3Million Reasons || Lady Gaga
ROXANNE
It takeseverything in me not to throw my phone across the room after I hang up. I settle for letting out a very long and creative string of French swear words before face-planting onto a cushion.
I want to scream into the pillow. I want to rage and shout and be as angry as I tried to sound on the phone, but I’m disgusted with myself when all the cushion ends up muffling are tears. I’m fucking cryingover him—again.
I hate this. I hate having to pretend to be a cold-hearted bitch all the time. I hate pushing him away. I hate how he always gets to be the good guy, and I’m just the cruel monster who’s too selfish to commit to him but too scared to let him go.
“Well, I’m trying,” I tell my pillow. “I amtryingto let him go.”
Only Cole Byrne does not want to be let go of.
He might be ready for another round of the way we clash, for the way I burn him up and he freezes me out until all we can do is seethe at each other, but I’m not. He might be able to ignore the cost of this relationship, to gloss over the things he gave up to be with me—the things he has tokeepgiving up, but I can’t. I can’t push the weight of our past aside. I feel it crushing us, squeezing us together until there’s no room left to breathe, just enough space to struggle against one another in a desperate fight for fresh air.
I know all that, and yet for every dozen reasons I come up with to stay away, it just takes one look from him for me start questioning them all.
Not this time, I remind myself.This time we’re not going back.
I force myself to straighten up and take hold of my violin again. I’ve been rehearsing almost daily for months now. I didn’t realize how much I missed playing regularly until I started whipping myself into shape for the Sherbrooke Station tour—the tour I’m no longer going on. Now that I’ve carved out a space for violin in my schedule, it would be a shame to give it up and go back to bringing work home with me to fill all my free time.
If I’m honest, it also feels like a shame to be giving up the tour. I’m finally in a place where I can leave my job for a few weeks and head off to share these songs with more than my cactus collection, but I should have known I was pushing my luck when I let Cole and I’s status become part of the equation.
I give my apartment another demonstration of my skill at using Québécois profanities as I settle the violin in its case and tuck it away in a corner. I’m too worked up to keep playing, and I’m supposed to meet a friend soon anyway. Today is Sunday, the one day I allow myself to take off work every week, and I’m long overdue for some socializing.
I make my way into my bedroom to start getting ready. This is the first apartment I’ve ever lived in on my own that isn’t a studio. There’s only one bedroom, but it still makes me feel like a proper member of adult society to be able to close the door on where I sleep. I swap the jersey shorts and Killers t-shirt I’ve been lounging in for something fancier, pulling a pair of palazzo pants up over the cactus tattoo inked on my thigh and tying the drawstring at my waist.
If the ink wasn’t a big enough clue, the coffee table under my living room window whose entire surface is covered by my collection would be enough to convince anyone that I have a borderline obsessive enthusiasm for cacti.
Some people hoard shot glasses. Some people go for postcards. I collect tiny, desert-loving plants with spikes on them.
I throw some jewelry on and spare myself a glance in the huge vintage mirror I keep propped up against the wall in my room. The frame is painted gold and carved with swirling, intricate flourishes. It looks like it belongs in an English manor or some kind of art gallery, and it’s a pretty impractical thing to own, but I love it.
Cole helped me carry it up the stairs. I called him after I bought it at an antiques store and offered to buy him lunch if he helped me get it home. He took one look at it after he arrived and gave me a smirk that made my knees weak.
“Screw lunch,” he practically growled. “I’ll help you get this thing home, but I’m going to fuck you in front of it.”
And fuck me in front of it he did. Every time I look at my reflection, all I can think of is how its gilded edges dug into my palms as I braced myself against them while Cole took me from behind. He had one hand knotted in my hair, tugging my head back as his other hand reached between my legs. He always looks sohungrywhen he’s fucking, like he’s caught between savouring what he’s already got in his mouth and a desperate need for more. I never saw it clearer than when I watched him work me like that in the mirror.
“I need amaudittecigarette,” I complain to my reflection.
Technically, I quit. I’ve cut myself off from smoking as many times as I’ve cut myself off from Cole, but no matter what I do, I still feel the need for nicotine. I still feel a sense of relief every time I take that first drag, even as the tar clings to my lungs.
I hurry past thedépanneurso I don’t go in to buy a pack as I speed-walk my way over to Avenue Mont-Royal. It’s still not quite dark out when I get to Taverne Toulouse, where the bar’s garage door style front windows have been hauled up to let in the non-existent breeze. Pop rock plays softly on the speakers. There’s a couple sipping Coronas out on the terrace and a big group splitting a few pitchers at a table inside, but other than that the place is empty.
I step inside the building and find Monroe standing behind the bar with her hands on her hips and a pen tucked behind her ear, grinning at me.
“What’s up, lady?”
I slide onto one of the barstools in front of her. “Don’t let me smoke tonight,” I grumble.
She gives me her trademark eyebrow raise before she asks if I want a shot.
I shake my head. “Not a shot. Just give me coffee.”
Monroe chuckles. “Typical. You’re gonna have to come back here and make it yourself, though. I still don’t know how to work that damn thing.”
She jerks her head towards the compact espresso machine tucked in amongst all the alcohol and glassware. I slide off my stool and unlatch the bar gate by the POS system. I’ve done it so many times my fingers go straight to the bolt without needing to fumble for it. I spent four years working on and off at this place; I could probably navigate it with my eyes closed, even when it’s packed with smashed McGill students at two in the morning.
