Page 75 of Your Chorus
“Don’t you think you should do that the other way around?” I ask her. “Might be more satisfying.”
“I’ll think about it,” she tells me. “I’ll be back in like five minutes.”
“You left the door unlocked,” I chastise. “If I were your manager, I’d fireyou.”
“Oh, shit. Well, good thing you’re there. Guard the alcohol with your life until I return.”
We hang up, and I take a seat on one of the barstools to wait. The place is almost creepily quiet, and I find myself pulling out my lighter to distract me from the heavy silence. I click the switch over and over, watching the flame flare up and die out with just the pressure of my thumb on the lever.
I haven’t smoked since I started doing therapy. I wasn’t even planning to quit, but I found a half-empty pack of cigarettes in an old purse the other day and realized I hadn’t craved nicotine for weeks.
The lighter clicks again, and I bring the tip a few inches closer to my face, staring into the wavering lines of the blue and pale orange flame. I wonder if Cole still smokes. I wonder if he still thinks of me when he cups his hand around the tip of a cigarette and inhales.
I hope he’s given it up. It’s a terrible habit. I used to think he looked so sexy blowing smoke rings into the air. Smoking with him felt deliciously dangerous, indulgent and electrifying, like the moment you decide to pick dare instead of truth.
Now all I think about is the tar sticking to his throat and the blackness growing in my own lungs. Our time together scarred our bodies as much as it scarred our hearts.
I hope he breathes easy now. I hope he breathes deep and clean.
I still hope he thinks of me when he does.
I don’t need nicotine anymore, and I don’t need Cole Byrne. I have a life I’m happy with, one that makes me feel strong and solid. All the hurt I spent years burying under my skin is slowly draining away, like ink leaking out of a bad tattoo. I’m on the right path, and I feel the power in that every day.
I just miss him. I miss him so fucking much. I miss feeling like I’m alive instead of just living. I miss the way every colour seemed just a little brighter with him, the way songs on the radio were harder not to dance to whenever I was on my way to see him. I miss finding each other’s eyes across a crowded table to share a look that exchanged an entire conversation’s worth of words.
I miss his skin. I miss his lips. I miss the brush of his knuckles along my spine. I miss the way he laughed—reallylaughed. I can count the number of times I’ve heard it on my fingers, but each memory of that sound is burned into my brain like a brand.
In a strange way, knowing I can live without him is what hurts. I can walk away. Ididwalk away. It’s just that sometimes, I wish I didn’t have to.
There are probably only a few drops of butane left when I finally let the lighter go out. The tang of the fluid’s scent fills the air for a second and then dissipates. I lean forwards in my chair so I can get a look at the time on the cash register behind the bar.
Monroe has beenwaylonger than five minutes. I’m about to pull my phone out again when the sound of the door swinging open stops me.
“Sacrement, did they run out of lemo—”
I suck the end of the sentence back in on a gasp.
He’s silhouetted by the light coming in from outside, but when he takes a step forward and freezes, I can see enough of him to make out his stunned features in the shadows. I’m on my feet before I know it, but I don’t move forward, and neither does he.
We stand there, shock rolling off us both. I swear the air crackles with it. I rake my eyes over the familiar shape of his body, drinking him in, sloughing back the sight of him and feeling the buzz shoot straight to my head.
I somehow forgot just how breathtaking he can be, doing nothing more than standing there in jeans and a dark leather jacket.
My mouth drops open, but no words come out. Something in him tenses as he glances at my lips. It’s like watching a shutter snap closed; he shuts himself off in a second. His eyes flick to the lighter in my hand and then back to my face.
“You should quit,” he rumbles.
The old phrase slams into me like a speeding car. My heart feels like it’s trying to climb up my throat.
“I did,” I rasp. “I—I wasn’t smoking. I don’t anymore.”
I can’t read his face. His features are as frozen as a mask.
“What are you doing here?”
There’s no menace behind his question, but there’s no warmth that I can hear either.
“What areyoudoing here?” I find myself countering. “I’m waiting for—”
