The City | GirlxGirl

thirty one ➳

Myra's fingers left goosebumps along the length of Skylar's forearm. She placed a mug of coffee in front of Skylar, and rounded the kitchen table. Skylar usually became transfixed while watching steam rise from coffee. But this morning, her gaze was focused on Myra: her tan skin, straight black hair that fell to her hips. She looked like the kind of girl you'd see on the cover of a magazine. Knowing this, Skylar wasn't sure why she hadn't thought of making their relationship official yet. Perhaps it was because they had yet to be on a real date-they spent all their time together in one of their houses. Specifically their bedrooms. Myra was such a good girl. Good in terms of the fact that she had a stable job, a close group of great friends, unshakable confidence, and knew exactly where her place in the world was. She knew who she was, and she was not afraid to be that. Bold, beautiful. Fearless. How could Skylar waste any time knowing that Myra wasn't hers? How could she be okay with letting days slip by, knowing that Myra was single, available to anyone? Shouldn't she be her girlfriend by now? Shouldn't she not want someone as great as Myra to be taken away from her?

Skylar knew the reason. It was the same reason why Myra hadn't done the same to Skylar.

She didn't want to be Myra's. Myra was great. But she didn't want her.

Myra was good company. She was a great cook, she was funny, and God, she was gorgeous. But she was a bad listener. She liked to get drunk every Friday and Saturday night, even though Skylar didn't want to. And the biggest thing of all: all she wanted to do was hook up.

Which was fine with Skylar. For now. She was content with Myra being a train simply passing through the city, and not wanting to stay for long. The truth was, Skylar didn't want her to stay long, either.

But she was a good distraction. And so was the cafe. The rest of her time was spent "sorting herself out," as Blair called it.

Skylar finished her cup of coffee, and after putting it in the sink to wash later, she followed Myra to the door. The other girl kissed her cheek lightly, telling her she'd talk to her soon, and that was it. Gone. Suddenly, Skylar was enveloped in silence. It was slightly haunting, and a little claustrophobic.

Not wanting to be confined to the vacant house, Skylar pulled on her denim jacket, which was lain not so carefully on the floor next to the welcome mat. She slipped her shoes on and left the house.

It was a cool day. The breeze swept by Skylar's body as she sauntered down the driveway that needed repainting, and turned the corner at the mailbox to stroll down the next street. She could never memorize all the houses. Despite walking down the same streets for the years that she'd been living in her own house, if you showed her a photo of the streets beside it, she would never recognize them. Maybe it was because of her memory, or maybe it was that whenever she felt the need to escape the silence of her solitude, she had something weighing heavily on her mind-so heavily that she couldn't think of or pay attention to anything else.

As she walked, her hands stuffed inside the small pockets of her jacket, and her head kept down the majority of the time, she raised her eyes as two teenagers walked alongside her. Boys, most likely in eleventh or twelfth grade. They didn't move out of Skylar's way, but instead brushed her shoulder roughly as they passed, and laughed while still in earshot. Both had had cigarettes hanging from the corners of their mouths, and the smell of smoke lingered with them, lingered with Skylar. She was on the corner of the next street, face to face with the convenience store, fighting an inner battle. She wanted to smoke so badly. It would be so easy. To cross the street-twenty steps at the most-push the door open, walk up to the counter, and ask for a pack of cigarettes. It was so easy. Chance was sitting in the palm of her hands.

She hadn't smoked in weeks. Distracted with other things. Like hurting, and being angry. Those were very distracting things. And there was the moving on from Logan, and trying not to kill herself the way her parents had killed themselves when they continued to light cigarettes.