Brooke.

She wakes reluctantly from the night before, hazy and useless.

Sore and instantly plagued by fractions of memories throbbing from behind her blue eyes.

She takes her first deep breath of awake.

Suddenly she’s cold. Really cold.

She has goose bumps all over her body, she’s freezing her butt off.

Naked on the kitchen floor. For fucks sake, again.

The tiles are getting colder with every second of realisation she spends lying there.

She takes another breath, quick and shallow. She jumps up.

Unstable and shivering she see’s her thong on the back of a chair.

She puts it on quickly as if it will warm her and walks to the sink, sticking her open mouth under the cold running water.

She doesn’t stop until it’s hard to breathe.

She closes her eyes, letting the water drip off of her chin.

Him.  She remembers him.

She walks out onto the balcony, covering herself with the sheer curtains. The sun is high.

His bike is outside.  He’s here.

She comes back inside, stepping lighter as she walks towards the bedroom.

Glancing at herself in a mirror on the way, she wipes away the dark from around her eyes.

She runs her fingers through her brown sea salted hair.

She looks down at her body, at her breasts.

They’re still cold. They look good.

Standing in the doorway she see’s him in her bed. Again.  

He’s so beautiful, tanned and shining.  

He stirs, sensing her there. ‘Come here baby’ he says, rolling over with open arms.

She picks up the vodka bottle from the table next to her and takes a sip.

Photo by Ohla Zaika

© 2020 Ema Shawcroft