but the sky is never gray | frank ocean.

toxic

The white of her surroundings was so deafening she could barely hear the morose beeping of her toxin riddled excuse of a heart.

Rowe attempted to sit up straight and observe her surroundings further, but the stabbing pain in her stomach strong armed her into her previous lying position.

Where am I? How did I get here?

From what she could see whilst flat on her back, she had been taken to some kind of hospital, which meant she had gotten into some kind of–

"Shit. You're awake." Rowe blinked, shocked by the sudden appearance of her date standing over her like a fatigued guardian angel.

Her mouth was so dry it was danger of crumbling, or else she would've asked what had gone so wrong. "Aye! She's awake!" Frank hollered.

She blinked again, and now there were nurses, and wires, and blood pressure cuff, and one fading orange buzzcut.

"Slick?" She croaked.

"You can't go one day without me and not nearly kill yourself?" Rowe wanted to point out that she wasn't planning on seeing her for at least another week, who even told you I was here, but she resolved to keep quiet. Besides, Slick would probably die before admitting that she felt some kind of concern for her childhood sweetheart.

Slick leaned in close enough that the rest of the room seemed to fade out, her gap glinting maliciously. "Don't I always say that hydration is your friend, Rowboat? Now you're about to scare off your not-nigga."

A bedridden Rowe smiled sarcastically, ignoring the splitting pain in her lips and growing need to sleep away the results of an I'll timed binge, preferably for a few millennia. "You can't have me to yourself forever."

"Whatever."

The immobilized beauty scoffed, purposefully looking past Slick so she could scan the room.

Her belongings, or what little of them she had been carrying with her, were stashed on a windowsill, occupying space next to a sad-looking bouquet of lavender.

Who did that come from?

A nurse of only-slightly lighter complexion than Rowe followed her line of eyesight and offered her a pitiful smile.

Rowe had hated those ever since she had started receiving them from well-meaning social workers. Unlike a scowl or a pointed look of disgust, she could never fully comprehend the intention behind them.

"From your boyfriend," she said, winking conspiratorially.

An unspoken "fuck" lingered in one of the many pits in Rowe's mind. Frank with his goofy grin and well-meaning nature, likely decided he didn't need this kind of mess in whatever sort of life he lead.

Now all Rowe had were flowers that looked as eternally finished with this life as she was and a mangled ex-relationship with a woman that held more feelings than she knew what to do with.

She had a lot of regrets she didn't have the energy for, most of all being that they didn't last long enough for her to be deserving of a real breakup.

-

A plunging copper crop top, much too revealing for British winter, but just right for this occasion, if the look in Frank's eyes was anything to go by.

They twirled (or rather stumbled, seeing as how her date's home of warm Louisiana didn't have much use for ice skates) around the rink, Rowe laughing and teasing and overall just enjoying herself too much to be bothered with her body's ache for rest.

"I didn't think it was possible for one person to be so terrible at this!" shouted her only minutely hoarse voice, over the blare of Beyoncé' s 'Blow'.

Frank took no offense to the jab, just as she'd expected. "My expertise lies in other areas," he laughed. "Maybe if you're nice I'll show you some night."

How one could project such an air of relaxed sauve while tripping over his own skates, Rowe could never comprehend. "Maybe. But your flirting only barely distracts from the fact that you just managed to fall despite your iron grip on the railing."

He corralled her to the edge of the rink where he resided. "Then I guess I have to turn it up a notch," Frank noted, his voice the type of intoxicating Rowe wasn't used to.

 All of a sudden Rowe was no longer interested in skating.

...

And now they were making out behind the pink-tinted building, exploring one another enthusiastically like a pair of teenagers. Frank's lips were somehow softer and fuller than they looked, in contrast to Rowe's Vaseline-deprived disasters.

She would have to remember to ask him what kind of exfoliator he used.

But for now, the ache Rowe had put off was making its presence known, and she recognizes the signs of a well-earned binge crash.

As the darkness overtook her, Rowe realized she hadn't felt the cool caress of water all day.

-

The near-undetectable whir of Frank's engine was the only sound that dared to pierce the tense air between them.

Rowe picked at her cuticles and gnawed at her cracked bottom lip. She could sense the need for some kind of explanation for how their night had ended, but she had nothing of substance to offer. What was there even to say? 'I'm sorry I passed out while we were making out, I have a serious drug problem and accepted laced coke from an ex-fuckbuddy that I scammed'?

Her reality was so pathetically absurd Rowe wasn't sure if it called for laughter or tears.

She glanced at the exasperated angle of his jaw and shifted where the leather of the passenger seat brushed against her pressed-together thighs, wiping her clammy palms on the sweatpants the hospital had given her upon her discharge.

"Listen, Frank. I owe you an explanation."

His grip tightened on the wheel. "You don't owe me anything."

Rowe shifted again in her seat, her locs feeling unusually heavy against her neck. "I passed out in your arms. I owe you at least a reason why." 

"That drug test gave me a reason why."

Rowe kept quiet, unsure of how she was meant to respond to that. Frank didn't seem like the type to be so blunt and coarse, but she was sure that the events of the past twenty-four hours had surprised him as well.

"I usually never get like that, it's just that I think someone laced my shit," Rowe blurted, rambling out half-truths and praying that Frank assumed she was talking about weed.

He sighed. 

"I know coked out when I see it, Rowe." Frank remained facing the road, but Rowe could see the pitch-black of his pupils veer towards her. "And I meant it when I said you don't have to explain shit. I see enough of 'functioning' cokeheads in my business to be able to recognize one."

"And what business is that?"

It was Frank's turn to shift uncomfortably, obviously keeping something from the woman sitting beside him.

"It's... not important. Just promise me I'm not gonna have to carry you into a hospital again?"

Rowe glanced out the window, easily identifying the red bricks of her apartment complex. "I promise," she lied, reaching over to envelope him in a hug she wasn't sure he would accept. When his well-muscled arms wrapped around her midsection in retaliation, Rowe let out a breath she didn't know was trapped in her chest.

This was, at least for now, one thing that she could hold onto.
-

I'm gonna work on updating this at least as consistently/frequently as I update Within Reach! I have some shit already in the drafts I just gotta wrap it up.

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