BLACK ROSE

First goodbye

Alex. 

I take off my helmet, staring at the familiar woman and unfamiliar man . From him my eyes travel to his two companions, both unfamiliar as well.

The taller man, dressed in a navy blue suit with a little caramel brown briefcase looks around, taking in the details of the place. He reminds me of a typical accountant, stuck in a typical office in a tall building somewhere in this city barely surviving off of his salary. When his eyes run over me, not paying me a single second of attention, I notice his eyes and the look in them. Scary and determined, so bossy I consider leaving. Only for a second, I immediately push that thought away.

The woman to his right, half his height, is keeping a safe distance. Dressed equally elegant and put together she makes Summer resemble a teenager that has just woken up. Her body language is in pure contradiction with whatever signal she's supposed to be sending. Scared and anxious, closed and held back. What business have they come to do; I wonder.

Lastly I take in the details of their last friend. A man in his thirties, maybe, dressed in blue jeans but a white loose shirt and sneakers. No suit jacket, no tie or butterfly. No accessories, just a dark black sleeve tattoo covering his whole left arm.

I wait for them to leave. Summer watches them leave with a gaze similar to mine, holding the little kid in her arms tightly. She turns around, stopping in her tracks when our eyes lock. I raise my eyebrows, not smiling, not smirking. I'm surprised, yet don't ask any questions.

She approaches me with her smile I've grown fond of. I realise I'll miss her more than I thought, more than I allowed myself to.

I eye the kid in her arms – a little boy not older than four years. He's got brown curly hair, and eyes exactly like Summer. Big and forest green with a hint of cold ice blue around the iris. I've seen him around a few times, but it never occurred to me he'd be her son. I smile at him.

"What are you doing here?" She asks me. "It's not the end of the month yet."

"I need to talk with AJ."

She rolls her eyes. "That won't be possible. He's not here."

"He's not here?" I frown. "He's not here as in he's not here at the moment of he's not..."

"He's somewhere in the Caribbean, Alex. He's not in the city."

He did mention something about leaving for some family business, but he promised to inform me beforehand. We have a month to close, and he said he wouldn't leave before that. What a liar.

"When did he leave?"

"Yesterday, very urgently." Her words assure me that he wanted to tell me. "He told me to tell you he's sorry he didn't tell you. He got some urgent call last night and had to leave immediately."

"When will he be back?" She shrugs.

"Why are you really here, Alex?" She asks again after some time. Her voice is different, more softer.

I don't have it in me to tell her. All the months I've come here to wrap up the month, all the other times I've come to sell. It's been years. Years through which she's seen me grow up, witnessed the changes in my life. She's always welcomed me with a smile that might look flirtatious, but is really warm and sweet. She's flirted with me and tried to seduce me, but I know she'd never do more. She's always listened to my complaints and had my back. She's been like a protective older sister in this place.

I'm going to miss her – her smile, her laugh, her jokes and her flirting. I'm going to miss coming here and there's even a part of me that's going to miss AJ. I'll have to walk around the city, hoping that one day I'd bump into her somewhere. See her walk down the street, holding the hand of her son and laughing and smiling. Hope to see that rare real smile of hers she deserves. All that's left for me is to hope she'll one day have the life she's always talked about.