha," she says. "You, uh, would you like anything else?"

"Yeah, I'll have some pancakes," says Samantha. My sisters lose their minds. Maggie nearly falls from her stool and Hannah beats her fist on the counter, which must be something she saw on TV because I've never seen a real person do that.

My mother blinks. "A-alright," she says. She picks a paper plate from next to the breadbox. "How many?"

"Mm, however many you've got."

I have never seen Hannah or Maggie laugh this hard in either of their lives.

Mom uses the spatula to ease the three new pancakes onto the paper plate, her face unsure like she's been faced with a moral quandary. "You sure are hungry," she says, getting back her words. "Like your parents don't feed you nothing."

"They don't." Samantha holds my mother's gaze until Mom looks away.

"Well," says mom.

Samantha eats the remaining three pancakes with feverish speed that reminds me of cookie monster. Only instead of blue, fluffy and friendly, she is bright white, sharp, and Satan.

When she's done, Samantha gets up and throws her plate in the garbage. She takes the cup of orange juice from my hand and chugs it down in one long draught, slamming the cup down like a shot glass once it's empty. "Thanks for breakfast, Mom," she smirks. I have never been more afraid of anyone in my life.