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What on earth did you wear to a car show?
“Fashion fades, only style remains the same.”
—Coco Chanel
WITH MUCH REGRET, I REALIZED that Nico was a morning person.
While I needed a good hour or two to drink my coffee and prepare to even get ready for the day, he made breakfast, dressed in jeans and that white t-shirt, and was ready to go with the sun.
Flaw found. Right next to the question of his mental status. Though, I believed the issues went hand in hand.
“You look nice,” he told me as we pulled out of the drive.
Like an idiot, I flushed all the way to my hairline.
He laughed quietly and then turned up Last Resort by Papa Roach until it was all I could hear.
Throughout the day, You look nice was a deep, worn-out recording in the back of my mind. It was such a simple observation, and for that reason warmth filled my chest. I was used to compliments, and maybe that sounded shallow, as though I felt I was deserving of them. But I didn’t believe I was, nor did I want them. In my life, the beautiful girls ended up like Gianna: hiding the misery in their eyes with dilated pupils.
I was observant as a child. I wanted to analyze the world and decipher its meaning, but what I found was myself as a little girl standing in front of a mirror where a loveless, empty life stared back.
The truth was, I was a liar. I’d always been a romantic. So deep a romantic that the thought of not finding my own love story felt like I once again stood in that vacant parking lot with nothing but snow and the whistle of cold wind.
I wasn’t the smartest girl in the world to blush from his compliment right after I’d used his girlfriend’s—lover’s, whoever she was—iron to curl my hair and pull it into a ponytail. Nevertheless, with a violence I hadn’t felt before, I only hoped the other woman wasn’t Gianna. She was my opposite—carefree and uninhibited—while I was so . . . pale in comparison. And with a triviality I doubted we shared, I was concerned about having to wear the same heels two days in a row because they were the only ones that paired well with my summer dress.
During the hour-long drive, I decided on the flowers for my bouquet and arrangements for the tables, while Nico was either on the phone or had the radio too loud for conversation. It was hardly a romantic date, but there was something comfortable about it.
Cars sparkled beneath sunlight as people milled up and down the parking lot. The day heated up like an oven burner, like the sun was angry at the world. In my ignorance, I believed there would be entertainment of some kind. However, the only entertainment was the cars. It was at times like this I was glad my thoughts were private.
Maybe there weren’t any performances, but what I experienced was far from monotony. I oftentimes felt like one of the cars to be admired as Nico’s attention found me, burning my skin with a distinct gaze that brought one thing to mind. I wondered if he was as attentive with all his women, and then immediately hated myself for thinking it.
“Stay by my side,” he’d told me as soon as we got there.
A tenacious part of me wanted to know what he would do if I didn’t.
I always was a bit too curious.
As he was busy saying a few words to one of the cars’ owners, I slipped away and pretended to be admiring a convertible. It was only thirty seconds later that a large, intimidating presence brushed my back.
His voice was gravel, silk, and annoyed against my ear. “Do you honestly think I’m going to follow you around all day?”
I nodded, my heart fluttering like wings. “You have to.”
He didn’t touch me anywhere, though he stood so close the deep timbre of his words touched my neck. “I don’t have to do anything.”
The light summer breeze played on my skin as people walked around us, but I was only aware of one of them, one man.
You look nice.
Mine.
“Maybe you want to,” I breathed.
Two heartbeats passed. Three.
He could have said he didn’t. He could have said anything to deny it, but instead, he chose to let a silence full of unspoken words spread between us.
This tie we shared used to be equal parts thrill and terror. Today, the former was nudging the other away until it was as forgotten as a faded photograph tucked in the bottom of a drawer.