Cherry Red

Song at the top inspired this. Cover by Rensk3N. I'm still working on Losing Sawyer. Did I cover everything? You're fucking awesome. Love you.

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"Really I'm just up for anything."

I'm fixated as her tongue slips between her lips to wet them, the light overhead catching the moisture.

"Being spontaneous is so much fun."

She's talked this entire time, her soft pink lips in constant motion. A meandering noise, filtering in one ear and out the other because my mind is stuck. It's been stuck. My heart there with it.

"What do you think?"

My eyes snap up as the question hits my ears, blue eyes lined with black flaky mascara waiting for my answer.

But I don't really care. All I can think about is brown eyes and a slender nose with a small jewel in one nostril and lips that were always painted the perfect shade of cherry red.

"Yeah." I mumble, forcing a half assed attempt at a smile. "It is."

She tears apart a breadstick, jamming it deep into the plastic container of marinara that came with our pizza. Her nails dip into the sauce, covering the nude polish on them before she stuffs the breadstick in her mouth, licking sauce from her fingers moments later. It's a gross sound, her lips smacking together and I can't help but think about the transfer of spit and germs and I vow to not eat the marinara sauce.

"So what about you?" She twirls her wrist, the bit of breadstick still clutched between her fingers. There's a glob of marinara that she missed and I track it with my eyes. "What're you all about?"

I shrug my shoulders, sipping on the water that I've had my hands clamped around for the past several minutes. The dew of the glass leaves my hands cold and wet which is fine because it reminds me of summer and countless warm days and cold drinks and the girl that I spent them with.

"I work mostly but I like to travel when I can." I tell her.

But really that's not that true. Sure I work, an average amount, and yes I do travel when I can. But mostly what I've been doing is trying to figure out how I got here. How did things take such a turn that I find myself sitting in a pizza restaurant with sticky vinyl booths and gum stuck to the underside of the table and greasy pizza. How am I sitting across from a girl that isn't her?

I know the reasons logistically but I still can't wrap my head around it.

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I met her at a concert, the summer heat making the dingy basement of an old building in the city muggy. A nice blend of B.O. and booze and hundreds of years of smoke infused in the air. It was between sets, the lights on, drawing emphasis to all of our sweat covered faces. The hours the girls put into their looks all dampened and flat and disheveled. The guys stripping off any extra articles of clothes to cool our bodies. I'd already ditched my jean jacket, leaving it balled up along a chair with everyone else's.

But as my eyes adjusted to the light and I surveyed the rest of the room, all of us like minded creatures, here to see someone we idolized. Because their music touched, their words hit us. There she was. Mahogany eyes, the hue of her cherry lips bringing out the red that lingered in them. She had a slender nose that ended in a soft point, a sliver loop on the one side. Tattoos that dipped below fabric and peaked through the distressed jeans she wore. Her burgundy hair loose and long, cooling her complexion that shone under the lights. No doubt glossed with sweat like the rest of us.