blue ✓

forty four

Vodka burned my throat for that first half of the moon crossing over our starry eyed skies, but your name–blue eyed girl, that hurt me more. It ached inside my head, and because of those throbbing screams against the skull of my mind and the ribs of my body, I guess I would rather blackout with a hangover than watch my hands tremble from missing your touch. You were my tornado with pretty eyes, those eyes like the sky on a crisp, clear summers day, but you were as sad as a lost and forgotten ghost, a heartbeat that sang like birds in romance movies from the fifties but envied the souls dancing around you.

Parties I hated, but missing you tonight was something I hated even more than the lonely taste of alcohol and forced smiles.

How did everything go wrong, so fast?

"Styles?"

I'm busy. I was perched on a couch, watching the lava lamp beside me fade up and down, deformed blobs of colour against the green liquid inside.

"What?"

Oh I sounded bitter, like the taste of the vodka that sticks to my tongue as I sip on my drink. My eyes don't move from the lava lamp though, it was a nice shade of green and purple, a nice distraction.

"We're playing beer pong, care to join?"

It was Ethan, one of my oldest friend besides Sean.

Oh but he's dead you moron, he's not your friend anymore.

My mind had a habit of reminding me about that. Like when you smell an old perfume or piece of furniture, or like the smell of wrapping paper on Christmas morning, or that bitter-sweet coffee your father made every morning before he left for work. Those memories are always there, but when certain subjects, smells, triggers, set these memories off, it's like re-living it in a hazy, and realistic dream that sunk your heart into the depths of your belly to swallow up and devour with pain.

"No thank you," I reply quietly. "I'm not really in a beer pong mood."

Ethan sighs. "Alright," and with that, I'm alone again.

And it seemed all I had to do was focus on this lava lamp, not the ache in my chest or the yells from across the home I was in. No, that distant music wasn't important or the dizziness settling into my bones, this green and purple concoction would do me just fine for the rest of the night.

I would forget everything, drink my vodka and watch this stupid thing for the rest of my night until I passed out.

I didn't check my phone–or really talk to anyone–for such a long time it felt like. But time went slower and slower, and the more I drank the more I missed Lola. And the more I missed her, the more unfocused I would come from the lava lamp in front of me, and that's when my mind wandered to painted blue eyes and soft pink lips, that was when I'd fall back and hit reality again as my head shook from the wind hitting my face and harsh ground digging into my skull.

The stars looked quite lovely tonight I suppose, but I didn't quite understand why I was outside.

I move my eyes down from he sky and back to the earth I laid on, and there she was.

It was like the first time seeing her, that electricity and buzzing sensation inside my veins. I smiled, genuinely and widely as she stared down at me and bit into her lower lip. Her freckles matched the skies above, and her eyes glowed with the moon itself. I swallow what tasted like bile, the bittersweet consumption of her return to me made me anxious. But I was happy to just see her, see she still had colour inside her cheeks and her lips were still that chapped red. Her eyes still bright and her skin still the same pale, imperfect galaxy, reminding me of the milky way.