[ON HOLD] LOVE ME LIKE ART

7

— ZACHARY "ZEUS"
A. CHOI 🙂‍↔️

"IT'S TONY." THE VOICE that answers isn't Imani sworn away in a stupid high tower; it's gruff, low-toned, indifferent and capsized with impatience.

"Who is this?" I pleadingly ask because I'm sure I haven't transposed it wrong. Each press of a button of her scrawled digits on crumpled note paper was deliberate, like the subtle brush of keys on a piano.

I was sure I entered it the same way she wrote it, but now I'm not so sure.

"Who're you, mate?" The man barks with impatience, amidst the clamour of what sounds like a busy kitchen. "You called us."

"Zach." I mutter out my name, peeling myself off the wall to try and hear better, "I-Is... Imani not with you?"

"Who?" Tony bellows, like her name is a foreign element on his tongue, a dialect he doesn't understand or pages of a book he's never read. "Geez, I think the bird you're after sent you down the river.  Ain't no Imani 'ere."

"Ah." I throw back a shoulder, like an antiquated city on the verge of collapse. Except, the only ruin is my pride, knowing that the familiar, stale tide still sweeps over my head. The haze finally clears and I realise that this number bullshit isn't a mistake.

It isn't an oversight on her part, as she capered out the bar an hour ago.

Or the innocuous crossing of her wires.

It's an axe, an act of brute dismissal.

She never meant to connect and I was the biggest fool in thinking that she did. The betrayal wasn't in giving me the wrong number alone, but in the hope I let myself foster. I should've known that our conversation under the canopy of alcohol and smoke ended here. The fleeting glances, her polite pinned smile–they were without any depth. I should've known that when she handed over that notepaper, it wasn't to see you soon.

It let her firm her exit.

"What can I get you though, geez?" The man's voice cuts through like a train bulletting through a dark tunnel. A pizza parlour. I collapse into a grin, thinking about the absurdity of it all. Her scrawled digits haven't led me to her but to some guy named Tony in the middle of a kitchen rush.

"Sorry." I say, swallowing the thick knot in my throat. "I was after someone else." The words feel heavier than they should.

"Happens, geez. Have a good night."

"And you, mate." I claw out a tiny wisp of breath, fumbling my phone from my hand. I drown in my own ruin with my back pressed to the wall, thinking about the darts that have fallen askew.

I catch myself thinking about if she had answered.

If she'd answered in that rasping voice of hers, I don't know that I would've said anything tangible. If she was 'sworn away' in that high tower, I'd have no scope, no end goal. I just would've had this small, unseeded hope that everything would've fallen into place. Now that the truth is a parcel unwrapped, I could've pretended that I'm seeking her friendship but it would unravel at the seams. Friendship would be a lissom stairwell to her when parts of me crave more. I remember how I looked at her, like she was the beginning and the end.

And, it seems that disingenuity isn't a plate she eats from.

Ruled by her own constellations, our conversation felt at the time, the beginning of something. She had this rawness, a sincerity that I could almost touch. It made me feel like it was no longer consigned to rot by the sidelines, that this might be where the tide no longer ravages me.