Page 14 of Leah

I shrugged. I wouldn’t know. I’d spent most of my years being the chaser.

When we got inside our apartment, she went straight into one bathroom, and I went straight to the other. I took a much-needed shower, scrubbing off the sweat I’d accumulated while being pressed against people. Some of it wasn’t mine.

Totally disgusting.

But if that was the price for attending the best concert of my life, I could definitely live with that.

When I got out, I joined Mel in the kitchen. She pulled out two wine glasses and filled it to the brim. We clinked glasses and downed that shit.

“To men,” she said, on the second glass, “I hope they die a horrible death.”

“What, all of them?” I asked her.

“Every last fucking one of them. You know how peaceful our world would be if women ran it?”

“It would actually be kind of bitchy,” I muttered.

She paused. “You’re right. Fucking China would talk behind Russia’s back, and once a month all the jealous allied countries would go against each other. Fucking France would be stuck up, and the Germans would think they cooked their sausages the best, while England walked away with their fucking awesome accents –”

“Stop it,” I laughed, wrapping my arm around my stomach. “You’re killing me!”

“Yeah, taking your mind off your soulmate?”

My laughter slowly died. “My soulmate?”

She tilted her head to the side and raised a thin brow. “After leaving that concert, evenI’munable to keep Carter out of my thoughts. He looked incredible.”

“He did.”

“I’m talkingbeyondincredible. I’d completely forgotten how hot he was.”

“He’s pretty hot.”

“Bet you he’s swamped with groupies as we speak.”

I tensed, trying to appear casual. “Right.”

“That’s just the lifestyle,” she added, glumly taking another gulp. “Him and Rome and the rest of the boys… Just fucking anything that moves, I bet. We have to remember that, babe. Can't mince reality with hope.”

The mood immediately shifted after that.

We didn’t drink for fun.

We drank to forget.

*

I collapsed into bed much later and stared up at the ceiling for a few moments. After thinking about the band, my mind wandered, and my insides twisted with warmth. A minute later, I got off and bent down to grab the shoebox I’d placed under the bed a very long time ago. I turned on the lamp and wiped the sheet of dust off the box before opening it. When I laid eyes on the contents, I blinked away the tears.

I kept a whole stack of pictures in here of Carter and me. There were also small little things that I accumulated from our time together: arcade cards; black and white photo booth images; a couple guitar picks I’d stolen off him; a pen that he used to write his lyrics with; some loose pieces of paper he scribbled random lyrics on, with one paper in particular that had a line at the top he’d written absently, which read, “Leah has nice tits.” I chuckled at that and leafed through the items, purposely ignoring the letters until they were the very last things in the box.

There were four letters, ones he’d sent me the year he’d left after I didn’t return his calls and changed my number. I knewit was old school to resort to writing me a letter, but I assumed, using his own logic, it was the only way he felt he could get a hold of me.

I never opened up the letters. I was mourning the loss of him, and in the process of trying to move on, I hid the letters away. I promised myself that when I was truly over him, I would open them. But… with the way things had gone tonight, seeing him there on stage, looking the way he did, singing from the bottom of his soul…

I wasn’t anywhere near ready to be opening them yet.

I didn’t keep this box because I was consumed in him. It was just that I missed him. I missed having that connection with another person. Aside from all the amazing sex we’d had, he was truly my best friend, and having these little treasures was a reminder of a happy time in my life.

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