The sun was streaming in through the open French doors when I woke. I opened my eyes slowly and blinked in the sunlight. The covers where blanched white and felt cool and still wonderfully stiff against my hot skin. Where was I? What was I wearing? I was surprised that I wasn’t naked, I was wearing a thin vest top, and it smelt of another woman, smoky with a hint of rose and something else that I couldn’t quite distinguish.
Suddenly I realised.
I was in Cheryl Cole’s bed.
This was every boy’s, and most girls, dream. I couldn’t help but smile.
I sat up and saw her silhouette out on the balcony. It was only now that I realised just how thin she was, in silhouette she looked almost skeletal. But she was so beautiful.
I threw back the covers and got out of bed, the polished floorboards feeling strange and cold under my bare feet. Silently I leant across the bed and lay a hand over where she’d slept. The sheets were still warm.
I stepped across the jumbled mess of sequins and lace on the floor and pulled my hair up away from my face and tied it into a ponytail, the curling ends brushing my back, tickling the nape of my neck. I padded out onto the balcony. I wanted to touch her, to see if she was real, and I slipped my hand around her waist. At my touch she flinched away, and her eyes flashed with fear for a moment, looking right through me. But now she looked at me properly and said “I thought you were still asleep. Did I wake yous?” The way her accent skipped over the words made me smile as I shook my head, and she smiled back, wrapping her arm around my shoulders before turning away and looking out over the lawn to where there were trees and a high wall. “Do you want a fag?” she asked me, and for the first time I realised that she was smoking, the cigarette in her right hand resting on the iron railing.
“Yeah, I suppose” I replied, and from behind her ear she took another cigarette, home rolled and slightly crushed, the tobacco poking out slightly from the end. She passed it to me, her hands shaking. I wondered how long it had been since she’d last smoked. “I haven’t got a light” I said, but she was already holding a lighter out to me. I took it. It was metal, heavy and expensive and warm, as if it had been directly next to her skin. I lit my cigarette, then looked at it. There was an engraving on one side, reading ‘To Cheryl, With Love From -------’ the last word had been scratched out of the metal so that it was completely unreadable.
“Cheryl, what’s happened to this?” I asked her
“What?” she blinked and rubbed her eyes
“The engraving, it’s been all scratched out, like with a knife”
She didn’t look at me as she replied “It was either the lighter or me wrists” she smiled, but I could tell that she wasn’t joking. I opened my mouth to ask her about it, but she spoke first. “It makes us feel sick.”
“What?” her lighter was still in my hand. It really was unnaturally hot.
“Smoking. It makes us feel sick.” Cheryl said, whilst I took a long drag of my cigarette and softly breathed out the smoke from a tiny gap in my lips. I felt the smoke, hot and toxic, like fire, in my mouth.
“Why do you do it then?” I looked at her, and she shrugged, saying
“It relaxes me, it’s like,” she paused for a second, thinking “it helps me to forget, that’s it. To calm down, like. But I don’t like it.”
I took another drag, wondering why she was telling me this, and absentmindedly flicked the ashes away. I watched them fall, still burning as they fell.
“What time is it?” I asked
“Nearly eight when I got up"
“I should leave-”
“N-no, Kimberley, don’t-”
I just look at her, but I don’t reply. Then I watch the ash pile up into minute black heaps on the patio below. I saw that where she stood the railing was charred, all burnt and blackened. I wondered how often she stood there chain smoking, just like she was now, to forget. Her tattooed hand would rest on the railing, delicate, only just touching it...
For the first time that morning I studied her face. The bright light, instead of being unforgiving and highlighting every imperfection, no matter how minute, made her look even more beautiful. Her olive skin was flawless and glowed, and the tiny lines around her eyes from years of crying, instead of making her looking older, gave her face qualities that made it look whole. Her eyebrows were furrowed and in her beautiful eyes I could read everything that she was thinking. Yes, she was beautiful, with her dark hair loose and curling over her shoulders and almost down to her tiny waist.
I finished my cigarette and flicked the final ashes away, stubbed it on the balcony then flicked onto the patio below. I watched it fall. My heart sank as I turned to Cheryl. “I need to go home” I said.
