Dark Places

22 | solo yo

❝take me to the fucking roof, made it;
give me just a little truth,
leave me undressed,
and i'm all out of time.❞

☽

THE ACHINGLY FAMILIAR VIEW, permanently burned into the archives of my memory, seems skewed, struggling to find its footing, three-dimensional depth on a two-dimensional surface, bluish, blurry, hazy, a distant, dark coastline, lost in atmospheric perspective.

I shiver as I take in the distorted details of visual perception. Portland looks different from above, five stories high, dangerously close to the edge, obstructed by the silvery metal of a chainlink fence on the top floor of the Spring Street Parking Garage. Surprisingly, they still keep the doors to the stairwell unlocked all night. It's deserted, just like the Library seemed, bare of witnesses, cars, conversation, and I'm cold, seized by the gales of wintry wind that feel too fierce for a late September night. Drake stands beside me, motionless, gazing out into the throes of uncharted waters—South Portland meeting the horizon; Casco Bay Bridge looming far away; Portland Harbor, inky black, sifting silently beneath glints of moonlight.

"It's fucking cold," I mutter, tugging my jacket tighter to my body.

He steps closer, blocking another heart-wrenching gust of frigid air. "Well, Melo," he says, ignoring the gesture nonchalantly. "I offered to talk in my shitty Volvo."

Impatiently, I roll my eyes, twisting to catch his profile, frozen, shrouded in the shadows, a self-portrait that reveals nothing. He knows I won't get in that fucking car alone with him. Despite the fact that I won't join AA, I've always been well acquainted with the First Step, especially when it came to him. I admitted three years ago that I was fucking powerless over that addiction, to the point where I would spiral into irreversible chaos. Drake can talk shit about me white-knuckling my recovery, but I know my past and present addictions intimately.

"Lo que sea."

"Okay, then get over it." He shrugs a crumpled pack from his pocket and offers me a Marlboro Black. I heave a defeated sigh, reaching for it, but when I snag it clumsily, numb fingertips grazing his knuckles, I step back, desperate to put space between us. The wind bites across my skin, only infinitesimally less raw than the mere contact. Oblivious, or really unaffected, Drake lights his cigarette smoothly. "Dale, Melo. Háblame."

Nodding, I sink into the smoky tendrils that twist from his parted lips, catch in the softened swell of wind, kiss my cheeks. Perfección. It's still so annoying how alluring Medina can make something so fucking simple. I hated it about him then and now because I've always been a sap for his cocktail of offbeat, somewhat artistic, mannerisms. Those little things hit right. Mmm.

"Melo."

"Uh, yeah." I blink, jolted from the strange appreciation. Hastily, I angle away from him and let a curtain of hair fall between us to hide an embarrassed blush. No. I press the filter to my lips, cup a hand around the cigarette, and flick my lighter in annoyance, but it sparks, spits, and flickers out. Get your shit together, Luz, Jess is scolding me, over and over and over, as I flick the lighter, again and again and again, to no avail. I'm dizzy with her voice. "I..."

"Ay, mami," he snickers, leaning in slowly. I press my thumb to the serrated metal wheel, reveling in the pinprick of pain that claws through the numbness, but then Drake is pressed against me, reaching down, easing the cherry against the tip of my unlit cigarette, waiting, waiting, waiting, until it catches in a slow-burning ember. "Te tengo."