I looked at her lips turn from a loving and considerate smile to being downturned, emitting a look of confusion and betrayal.

She was the girl. And I knew that to her I was the boy.

I love her unconditionally. She loved me unconditionally.

She started nodding in slow acceptance, only saying the word “okay” under each breath. A drop of her tear fell onto my cheek, right where she kissed me.

She then started crying non-stop. I couldn’t calm her down.

I kept apologizing.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I know, Im a monster.

I'm sorry.

But she kept crying and crying and crying. I felt too nervous and I ran out the room like a coward. I threw up into the trashcan outside her room in the hallway. My heart was pounding violently, my palms were incredibly sweaty, and with every step I felt heavier and heavier.

Oh you grey carpeted floor, why wont you open up and accept me? Let me into you? Let me disappear from this world and melt into your fibers?

I ran. I ran out the dorms. Ran onto the street with my tears being swept off my face by the wind. I ran until it started raining. Eventually I was unable to tell if I was crying or if it was just the rain. Melodramatic, I know.

The rest is kind of hazy for me, I did eventually find my way home somehow, but my sister said I came back in a trace like state. I stayed home for the next week in my bedroom. My sister would sometimes talk to me from the other side of the wall. She’d tell me to unlock the door and let mom and dad in.

The whole time I was face down on my bed, in a puddle of my own tears.

On the seventh night, I heard a tap on my window. Another tap. And another.

I looked outside for the first time in a week and saw pitch-blackness. But in the dense darkness, she was there with small stones in her hand. The girl was outside my window, even after everything.

I ran to the door downstairs, past the dining table where my family was eating dinner. I opened the door and embraced her in my arms, and she embraced me. My father had followed me and asked what was wrong. I instinctually held her behind me, and told him that I was going out for a bit.

If they found out…

If my family of cannibals found out that I told her…

Not only was I not eating humans, but I had also exposed our secret to what they would see as an outsider.

We ended up at a Denny’s.

Me in the same clothes from when she last saw me.

She in the same clothes as when I last saw her.

We ordered waffles and talked while we ate. I tried to answer all her questions the best I could. She tried to accept me the best she could.

“So, you don’t anymore… right?”

This was her last question of the night. I assured her, no.

That night when I got home, I slept, I dreamed, I felt vivid. My body felt real.

The next day I expected to be bombarded with questions from my parents, but they weren’t even home. Neither was my sister.

I washed up and went to the school library to study for my upcoming finals.

The girl and I spent the rest of the semester back in each other’s arms again. I did feel that she was slightly more conscious of me, but that’s only normal I suppose. I mean there is no guide on how to tell your girlfriend about your cannibalistic past.

Everything was peaceful and quiet, temporarily