For a while after I arrived, I decided my story would consist of the raggedy flannel phase that every angsty sixteen-year-old girl who thinks she’s got an ‘edge’ goes through. I remember the first time Cole saw me wearing combat boots instead of the puffy, neon basketball shoes I showed up with. I think he wanted to laugh, but he just looked me up and down and let it go.
Eventually, I ditched the gutterpunk aesthetic for the ‘Parisian film star’ clothing Monroe loves to make fun of. I started seeing clothes as a way to express power, not just personality. When I was twenty, I left the late nights and puke-filled bathrooms of Taverne Toulouse behind to take a management position at a cafe. I was barely more than a teenager, and I needed my staff to take me seriously.Ineeded to take me seriously. So, I started wearing clothes that made me feel mature and in control, and that seemed to convince other people too.
“Do you think Sherbrooke Station will stop by tonight?” DeeDee asks, glancing around the nearly-deserted bar. “We could use the eye candy to pull some more customers in. My awesome boobs can only do so much.”
She’s far from the first person to describe Sherbrooke Station as ‘eye candy.’ Their music is incredible and more than worth all its chart-topping success, but I don’t think anyone could argue that their looks haven’t played a part in the way the entire country seems to be going crazy for them.
Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m a stranger to the feeling.
“Although maybe your grumpy boyfriend should stay at home, Roxy,” DeeDee continues. “He’s hot, but he always looks like he’s...brooding.”
“You know he’s not my boyfriend,” I insist, “and no, the band is not coming tonight.”
I have to bite back a grin at the mention of Cole’s brooding. I wouldn’t say he has a habit of making people feel comfortable. There’s an intensity to Cole Byrne that can set an entire room on edge. Being around him is like standing near a lynx or a pacing tiger—there’s something hypnotic about the way he moves, something that holds your attention even if you only catch him in your peripheral, but there’s a threat to that beauty, a feral edge that makes your muscles clench and prepare to run.
Monroe instructs slams her binder closed and tucks it under her arm. “I’ve been stuck in this place since the morning, and I amsoready for a drink. Time to get behind the bar, my pink-haired princess.”
DeeDee hops off her stool and heads off to punch in for her shift. Monroe leans across the bar after she’s gone and gives me a look of concern.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” I force a smile. “It just threw me off. You know how I get when I bump into him or he calls...”
She nods and squeezes my wrist. “You can talk to me about it whenever you want.”
Monroe’s skills as a bartender double as the ones that make her such a perfect best friend: she’s the easiest person in the world to talk to, and when you’re done spilling your guts, she always knows just what to say.
We haven’t hung out in a while, and it feels good to chat over beers while DeeDee pops in every now and then to make us laugh with her inappropriate commentary about the customers. It’s exactly the kind of night I’ve been needing, but by the time I get home to my apartment and drop against the cool fabric of my sheets, all the distractions fall away. The truth I’ve been avoiding looms over me like a shadow.
I still need him.
I can repeat the thousands of reasons there are for me to stay away, rehash the arguments I’ve had with myself and come to the same conclusions as always, but even though Iknowwe’re better off apart, I still need him. I still crave him. My bones still ache with his absence.
It’s that ache that’s kept me crawling back to him all these years. He’s the pain, and yet he’s the only thing that soothes it. Cole helped me piece myself back together when I showed up in this city shattered and shook, but not even he could make something solid out of jagged edges and crooked corners. He cut his own life to shreds trying to do it. We’re crumbling buildings, the both of us, leaning into one another as our floors buckle and give way, but what else can you do when you’ve never learned to stand up straight?
