"Why are you laughing?" I asked incredulously as Amanda continued to giggle at one of the more horrid scenes from the movie. The other people in the room looked completely mortified, yet she seemed to be having a great time.

        It was a Saturday in the middle of December, only a week or two before Christmas. I was having a small get together at my flat, since SAM was running the stream and Amanda had tonight off. She had been working hard on the live streams, and almost never missed a single one, so it was hard to see each other. I had taken the opportunity to invite Trott and his girlfriend, Smith and Tom, and a few other of our friends that wern't a part of the Yogscast. Amanda had insisted that we torrented the movie Tusk, and though it was listed under 'comedy', no one but her thought it was very funny.

        Amanda fell into my lap, gasping for breath. "He was turned into a walrus," she giggled, finding the grotesque mass of human flesh on screen hilarious.

        "This is the single most fucked up thing I have ever seen," I muttered, "It's not funny."

        "It's so amazing!" she laughed, motioning to the horrible, grunting monstrosity, "That's gonna be Chris Trott one day."

        "You are a messed up person," Trott muttered as she shifted and threw her arms around his shoulders.

        "Don't worry, I'm sure Katie Morrison will still bring you mackerel at the zoo," she giggled, looking over Trott to raise her eyebrows at his girlfriend. They had become fast friends the minute we introduced them, and I secretly enjoyed seeing them together instead of Amanda hanging out with one of her many male friends. I trusted her, but with our blurry status, I still worried about loosing her.

        "Of course Trotty," Katie teased, giving my coworker a kiss on the cheek as Amanda settled back down next to me so that our bodies were pressed close together.

        Trott pushed her off, but not very forcefully. "Guys that's not me!" he said for the hundredth time, "You're worse than the fans!" His complaining what justified, but Smith and I specifically made sure to continue to tease him all throughout the movie.

        I reached over to grab my beer off of the coffee table and took a swig before replacing it. I used the opportunity to pull Amanda closer to me, so that she curled up under my arm and tucked her legs under her. She smiled up at me and I turned my head to look at her more closely in the dark living room. Her eyes, normally dull and pensive, were sparking with a certain energy that always foreshadowed a wild flow of spirits. I tilted my head down to plant a small kiss on her lips, but it last a while longer than I expected.

        "How cute," my friend Laurence cooed from the arm chair after watching our exchange. I felt my face grow hot as all eyes turned onto me and the small girl under my arm; I wasn't normally one for PDA.

        "You guys are so cute," Mary, one of Smith's obnoxious-but-sweet friends, squeaked. I remembered her clearly trying to set me up with a bunch of different girls back in the summer; I'm sure she enjoyed hearing the news of my new love interest from Smith.

        Amanda just gave a small "Thank you," before dropping her gaze to the two different hands that were clasped together in my lap. I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, letting her know she didn't have to be afraid of Mary.

        "How long have you two known each other?" she continued to pry. Everyone else in the room seemed to switch their full attention from the disgusting movie onto us, thankful for the distraction.

        "A little over 3 months," I said at the same time Amanda answered, "Three or four weeks."

        I felt her tense up and at the same time I froze, realizing how different that time in the hospital really was for both of us. I was already in love with her before she even woke up, yet she was just now becoming comfortable around me. It was getting easier and easier everyday now that she was on holiday and staying at my flat, yet I still had to hold back and remind myself that we didn't know everything about each other yet.

        Mary raised an eyebrow at us skeptically, and Amanda stared at her with a neutral but calculating look. "I was in a car accident," she said after a long pause in which everyone had held their breath; I wasn't sure how much everyone knew about my American friend, but Amanda seemed to trust them enough to explain what happened. "Ross Hornby was there while I was in a coma..."

        The blonde sitting across the room seemed to find that endearing. "Aww," Mary cooed, "That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard. You'll have to tell me the full story sometime Ross!" She winked at me and shot me one of her signature smiles. "I just love listening to romantic stories like that. It convinces me that true love is a real thing," she continued, not sensing either mine or Amanda's discomfort. Mary, like Smith, didn't really have any social filters, so she was completely fine with talking about our romantic lives.

        Everyone soon got bored of talking about me and Amanda, to my relief. We watched the rest of Tusk, along with the horrible ending, and then hooked up my laptop to watch the tail end of tonight's live steam. There was the slightest tension between Amanda and I, but I knew better than to bring anything up until after everyone left.

---------------------------------------------------

        "Do you think I'm fat?" Amanda asked suddenly.

        I looked up from the book I was reading to stare at her. We had finished cleaning up the living room and kitchen, and I was waiting for her to get ready to sleep. I was laying on my bed, reading Wheel of Time in a pair of basketball shorts. I had the decency to wear some clothes as to not make her uncomfortable, but at the same time I still needed to sleep and wasn't able to with a lot of material on. Her classes had ended Wednesday, so she was pretty comfortable with my sleeping habits by now anyway.

        Amanda was standing in front of my full length mirror in a pair of shorts and a plain, black bra, all her tattoos visible in the dim light. She was twisting and turning, trying to look at the back of her as well as her body in profile. She had this sad look in her eyes as she pinched and pulled at her skin.

        "You're as far opposite as you can get," I said, laughing at how ridiculous her question was.

        She didn't join in; she was too busy trying to suck in her stomach and curve her back in an unnatural way. She didn't normally talk about herself unless I prompted her to, so I knew something was off. Suddenly, I felt bad for laughing. 

        I swung my legs over the side of the bed and pushed myself to my feet, letting my book rest face down on the duvet. Walking over to her, I stood behind Amanda and gently let my fingertips run down the sides of her arms. "I think you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," I muttered, bending down to whisper it into her ear.

        She didn't seem to buy it. "I hate my body," she whispered, still twisting every so often to look at herself at a different angle. I didn't know what spawned this kind of attitude, but hearing her talk like that made me feel terrible. I watched her eyes scan down the mirror, and then drop to the floor when she didn't like what she saw.

        I wanted to do anything to make her take it back and get rid of that disappointed and miserable look she wore. Amanda raised her arms to place them on her stomach and I brought my hands up to lightly hold onto her elbows, leaning down even farther to kiss at her neck. "It's okay, I'll love it enough for both of us," I told her, feeling a bit clique but meaning it all the same.

        She just stood there for what seemed like hours, watching her reflection in the mirror. Her curls fell around her shoulders and shinned brilliantly, and her skin was soft as I ran my hands around her midsection. I raised my eyes so that I could look at her better. She actually looked somewhat gaunt; her hip bones jutted out from her shorts, and you could clearly count the ribs under the Edgar Allen Poe quote. I thought she would start to plump up after she was out of the coma, but she didn't seem to be gaining any weight back anyway.

        "How could you love a fat..." she said, her voice trailing off as if she lost her motivation to talk.

        I grabbed her shoulders and spun her away from the mirror to face me. "What has gotten into you?" I asked, feeling frustrated, "Where did this come from?"

        She seemed to snap out of whatever phase she was in. "I...I'm sorry..." she stammered, "I shouldn't have said anything..."

       She tried to walk away from her but I held her by the arms. "No, that's not what I meant," I said quietly, "I don't want you to keep things from me, but I also don't want to hear you talk about yourself like that..."

        She looked as if I had just scolded her. "I'm sorry," she muttered, dropping her head in defeat.

        "Don't look so chastised," I smiled, leaning over so our eyes were closer and I could see the dark rings that circled her irises.

        She stared up at me, unblinking, as her eyes bored into mine. Slowly, her and came up and she rested her fingers on my cheek, pulling me down with the slightest movement. We hadn't kissed so intimately in a while, and soon my arms were squeezing her lower back and pulling her upwards so that she had to stand on her toes and lean against me for support. I relished the soft skin of her small waist, enjoying the natural curves of her body and the flair of her hips.

        We broke away long enough to fall onto the bed behind me, and resumed our kiss. She was straddling my hips, and the shorts restricted my arousal uncomfortably. I absently thought about how early we both had to get up tomorrow for work, but I didn't mind staying up an extra few hours if it meant I could have this girl all to myself.

        I let my hands slip from clutching her shoulders to slide down her ribs and waist. Slowly, I let my hands curve up towards her hips and let a few fingers slip under her waist band, gauging her reaction. She gave a small intake of breath against my lips and pulled away to look at me.

        I felt guilty for being so promiscuous. "Am I going to fast?" I asked after she didn't say anything.

        "No," she said quickly, almost automatically as if it were a reflex. She pushed herself up onto her knees and rubbed her arm, looking at something else in the room.

        "You sure?" I asked, also pushing myself into a sitting position and wrapping my arms under her's and up around her shoulders, away from both her shorts and the clasp in the middle of her back.

        She gave me an almost ironic smile. "Actually," she breathed, "Just a little..." She looked at me apologetically, as if she expected me to react negatively.

        "I'm sorry," I apologized, pulling her close, "I shouldn't have pushed you when you didn't want it."

        She smiled at that. "It was fine," she said, "I just really don't want to go any farther than this yet..." She motioned to her shirtless body and gave a small breath of a laugh.

        "I'm okay with that," I assured her, pecking her lips to demonstrate that I was serious. I pulled her back down and she settled down next to me, so that we were both on our sides and facing each other. I brought a hand up to cup her cheek and jaw, and she placed a hand ontop of that one.

        "I'm really glad I met you Ross Hornby," she said after a while, blinking slowly and giving me a small smile.

         I rubbed circles into her skin with the pad of my thumb and whispered, "I'm really glad I met you too Amanda Romeo." I gave her one more long kiss before pulling her into me and falling asleep with her in my dreams. 

A/N Have any of you seen Tusk? It's the single most greatest movie I have ever seen and no one can tell me otherwise. On a scale of 1 to fucked up, it's between Teeth and Human Centipede. I suggest you all go watch it! Thanks for all your support as always, happy reading!