Hard Beat(7)

“The Dynamic Duo.” I reiterate Rafe’s nickname for us, photographer and reporter, best friends and confidants. She looks up to me and holds my gaze through the night’s darkness. “What?” I ask, trying to figure out what her expression is saying.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if my being here, living this life we lead… if I’ve ruined my chances for it, that’s all.”

“Stell.” I grab at straws to comfort her about a topic that makes me feel completely awkward. And even more disconcerting are the thoughts her damn question has stirred in my mind. She’s my best friend. After a decade she knows all of my quirks, my pet peeves, everything… What would happen if we tried a relationship now?

I bite back the laugh at the thought. Stella is like my sister, Rylee, to me. Well, all except that Stella and I had sex way back when we were actually dating.

But the thought lingers in the back of my mind, what if we are right for each other but met at the wrong time? A backfire on the street down below has the both of us flinching, our instinctive training to duck at the sound of gunfire taking over.

We laugh at how ridiculous we look and how only here, only with us, would this be normal. “Look,” I tell her, “if in ten years we are still nomads, still single, then we’ll revisit this conversation.”

“What about it?” she asks, her eyebrows narrowing as she tries to figure out what I’m saying.

“If we are each other’s once-in-a-lifetime.”

Her sharp inhale makes me realize what I just said, the stupid inferences she could make from it. But at the same time, when she laughs, I hear her nervousness, and the look in her eyes is so real, so vulnerable, that when I glance down to her lips, I’m forced to swallow over the lump in my throat.

It has to be the moment, a simple slice of time when two friends who have lived a lifetime together as a result of their volatile careers fall into that trap of need mixed with comfort and a splash of loneliness. The minute I lean forward and brush my lips to hers, I hate myself for it, and yet at the same time, the immediate recoil I thought would happen on my part doesn’t happen. It’s just a whisper of a kiss, but my lack of reaction scares the f*ck out of me.

I rest my forehead against hers. “Sorry,” I murmur, my hands threading through her hair.

“Well, that wasn’t exactly the birthday present I was planning for you tomorrow, but…” Her voice fades into a laugh.

“I told you I don’t want anything,” I say to squash that argument again, but then feel the need to repeat it. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. After ten years, that’s the only time we’ve ever crossed that line.” The heat of her breath hits my lips and tempts me when I’m never tempted by her.

“I guess we have ten more years to see if it happens again.” I can hear the smile on my lips in my tone, and even though we both are in agreement that what just happened shouldn’t have, we sit in the darkness for a minute – foreheads touching, lips so close – almost as if the both of us knew what was going to happen the next night.

How this moment was going to be the lasting memory I would use to get me through the darkness her death would bring.

“Here’s to you, Stell,” I say as I lift the bottle of whiskey up to the sky and take a long pull on it.

The circuit of thoughts that has etched a goddamn groove in my mind starts again. Hell yes, I loved her… in my own way. I just wonder if her absence has made me read more into that emotion than it really was. People place those who die on pedestals, forget their misgivings with a bat of an eyelash, and become more connected to them since they can no longer tell them what they feel. Is this what I’ve done to Stella and our friendship? Is this why I’ve held tight to this last kiss we shared even though it was a stupid move?

I’ve been through the seven stages of grief. You name each one of them, and I’ve f*cking done them more times than I care to count. But when all is said and done, I’m here and she’s not. Guilt is a goddamn vise squeezing out of me every ounce of emotion I never wanted to feel.

Plain and simple, I miss her. The easy banter, how we could sit comfortably in silence, that I could predict her remarks before she made them. We were a team and now I feel lost, wondering why I pushed so hard to get back here. So focused on getting out of my house, I didn’t think about how many damn memories were here waiting to haunt me.

I just need to get back in the game. Meet my photographer tomorrow and get back in the swing of things, use the hunger I feel deep down to propel me through the flashes of sadness that still come. Then I’ll be better. Besides, it’s not like I have any other option.

Plug and chug.

The memories continue to come, the good, bad, and horrific, and who knows how long it’s been when I lift the bottle to find it empty. Suck it up, Thomas. This will be the only f*cking rooftop pity party you’re allowed to have. You wanted back; now you’re here.

“Fuck,” I say into the emptiness around me as I rise on unsteady feet and let my buzz filter through my limbs. Once the mattress is covered up by the tarp to protect it from the dust that blankets everything like an irrevocable stain, I make my way back downstairs.

I smell her before I see her. That subtle scent of hers, which seems so out of place in the air heavy with spices, fills the stairwell when I hit the eighth floor. She’s coming up as I’m coming down. Our eyes meet and hold across the dimly lit concrete landing.