The rain hit the asphalt and scattered into the cracks of the sidewalk as we fumbled messily against the side of your car door. Such cold, cold, cold hands. "Baby, believe me, I'm much better than I was in high school.. "She ran her hands up my thighs and opened the car. "This is what you really need, now isn't it?" I switched positions and forced her inside, brutally - with all intent of never stopping. With Emily at home in bed, sleeping peacefully with sweet dreams of our future. The future I was busy tearing to shreds for a night with an ex lover. So cheap, it all seems so cheap. It's not hard to sell a future you built on convenience and insecurity. I unbuttoned her blouse as the rain beat down on the back of the hood. My lips surrendered to the taste of a memory, as we fumbled through our inebriated mistake sex. That kind of sex that equates to the adrenaline involved in a fist fight. Punch for punch. Below the belt. Her sweat on my hands, I could feel myself lose pride in her touch. "Jessie.. Oh, Jessie.. I love you so much. Come home with me." My stomach lurched into my throat and I could feel a choke rising from despair, regret. The sheer pleasure of making a mistake. I grabbed my clothes from the car floor and dressed as quickly as I could, a barrage of questions hurled forward - "Are you seriously leaving right now?" - "It's not like you can fucking drive anywhere. Baby.. Where are you going?" Her hand reaching for mine and I pulled away, letting the slick sweat of her palms stain our goodbye. "Jess.. I love you. Don't go.." Her barely clothed body, that ache. That ache that lives in the deepest corners of your mind, when Billie holiday comes on the radio, when my sister asks how are you, the pictures I find in the back of 11th grade scrap books. You're my person, the person after the love. That first love.
I got out of the car, sick to my stomach. Her taste smeared on my lips, the longing replaced with disgust. Disgust and desire. I turned to see her eyes filling with crystalline ache - glazing over the emerald orbs of her face. "Katie, I'm so sorry. I can't.. I can't see you." Every cliché, the regrettable sex, the walking in rain. Apartment 32. Fumbling for my keys. & seeing you asleep on the couch, clutching the phone. "Em.. Emily.." Your smile. Your beautiful, beautiful smile. "I love you baby, I'm home." Kissing your forehead and rushing to the bathroom, hoping to wash away the scent of my failure but only finding the comfort of the bathroom floor as I spit our future out into a faulty set of pipes.