It's All Going To Be Okay

My computer starts to sound like an airplane taking off the second we walk into my room. The fan goes overboard, I swear it wouldn't be surprising if it just spontaneously shoots through the ceiling. The light shines through my curtains, somehow beaming down onto my bed like it's the chosen spot of glory and victory.

Without hesitation, Alina takes a seat on it, the link glows majestically through her hair, making the brown appear more golden. She beams up to me, her smile providing more luminance than the entire sun. She rests her hands in her lap, the bottle of coke balancing by her side as she eyes the bag of chips in my hands.

"Cravings are certainly wild this month, huh?" I chuckle and set down the chips next to her.

She squeals and takes a handful of them, "Extremely, yes."

"I guess that you'll be working yourself a little extra hard once you're finished with your monthly demonic possession?" I take a seat on my gaming chair and begin setting up the stream info.

She giggles joyfully as she scarfs down some more chips. She loves it when I refer to her period as a monthly possession. It's her favourite metaphor for her time of the month. She first saw it as a post on Instagram and referred to her period as it ever since. "Other than the fact that I increase it every week, yeah I guess that I will go harder on myself."

"I can't imagine how much time you'll be spending outside once all of this ice melts," I finish setting up the info and loading up a game, Call of Duty.

"Well I have been gaining weight nonstop lately," She stares down disappointedly at the junk that surrounds her. "Even when I wasn't on my period."

This is something that I've learned through experience to actually listen to her about. Some people would tell her that 'looks don't matter' or 'weight fluctuates' and that she shouldn't be so hard on herself. But they fail to look at her eating and what goes on behind the doors. Alina has been eating junk food nonstop lately, and because it's winter, she's unable to do her regular workout routine that helps her combat all of that eating. Sure, she is on her period and she does get bloated, but she knows to not go so hard on herself when it comes to that. So, I know better than anyone else that when she's truly upset about her weight gain, then she knows that it's her fault and not just hormones. After all, she loves being fit and in shape. She's competitive and this helps her beat any sort of challenges. So I can tell that this must be very frustrating for her, even above the period and hormones.

"I hate gaining weight," She pouts, seeming sickened by herself for losing her edge. "And I can't stop myself from eating either. Once I start I just can't stop." Her voice cracks and I immediately know that now she needs me.

"Hey, hey, hey," I keep my voice low and compassionate. My arms wrap around her as she does the same to me, letting the tears flow and soak my clothes. Now this, I know, is caused by hormones. She doesn't break so easily any other day, unless she's been frustrated by something, in which then she'd cry to herself privately. "It's all going to be okay." I assure her as I hope that my family will stay out of this and ignore all of the commotion. "After all, you've been through it before and you still manage to overcome the weight gain and get yourself back into order."

"It's just so frustrating!" She cries, digging her face further into my shirt. Her voice squeaks and body shakes, she was so happy just a minute ago. I guess that I shouldn't have mentioned exercise to her then.

Actually, no. She loves talking about exercise and all of her achievements, right now just isn't a good time for her. I shouldn't stop, I should try to motivate her. "And I know you can do it." Her head pulls away from my chest, her nose is running and face soaked with tears. "After all, you always manage to beat me at literally everything because of how hard you try. So I know that once you get enough motivation that you'd easily be able to get back in order."

She sniffs, attempting to wipe the mess off of her face. I'm frozen still for a moment, deciding between leaving her for a moment to get her a towel or staying here to continue comforting her. "Thank you," She squeaks and shoves her face back into my hoodie. I guess that works too.

My hand nervously raises, gently patting her on the back, "Anytime."

She finishes wiping her face on my hoodie and pulls back again, staring down at the mess she made. She giggles, "Gotta love period hormones."

I laugh along with her. "Yeah but do you know what it's like to be kicked in the balls?" I joke with her.

She chuckles at that, ruffling up my afro with her hands. One of her fingers get stuck for a moment and I help her pull it out. "Such an amazing way to start a hangout."

"Wouldn't be the first time," I shrug, still smiling down at her.

Her face starts to lose it's red pigment and goes back to her tanned skin. Her nose is the last thing that changes colour, making her look like Rodolf or a clown for a few minutes. We sit there, silently smiling at each other for what feels like a few minutes. The silence is comforting and uplifting, though there's a slight bit of nerve involving what if my family walks by and notices us like this. Our faces are only about a foot away from each other and the smiling won't exactly help us make our cases.

"Wanna start streaming?" She asks in a breathless whisper, continuing to gaze deeply into my eyes.

"I-" I choke, struggling to speak. "Yeah, yeah sure."

We pull away from each other, clearing our throats as I take a seat back into my gaming chair. The sun continues to shine down, making Alina shine golden and appear beautiful despite her puffy, wet face. I'll throw my hoodie into the wash later, but for now I can't comprehend much around me other than her and myself. I've even forgotten how to use my keyboard and turn on the stream.

"Um, Knox," Alina mumbles softly.

I spin around on my chair to face her again, her face has gone pale as she stares down at her phone, horrified. "What's up?"

"You were streaming that entire time," Her gaze slowly lifts up to meet my eyes, tears beginning to form all over again.

My eyes bulge as I spin back over to my computer and open up the stream tab, it's true. The chat is blowing up, some of the names I recognise being from kids at our school. The box for the camera is small, yes, but it was also perfectly positioned onto us. Everyone saw everything, and they had the background music of the game to help make things even more interesting for them. Did my microphone pick up our voices? If so, then that will just be even worse for Alina since people will think that she's insecure and possibly even fat.

"Shit," I breathe, watching as the chat blows up with people shipping us and others asking incompetent questions such as, 'What just happened?' and 'Do they know each other?'

"How bad is it?" Alina's voice is low and cautious as she says that, she's probably afraid that I'll take it out on her, which I won't. It's not her fault that this happened. "Like the angle and all that?"

I mute my microphone and spin around on my chair to face her once again, "They saw everything, there wasn't one fault in the angle or the lighting." I stare down at my stream for a few seconds, contemplating on if I should end it or not. "I'm more worried if they heard everything you said or not."

Her face goes frozen and eyes wide, her breathing even seems to have changed a bit to a more uneasy pace. We're silent and still in the room, the chat is still blowing up and I can even hear Alina's phone start to vibrate uncontrollably. I guess that the clips must have already reached a majority of the school. Though, I doubt that it would be that big of a deal, after all, high school isn't like in the movies. There aren't clicks and barely anyone knows the most popular kid in school. So I doubt that very many people will actually care about what's going on between the two of us, which is nothing. But still, there's still the case of people who know us, and there's also the chance that my sister was watching my stream in the living room.

Alina finally moves to look at her phone, she swipes through what I assume to be around fifty notifications, her face showing a wide range of emotions. "My mom and dad just got back home," She mumbles, her face is completely blank and void of emotion.

"Are you leaving?" I ask her, not breaking away from looking at her.

She pauses, contemplation flooding her entire expression. "I don't know," She mutters, not meeting my eyes. "I probably should."

I know that if I asked her to stay then she would, and I know that it would probably be best for us to not distance ourselves from each other right now. But I can't muster the words to ask her to stay. "Wait," I mutter, the word spills out on its own.