Clarke
“I think we’ve really got something here,” I said when Avalon and I finally called it a night. Or morning. Whatever three-something a.m. counted as.
Avalon nodded, sleepy and soft, her lashes brushing her cheeks. “I think so too.” She looked at me—really looked—and something in her expression made my chest ache. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For doing this with me. It means a lot.”
I laced our fingers together and kissed her knuckles. “I had fun. More than I expected. Stepping out of my comfort zone… I didn’t know I needed it.”
She smiled, nose scrunching adorably. “Who knew?”
She yawned and wrapped her arms around me, tucking her head under my chin. I held her, breathing her in, letting the warmth of her settle into my bones.
I fell asleep to the sound of our breaths mingling.
Sometime between four and six, she slipped out of bed, pulled on her jacket, and disappeared. Quiet as a cat. Gone without a trace.
When my alarm went off at six-thirty, I reached for her only to find cold sheets where she had been only hours before.
“Avalon?” My voice echoed in the empty room.
Silence.
Panic rose in my chest. I searched for my phone and found it tangled in the sheets with 3% battery. I scanned the notification center, trying to will a text message into existence even though the truth twisted in my stomach. There would be no text. We hadn’t even exchanged numbers.
Tears burned my eyes. I scrubbed at them angrily. How stupid could I be? I showered, scrubbing myself clean of her touch, her mouth, her hands. I didn’t notice the heat of the water until tears mixed with it.
“Stupid tears!” I threw the washcloth at the wall.
In the mirror, dark purple marks bloomed across my neck. Hickies. Avalon had left hickies on my throat and then left before dawn.
I covered them with makeup, put on sunglasses, and met my manager and assistant, Scooter and Kendall, in the lobby. Kendall looked like she wanted to ask questions. I ignored her. Outside, something shiny caught my eye. A quarter. A quarter with a guitar on the back. My breath caught.
Had I dropped it? Was it a duplicate? Or had Avalon left it?
Either way, it felt like a message.
“Clarke! We cannot miss this flight!” Scooter yelled.
“Coming!” I pocketed the coin and followed.
On the drive to the airport, I flipped it over and over, thinking of her lips, her laugh, her voice. Thinking of the song we wrote. Thinking of the way she looked at me like I was something worth seeing.
Why would she do that? Why would she create all these memories with me and then leave like I meant nothing?
By the time we landed in Texas, resentment had replaced heartbreak. I would forget her. Forget the night. Forget the song.
But when I reached into my bag for my laptop and the hard drive with our song…
It was gone. Avalon had taken it. I felt robbed in more ways than one.
I sat with the hurt, letting it burn through me.
If I could get it all out now, maybe I could forget her.
Forget her name. Forget her touch. Forget the girl who had made me feel alive for the first time in years.