Cherry Coke

I noticed her sit next to me out of the corner of my eye.

The cool summer air blew my tight coils of hair into my face, but I paid it no mind. There was silence, save for the city sounds below us, and the bustling life that passed us by.

I was not bustling in life or want to live, but there was no way for me to know in that encounter that the feeling was mutual. And we sat for a few moments waiting for the other to speak; though, I doubt it would have mattered if we did.

We were comfortable in the silence.
It was when the sun started to peek over the city that I stood and left her to her own devices.

I left my unfinished cherry coke in my place and ventured back into the building and into my apartment.

The next time I found myself on the warm roof was several days later and on the spot that I had left lay a note of gratitude- for the coke or my company- I hadn't known; when I saw her again, I forgot to ask.

We met several times after that. Each time, we pretended not to notice how the space between us dwindled or how I happened to have two cherry cokes for both of us. I didn't comment on the hoodie she wore on the nights of summer. And I feigned ignorance when she was comfortable enough to take it off and I saw the scars that littered her arm.

In turn, she didn't comment on the shake of my body as if I was somehow cold in the overbearing heat. She accepted that I often let my nails dig into my skin and let go just before I drew blood.

Then one day, I smiled a little too big and she laughed a little too brightly. I smiled one of those smiles that put a burn in your jaws. And she laughed one of those twinkling laughs that consumes the whole sky. A laugh that, given a physical form, would shine brighter than the moon in the night sky.

And that night we were sitting too close and too comfortable. And the beauty mark next to her right eye was too prominent (if I were bold enough to say it- too beautiful). And her skin as dark and the darkest cherry shun too brightly against the harsh city lights. Her lips spread until the very end of her laugh when she became shy and closed them slowly letting them rest into a smile. Her crown of hair pulled up into a large puff- I had seen her pull the shoe-lace myself and it was hella tight.

I basked in her proximity and I found myself asking, "Can I kiss you, Cherry?"

By the time I said the words, it was too late to take them back, so I sat in false confidence waiting for a reply.

That night her presence was a gift, and I took it for granted.

She sealed our lips with a kiss, and I hadn't known how to kiss before that moment, because I had never had a kiss like that. And though I wanted it to last forever, it was gone in an instant.

She had a sad look in her eye when she removed herself from me. She left after that and I was too shocked to try and stop her.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into a month. A month that I didn't see her on our roof. I don't know when it became ours, our roof, but somewhere along the line, it did.
It was in that month that I thought about all the things that I hadn't had time to think about when I was with her. Like her name- that I didn't know. Cherry, I had called her, but that wasn't her name, and I didn't know if I would ever learn of her true one.

It was another month after that that I found myself pretending that I wasn't searching for her any longer. I pretended that my eyes didn't graze across the place she used to occupy and that the extra cherry coke I brought along with me was only out of habit, not hope. And that when she wasn't there, my drinking the extra soda didn't dishearten me in the least.

It was no longer summer, and the nights got colder and lonelier without her. I continued coming up there anyway. I stopped bringing the cherry coke altogether. I opted for a box of smokes instead.

Eventually the sadness I felt transitioned to anger and then back to sadness when I remembered she was not obligated to show up to our spot, and that "Our spot" wasn't' really our spot. It was a place on a roof, of a building that belonged to neither of us that we both just so happened to be on one day. It wasn't anyone's spot, and especially not ours seeing as there was no ours to speak of. It was just me.

In that month, she did show up. And though she was as beautiful as ever, she was tired, and it showed. The skin below her eyes was sunken and sad, and her usual plump moisturized lips lay plump but chapped. I was so surprised to see her that I almost forgot to be angry. I had told myself that even if she wasn't obligated to turn up, it was rude to just disappear.

She had kissed me.

A kiss that I asked for.

She had made me feel things.

Something she didn't ask for.

She had left without a word.

And I had not gone after her.

I sat on my spot, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her sit next to me. We didn't talk; there was much need to, but we didn't. She didn't comment on my new habit, and I didn't comment on her absence over the last months.

I got up and left the box of cigs in my place. I heard her pick them up, I felt her eyes follow me all the way to the door, and I heard something I wasn't expecting.

Stay, she whispered.

I paused for a moment, but after taking a second to consider, I went into the building without a sparing glance.

I came back roughly 10 minutes later to find her still on the roof with tear streaks on her face and an unlit cigarette in her mouth.

In my hands, I held two cherry cokes. I sat next to her and shot a questioning look towards the cigarette.

"It's a metaphor."

And I smiled, "I hated that book."

The End