the mourning before.

It was the idle times like these - with the steady sound of chopping carrots, the quiet gurgling of boiling water, the soft plop of potatoes being dropped in, the smoke curling up and vanishing - that I allow myself to remember the night we first met.

You were standing folded into the shadow, wearing an emerald dress with lipstick as red as the lounge carpets. Your elbows poked out like cactus needles, as if waiting for somebody to come and kick you out.

You walked onto the darkened stage and there was that moment of heavy silence where we didn’t know what was going to come out of your mouth.

You flinched and squinted in the burning spotlight, turning away, making your golden earrings tremble.

I stood in the wings, a dark outline backlit by hot light.

Smoke clouds wound from my lips.

I put a spell on you -

You threw your hands out, spreading your fingers and searing in the spotlight. Shadows stretching out behind you

It caught the sequins of your dress and the gold disks of your earrings, and, for a moment, you were the sun - blinding and glorious.

I was spellbound.

I ain’t lyin’, no, I ain’t lyin’ -

Afterward, I drifted to you as if in a dream, still delirious and drunk on the sound of your voice. Flushed and sweating from the stage, you gave me a bashful smile.

I didn’t know how to tell you that I would do anything for that nervous little thing.

So instead, I threaded my hands into your hair on the long bus rides to soothe you to sleep, brushed my hands on your shoulder as I passed you by, ghosted my lips over your fluttering pulse in the night.

My love for you really goes -

But, boy, I want you to know -

I wanted you to know.

I wanted you to know.

The first time I heard you sing a love song had wholly flipped the initial jolt on its head.

You gripped the microphone, twisted in on yourself, crooning in a voice saturated with a rich emotion that warmed something deep in my gut.

I kissed you in the alleyway that night and it felt like swallowing lighting. Your lips were soft and you tasted sweet. When I touched you, you flinched like my hands were burning you, then you relaxed and melted into my embrace.

I wasn’t a person of words like you were, but I could show you.

“You’re not eating?” I look up from the plate you set in front of me.

You shake your head. “I’m not hungry,”

You start to walk away and I catch your wrist. You look back and I see all of the fine lines around your eyes. You look somewhere between dropping dead and bursting into tears. I squeeze your wrist lightly. I know it’s selfish, but you sit down anyway.

I touch my shoe to your house slipper.

The plate was warm, and, like most of the dishes in the cabinet, from our wedding. You had urged the small group we invited to only bring items that could be used daily. (Your mother ignored you and the blue and white China set she had brought set in the closet, collecting dust.)

It was a Tuesday, I think.

You were vibrating with those pre-show jitters, subtly shifting from one foot to the other.

I traced a circle on the back of your hand, and your eyes shot to mine, wide and curious. The corner of my lip jumped up. I traced a letter, then another and another. Your face lit up when you realized it was your name.

I began to trace something else, and you stilled, willing yourself to focus.

‘L - o - v - e.’

I reached to raise your veil, revealing your watering eyes. My breath caught in my throat. I traced one more word before we leaned in for the millionth time.

‘A - l - w - a - y - s.’

You touched your hand to the bridge of your nose with a deep sigh. “I feel a headache coming on. I’m going to try and take a bath.”

I watch your slumped form pause in the doorway before vanishing down the creaking hall.

I had become familiar with that form.

I lowered my hands to the keys but didn’t play, tentatively watching the curve of your shoulders. You gripped a whiskey glass in your right hand. It caught the spotlight, bouncing the ornate geometrical patterns on the old wood of the stage.

You sipped from it every so often, as if you were a swimmer gulping air before a dive.

Your eyes were dark.

Sweet and fresh -

Then the sudden smell -

Your hand shook, streaked with blood. The shards twinkled in your fist.

Nobody moved.

I closed my hands around it and led you to your dressing room. I sat you between my legs, silently tending to your hand. I pressed the lid closed on the first aid kit, and you inhaled shakily.

I want you to leave me, you croaked weakly.

I was very still for a moment.

No.

No, said my hands, pulling you into me closer and closer still. Please, you whispered. No, said my lips, pressing into yours and bruising them and smudging your lipstick. They’ll hurt you, you choked out, shard leaking from your eyes and glinting in the warm yellow lights that framed your mirror. They’ll hurt you, and I couldn’t bear it. I squeezed your hip and nipped at your neck and you gasped, softening and melting into my hands.

Our eyes met in the mirror and you knew my answer.

“I thought you were going to take a bath.”

I find you in the bed, sitting wide awake with eyes fixed on the bare wall. When you don’t reply, I draw you into my arms, inhaled the scent of your hair.

“I need one.” You said. Then, “We can’t sleep like this.”

I hummed and laid you down, running my fingers through your hair, the pads soothing your scalp.

A little past midnight, I awoke to you tossing and turning against me. Sweat coated your forehead. Your eyebrows crinkled. I called your name, but you don’t hear me. In your dreams, you were wordlessly begging for your life. Low groans slipped from your lips.

“Wake up. Please, wake up. Darling - ”

But you didn’t.

You just kept tossing and turning. I pulled you closer, moving my hand along the ridges of your spine and up the back of your neck and into your hair.

Alone you wandered those dark corridors. And all I could do was watch.

The dawn was a soft blue, casting a cool haze through the secondhand lace curtains.

Your face was relaxed. Your eyes fluttered open, fell closed. You gave me a soft, sleepy smile. “Good morning.”

I hadn’t believed in God, not really. Sure, it was a wonderful idea, like love or freedom. But when you game me that fragile, worn tilt of the lips in the pale light of the morning, I believed in angels.

I didn’t know how to say that to you, for the words to have half of the meaning I wanted - to even scrape the surface of what it meant to convey. So instead, I leaned over to your pillow and sealed my lips over yours. I moved them slowly, savoring the feeling of your still, even now, shy movements. I watched your eyes flutter open after the kiss, big and brown.

I leaned in again.

“Hey, no, you - I need - need to get up - Mph - ” You mumbled against my lips. “Need to go now,”

No.

No, said my arms, curling around you. No, said my lips, catching yours and pressing deeply. No, said my fingers, curling into your hair to bring you closer, closer, and closer still.

You peeled yourself away from me, and I caught your wrist. You looked down at me. My tongue was heavy, clogging my throat. I let the begging seep into my eyes.

Please - Please - don’t -

“Let go.”

Your voice was so soft I had to strain to hear it over the murmur of the air conditioner. You slipped your arm out of my grip, momentarily linking our fingers and squeezing lightly.

My hand hovered in the air, dropping onto the mattress.