Page 21 of The Dead Romantics

Beyond the women’s bathroom was a glowing emergency exit sign, and I took it as a girl in a sparkly purple dress asked if I was okay. “No,” I mumbled truthfully, slipping past the line to the emergency exit, and burst out into the cold April air.

I had to breathe. I had to calm down. So I did. I filled my lungs up with so much frigid air, I felt they might burst, then I let it out again. And again. I tilted my head back and blinked the tears out of my eyes, hugging myself tightly so I wouldn’t rattle apart. Not here. Not anywhere.

Never again.

I hated that I cried when I was angry, or upset, or annoyed. I hated that I cried at the slightest flux of emotional nuance. I hatedhow helpless I felt. I hated how I wanted to both march up to him and give him a fistful of my thoughts and run as far away from him as I could.

I hated how I couldn’t do both.

“Itoldyou,” sighed a soft male voice, “I don’t need to hear you read from your damn book agai—oh. Hello.”

I spun toward the man—and froze. A tall shadow sulked against the brick wall. He quickly pocketed his phone and stood straight, making himself even taller, and with my eyes already blurry with tears, he looked like a shadowy nightmare.

Oh no. Narrow, darkly-lit alley. No one around. My life spinning out of control.

This was where I got murdered.

“If you’re gonna kill me, do it already,” I hiccuped a sob.

He paused. “Come again?”

“No one’s around. Do it quick.”

He sounded baffled. “Why would I want to do that?” He stepped out of the shadows, and I could see his face finally. And that made it all the worse. Itwasa murder-y stranger, but not of the life kind. He was the kind to murder a career.Mycareer.

Benji Andor.

And worse yet, he could seemyface now, too. His thick eyebrows knit together. “Miss Day?”

“Shit,” I cursed, quickly looking away. Oh no, could he see mecrying, too? That was mortifying. I wiped my eyes. “What are you doing here, Mr. Andor?”

“Ben,” he corrected, “and same as you, I suppose.”

“Crying in a back alley?”

“Not that, no...” He judged his words carefully, frowning.

Why—why did he have to behereof all places? I had half a mind to turn around and go back inside but... Lee would still bereading from that stupid book. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to remember it existed. I just wanted to disappear.

I pressed the palms of my hands against my eyes and took a deep breath.It’s okay, Florence. Calm down. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter—

Then his voice, soft and a little hesitant, asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

No.

Yes.

I didn’t know.

I wanted to get away from Lee Marlow and his words. I wanted to get away from his memory. Everything about him—because he reminded me that I only had myself to blame. And I didn’t want to remember that. I didn’t want to remember any of it. My heart still felt like it was freshly broken, shattering all over again, the jagged pieces falling deep into the pit of my stomach like fresh pains.

And I didn’t want to feel that anymore. It had been a year. Why wasn’t Ioverhim? Why did I still want him to look at me like I was the only story he wanted to learn (irony, that one), and tuck my hair behind my ear, and kiss me like I was the heroine in a romance, and tell me I was loved? That he loved me.

I missed that the most. I missed it so much, the closeness, the certainty that I mattered.

And I wanted to matter again.

To someone, to anyone.

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