Page 41 of Clouded by Envy

He couldn’t say he did. “No, but I can see what else they offer.”

“I don’t know if I can be your friend anymore,” she joked.

Brenik felt fine earlier, but now he was suffocating again. The food situation was going to destroy him, and he didn’t know what the fuck he was going to do about eating at that place. He sure as hell couldn’t just sit there and watch her chow down.

“Is that what we are,friends?” he teased, brushing away his anxiety.

She stayed quiet after his response. He knew she wanted him as much as he did her, even if she pretended not to.

After hopping in Rana’s car and her driving for about fifteen minutes, she pulled into a small parking lot. The restaurant was once a house, and a small sign out front read:Maria’s Mexican Food.Brenik was not impressed.

“Don’t get that stupid look on your face. This place has the best Mexican food you will ever have in your entire life.”

Brenik glanced up at the peeling pink paint and the patchy roof shingles. “I am sure it does,” he replied sarcastically.

“It does!” She thrust her index finger at the building.

Brenik held both hands up. “Okay, okay, I believe you.”

The restaurant appeared larger on the inside than the outside. There were four small square tables, and wooden chairs with padded green cushions pushed into each spot.

They seated themselves at one of the tables near the front door. A short Hispanic woman with streaks of gray throughout her black hair set down two paper menus in front of them, followed by a basket of chips and red salsa. When the waitress asked for their drink orders, Brenik just mumbled, “Water.”

The basket lingered in front of him. He didn’t find chips pleasurable, even when he could eat normal food. It was a good thing he didn’t have to pretend not to like their throat-cutting, knife-like edges.

“What? You don’t like chips either?” Rana asked, smiling as she grabbed a chip.

“No. They scratch my throat to the point where it feels like it may bleed,” Brenik said, his voice serious.

“Overdramatic, are we?”

“No, I just know what I like.” He held her stare, and she was the first to look away, her eyes tilting down at the menu.

Brenik pulled up the yellow paper in front of his face and scanned over the items. He thought he could try to sound out the words, but he was unable to read them. Maybe he could ask for some type of animal blood to test out.No, Rana would probably be too weirded out about that idea.He knew they had to have quesadillas, so he would try that.

The waitress came back and set their drinks in front of them. Rana went ahead and ordered the three-cheese enchilada plate. The sound of it was making his stomach heave just thinking about it.

“I’ll take a chicken quesadilla,” he said, holding back the bile. The smiling waitress wrote down their order and walked away.

“You’ll love it, I swear,” Rana promised and placed her hand against her chest. He almost believed her—almost.

When the plates came, he stared at the quesadilla like it was an enemy he was trying to turn into a companion. He ate one slice and although it tasted like paper—which he knew because he had tried to eat paper before—it stayed down.

Patting his stomach and smiling broadly, he gave his abdomen one more rub to fake the delight. Rana’s eyebrows were battling which direction to go as she watched him—one stayed up, and the other one hunched down.

But Brenik knew it. He fucking knew it. And he should have stopped there. As soon as he swallowed the first bite of the second slice, Brenik felt the uncontrollable heave as the gagging started.

Rana’s eyebrows figured out what to do at that moment as they both flew up in distress. “Are you okay?” She shot up and skirted the table, slamming her hand against his back. “Do you need me to do the Heimlich?

No, he didn’t need her to perform the fucking Heimlich so he could shoot black shit all over the table. Throwing down the cloth napkin, Brenik took off in the direction leading to the bathroom, a thick sludge slowly crawling up his throat.

The bathroom smelled like piss because some jackass didn’t know how to aim his dick at a toilet. Avoiding the splashes of urine on the floor, Brenik heaved and a long, black worm-shaped thing came up and dropped into the water, splashing him in the process.

Brenik didn’t care—he just wanted the shit up and for this to stop. Grabbing his hair and moping over to the small rectangular mirror, he pulled the locks so hard that some strands were left in between his fingers when he let go.

Enough. He had hadenough. No more food of any kind unless it was human blood—someone worthless.

Glaring at whatever was in his way, Brenik scuffed his feet out of the bathroom to a worried Rana. She gnawed at the edge of her lip and blinked one too many times.

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