Into the Velvet

Thirteen Days After

I held my hands up to the light, feeling for scars. Studying their shape. How strange. Time was passing through my body.

All alone, but for one street lamp. My sleep addled mind was playing riddles. How did I get here? How long have I been here for? The sun was sinking over the horizon. People were slow to settle into their beds. Lights flickered awake above the powerlines.

I had the entire gas station to myself.

My fingers bent into metal. I looked down with numb surprise. I was sitting on the hood of the Olly's car again. Something had possessed me to come back here. Taking the long and winding streets, retracing the steps Henry and I had tread on some other cold night. Henry and I had sat like this, leaning against each other on top of this car. An alternate reality; an unmarred version of events. I couldn't tell if I'd imagined the whole thing or not.

It certainly didn't feel that way.

My mind's image of Henry and I, together, alone, ripped through my sternum and sucked the breath out of my lungs. We'd made a terrible couplet — no two people had ever done so much damage by being together. Burning and soaring and careening into each other. This was to be the last act of our tragedy.

After tonight, the curtains would close.

The liar and his gullible student would be no more. And to think I'd loved him enough to long for forever... But I hadn't fallen in love with him then, not really. That was too simplistic. I'd been poisoned by love for him. And by the time he'd changed his mind, taking the first right turn out of the mess he'd made, the love inside me had turned rotten.

I had been half-eaten alive by it.

Hearts were breakable. That much I could understand. But this was different. Something was wrong in my chest — like an invisible gash had been left untreated for too long. Blackened and left to spoil.

The broken street light from my memory of that night was still here. It no longer flickered. In this reality, the light held steady. If I could still look for signs from the universe, I suppose that would be one too.

My feet lifted me to a standing position. They leapt with ease over the side of the car. I could feel the gas station attendant staring at me; wary and shy, keeping his wide-eyed thoughts to himself. Slowly, I made my way towards him.

Slowly, behind the glass divider, he inched backwards.

My reflection caught my eye between the automatic doors. Dirty hair and sneakers. Skin pulled tightly over bone. I hadn't slept or showered — there was no time for that, no reason to go home. I hadn't been able to bring myself back after leaving Bianca in the parking lot.

The automatic doors opened at my insistence. Without speaking, I reached the cool refreshment cabinet and began pulling out bottles of apple juice. The same brand and size that Henry had chosen, when we'd stood under this garish lighting on that dewy evening. When his smile was all I could live for, and his long fingers, which wrapped around the neck of the bottle, had stroked the insides of his book with reverence, his tongue curling around its words—

"How much for these?" I asked no one. Not even turning to the attendant's direction.

There was a pause. I saw him twitch from the corner of my eye. "Two-fifty each."

That would do.

My body acted with no thought. I grabbed hold of the removeable metal insert which housed the drinks inside the refrigerator. Then I pulled out the entire tray of apple juice, scattering cans and bottles all over the floor. Clattering in symphony. Their combined weight was so heavy. I almost lost them all.