all hushed whispers and velvet.
Romeo raises his shot, I raise mine?—
two sinners and lust in low lighting.
Weclinkand throw it back.
For fourfuckingminutes,
I hold his gaze as instructed.
Romeo watches me over the rim of his glass—the dusty gold in his eyes darkening—with a smirk steeped in all the things he plans to do to me.
Then we throw back a second shot.
Then a third.
I’m lining them up in my head,
each glass another grave.
One for the boy who broke me.
One for the bitch who let him.
One for the part of her still wanting him.
After the last, all thefuck-no,
theyou-wish,
theI-don’t-do-this?—
they scatter,
gone,
evaporate on my tongue.
But then?—
“I don’t give a shit about Andrew Harding.
“I don’t.”
It leaves my mouth wearing lies.
I steal his shot out from under his fingers.
The burn splashes the back of my throat.
One for the girl who should’ve shut the fuck up and never asked for his body count.
I should’ve let it decay in the corner of my chest where it couldn’t touch anything real.
Now I’m bleeding out in a bar with a guy I don’t fucking know. Because all I can see are the faceless girls lined up in my head like the shots.
All the times he gave a part of himself away...
