(un)lucky

four.

I WANT EVERYTHING. I KNOW I'M ON A DIET. I KNOW IT'S TOO MUCH. BUT MY HEART'S A GLUTTON. IT DOESN'T UNDERSTAND RESTRAINT. //
♪

04: I'm hungry

HIS MOOD RING READS GREEN.

Green for jealousy.

Green is one of his least favourite colours. It represents a lot of things he dislikes. Grassy-stained fingers, the tie Father tied around his wrist...around his neck, the cracked tile underneath his kitchen sink.

Green is such a lousy colour on Mamés. It always has been. His palette is more suited for softer hues; pale pinks and washed-out burgundy. But he can't help it, not today.

He can't keep his vision straight. It swims and shakes. In and out of focus and when his glasses slide down his nose he doesn't push it back up. So it remains skewered and his vision is distorted. Anything is better than seeing them together. Mel and Christian. Friends. Lovers. Exes. He doesn't know what to paint them today.

The bus jostles to the side when they hit a bump and he feels someone's knees pressing at his back even with the chair separating them. Maybe if they dig a little harder it'll reach his heart. Today, he won't mind the pressure.

Billie is beside him on the bus, taking the seat Mel usually occupies. Keith is somewhere causing a ruckus and she can't stand him in the wee hours of the morning. She's a slow waker. She claims she falls asleep with her whole body, so it takes time for all seventy-nine of her organs to be fully operational and up and running. That's why Mamés can't help but notice how awake she is.

She looks pensive and alert. It irks him because he is accustomed to absent Billie. With gloss over her eyes, she is present but never really there.

"What's wrong," Mamés says. Not a question, not really. Rather a distraction. An escape.

"Yeah...it's just," she tucks a stray brown hair by her ear and worries her lip with her teeth. "I thought Mel dumped him last week."

He breathes out loudly through his mouth. This was supposed to be a distraction. He forgot that apart from him no one pays more attention to Mel other than Billie. "You and me both."

So he is back to watching them again.

The space between their lips. The space above their heads. Shoulders pressed together, conspiratorial grins and muted laughs. There's a painful stitch in his stomach. Mamés is green all over. He should be used to it by now. Mel stepping all over his heart, going time and time again towards Christian even though she claims it's just for fun.

I can be fun too. He thinks. Just give me a chance.

Christian looks back, looking around for someone but he catches Mamés' gaze instead. Their eyes lock. He feels something ugly stirring within him even before the malicious smirk sweeps Christian's face. Mel's in the middle of saying something when suddenly—deliberately, he catches her chin and kisses her, swallowing the words she was spilling. Swallowing Mamés's gut. His eyes are on Mamés the whole time.

Billie stiffens next to him, while he slowly withers away on the half-sunken seat. Christian smiles and when he pulls away he is notably triumphant like he has won something. And judging from the white-hot pain that cleaves through Mamés's chest, he has. He gives one last parting wink and looks away, probably searching for his next victim.

Billie makes a sound of disgust at the back of her throat. "God, he's such an asshole. I don't understand what Mel sees in him and why she keeps fucking taking him back."