I sigh ash as she steps onto the balcony with me, her arms crossed.
'Where did you get that?'
I wave a hand vaguely at the city sprawled out before us. 'Got it off some guy downstairs.' I shake my head, tapping the railing with my fist. 'It's no use. I can't write anything. I can't... think.'
'Doesn't mean you can smoke,' she says and holds out her hand.
I spare her a rueful glance and put it out under my shoe after one more puff.
She moves in beside me, resting her arms on the railing with me. I can smell her over the smoke. That warm scent of hers that I call love. It still gets my heart fluttering and I don't know how. There's something there worth a thousand stories to ink the walls with, if I had the words.
'Maybe it's not your thing,' she suggests.
I chuckle. 'No, I'm quite good actually. Just not right now, and it's aggravating.'
'Do something else.'
'I could paint,' I consider, envisioning the city's glimmering lights on canvas. I had tried painting once, but I was not fluent with the brush. How was one to explain the stillness of the air. The chill of the night. I'm sure there were people who could with the colors. I was just not one of them.
'You can paint?' she seems surprised.
'I could learn.'
'What would you paint if you did learn?'
'You, of course. Exclusively in the nude.' I turn to grin at her and she arches an eyebrow at me.
And I'm gone; falling through the clouds, hurtling into the abyss... Beauty is a vicious thing. I know hers will fade. But the way she wears it...
'You'll have to use your imagination,' she says. 'And if I don't like it, you'll have to use your imagination for everything else after that too.'
I laugh. 'No, wait that's too much of a risk.'
'Then maybe you should stick to writing. I'll leave you here to think something up.'
She turns to leave but I take her hand and she smiles at me, the way she does sometimes as though she has a secret. As though I have fulfilled some mysterious expectation. As though she knows I love her.
'It's okay, I don't have to write tonight.' I pull her closer. 'Not tonight.'
