Martigues

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           Before I was sick, well, I can't even remember a time. 2008, though, I think that's when it started. I was in France. The city of Martigues, not the city of love. But I guess I found it - love - anyway. I had just turned fourteen a week before. I romanticised pain. I found beauty in tears. I thought society was ugly. I was a giant cliché. I was in a coffee shop, a café type joint, if I remember correctly. I saw her. Maybe it was just a glimpse, a glance - black hair, green? eyes, five foot ten, pale, but not too pale, and very, very thin. At that point I think I had been staring for a minute because the guy behind me in the queue started nudging me rather fervently. I remember I sped to the restroom. I remember kicking a trash bin - because honestly, the girl I saw, God, was she an angel? Christ, I had to have been in there fifteen minutes, tops, before I walked out. She was seated at a table in the shade, sun still reaching her lower jaw, and what a radiant smile she had. I think she knew I was looking. I recall turning my back, flustered, then walking up to buy a coffee. Iced. I knew I turned around rather quickly, and oh, God, I remember the embarrassment written all over my cheeks when my coffee tainted her blouse. I expected something, perhaps a smack to the cheek, a stomp on the foot, a glare to the eye, but nothing but a weak smile and uproarious laugh came from her. I remember grabbing napkins as fast as I could, as soon as the daze she left on me wore off, and I also do remember apologising endlessly. She even told me to stop. Even when we were in the bathroom and I was wiping off her blazer, she told me it was all right, that she could get it dry cleaned. I felt like I had made the worst first impression anyone could have made. After all of that, as I was walking out, she grabbed my wrist, took a napkin from the holder at the register, jotted down her mobile, and told me to ring her sometime. Her eyes bore holes into my skin, her fingers like daggers in my bone, and her voice like honey encasing my ears. I remember that night I went home, and the first thing I did was call her. The conversations started out as casual. Simply hellos, how are yous, goodnights, good mornings, and breathing, a lot of breathing. But one night, I think she'd had too much vodka, a little too much rum, and far too much of me. She wouldn't put the receiver down, no matter how much coaxing from me, she refused to sleep because what she had to tell me "couldn't wait 'til dawn". I remember listening, lying there for something more than hiccups and breathy, inaudible words. I remember falling asleep, waking up to a dead line, and seven voicemails all from her. 7 A.M., "Good morning, why'd you fall asleep on me so soon?" Half past 7 A.M., "Wake up, I remembered what it is I was going to tell you." 8 A.M., "It's important." A quarter 'til 9 A.M., "If you don't wake up, I guess I'll just have to come wake you." And the other three messages were all just a blur, because 10 A.M. sharp, she was letting herself into my hotel room and jumping wildly on my bed. I think I fell in love on the phone that night. And that's how our love was, though, it was shaky breaths and incomplete thoughts, inaudible words and forgotten notions.  The third week into October, In the city of Martigues, is when I fell in love.