Chelsea Grinned

[u/nickkmackk]

Fuck Chelsea. Seriously, fuck her.

It’s almost as if she had been trying to project some feigned millennial shadow against the drywall like a bad improve show tonight.

Her mannerisms displayed an unsettling awkwardness and a naturally robotic aura.

What a weird way to try and provoke jealousy during a break up sesh if that’s what she thought that was.

I don’t think the diner is going to ever let us back now even if individually.

No matter how many times you break up with someone, the outcome is always slightly different just with the same brand of salt around the glass.

But tonight the salt was… off. More bitter than usual.

I wasn’t surprised in the slightest to look down on my way home crying, recalibrating my life in my head for the 37,000th time to see 16 text messages.

Instead of “fuck you” this time it was “help”.

Ridiculously surprised I don’t have actual whiplash by now, I rolled my eyes and turned around.

Every time we do this she has to make me “ponder things.”

Makes me think she’s gonna burst into flames because I’m not there to hold shit together.

I can’t do that anymore. I can’t even hold myself together.

But the last couple days she’s started conversations with herself.

And yeah, we might not be the cleanest people on the planet so it’s not insane for her to sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown occasionally.

The first day I thought nothing of it. I figured it’s been a solid 5 days or so since she’s had any sleep. It was a calculation I could trust because I was on day 6 now.

I can’t sleep unless she sleeps. Now we hold a bond of mutual unrest that’s ironically decimated our romantic one.

Also, she’s been with me since I picked her up from her mom’s.

She’s not supposed to use there but she does so anyways.

I remember one time she told me that she started smoking haroine instead of weed because her mom couldn’t recognize the smell.

Then she said started smoking meth because I guess it was easier to stay up all night than to “panic unconsciously”.

The more I tried to help with trauma, the more her trauma seemed to shape shift into different addictions.

It’s like picking up one side of a tarp just for the egg in the middle to roll off the other.

At some point things started to require emergency structural support that I lacked the tools to even brandish.

Bringing us back to break up 37,001.

Help is the only four letter word I’ve never heard Chelsea say. She know’s I’d try to justify coming back if I saw that.

Never fails to find another way to pin me down. The strongest person I know doesn’t ask for help.

On my way back to the diner I started forming defensive walls again in my brain. Repeat sentences just getting yeeted over the side. Pin squeezed between my teeth like a weary soldier.

I was readying for battle but it’s hard to eagerly prepare when defeat is 37,001 / 0.

I still feel like the salt was slightly off this time though. And for once in a very long time I felt a pang of deep concern that she might actually be in trouble.

I called her phone. Got voicemail. Got mad. Threw my phone.

Of course she decides to call back when I can’t reach the fucking thing and I’m nearing 85 in the fast lane.

My phone was taunting me with a tonal melody and strobe lights from under the passenger seat.

She keeps calling.

You can’t pay for this kind of trill ride. It felt like I was in the middle of a heavy action scene.

I was about 10 minutes away from the diner when I tried to reach over and feel around for it.

I don’t know why humans do things like this. Self sabotage seems to have a great economy.

I was so distracted and caught up in my seething state I didn’t even notice her climb onto the hood of my car.

After multiple failed attempts fishing for my phone I looked up to see Chelsea just grinning at me through the front of my windshield.

Long arms with matted fur extended outward griping both sides of my hood like she was bear hugging a tree.

Deep red eyes sunk into her face pinned open above a long snout. She kept her jaws open wide displaying her lovely teeth and clung there to the hood of my speeding fucking car.

As severe panic and distress usually goes I’ve officially reached the motherlode. My heart nearly stopped and my brain told my body to stop moving too.

We were coming up on the end of the freeway and I could see stoplights a couple hundred yards in front of us.

I was in complete shock. Me and my “soulmate” locked in a contactless embrace as my car barreled toward stopped traffic.

Just clinging there. Stoically perched like a terrifyingly furry hood ornament.

There was no way I could regain control of my body in time to make any sort of logical reaction.

I don’t remember the impact initially, but I do remember her leaping off right before I collided with the small blue sedan in front of me.

When I woke up I was met with buzzing fluorescent lights and a nurse pulling a needle from my forearm.

The first thing I asked was if they found my phone.

Nope.

The next thing I asked is if I can call Chelsea.

They seemed to realize this was more of a demand than a question. So in a hysteric state I panic dialed her number.

After a couple of fumbling tries I finally got a ringtone.

Chelsea never answered.

And again the next day, multiple attempts of contact to no avail.

I called her mom. She said she hasn’t seen her daughter since I picked her up from the house a few days back.

After about a month people started loosing hope. It’s like I was the only one still concerned enough to try.

I’m not exactly sure what I saw that night. I haven’t told anyone about it.

I’m to terrified to let myself believe what I saw as real. In my sleep deprived state it could have been my subconscious transforming my girlfriend into a distorted lanky creature demon thing.

I feel like I missed a call that could have been the difference for something important.

The only thing certain is that I lost my girlfriend the same night I almost lost myself.

I have a rental car now. And a new phone. It took about 3 months to heal from my injuries.

As soon as I was released I found myself relentlessly calling her, driving back and forth on the same stretch of freeway hoping to see any sign. Any speck of a trace.

But something deep down tells me it might not even be her anymore.

Hopefully soon I can finally get some sleep.