The Scent of You...

My hand is wrapped around your throat, my face is half an inch away from your open mouth savoring the sweetness of the sounds you’re making; I can feel your heart beating faster against my chest as I lay my body on top of you, feeling the warmth against my bare skin. I press my mouth to your collarbone and breathe in the scent of vanilla and berries as I kiss you, tracing a line down your.... 

I wake up suddenly, freezing cold and tangled in the crocheted blanket that used to be yours. I used to hate it when you brought it to bed but now it’s one of very few things I have left of you. I just wish it was doing a better job of keeping me warm right now instead of acting like a tourniquet for my right leg; a consequence of the amount of tossing and turning that I’ve been doing for the past couple of months. As much as I would love to wake up without the entanglement of yarn, I like the comfort I get from it. 

I roll over and reach for my watch on the nightstand; 3:11 AM. I know I need to be up for work in about 2 hours, but much like every other night that I wake up dreaming about you, I know I won’t be able to get back to sleep and will have to contend with staring at the ceiling. That is, until I get bored enough to grab my phone and scroll through a dating app again until the alarm goes off.  

When I open the app, I see I have messages from three new girls and one from the girl I went out with last week, all waiting for me to reply. I ignore the one from last week and head right to the first new girl, “Hi, I like your motorcycle, I’d love to go for a ride someday". After reading her message I jump to her profile to see what she looks like. She’s small and blonde...that figures. I jump back to read the other messages, the second girl just said “Hey.” The third message, though, has piqued my interest, “Hey handsome, I’d love for you to take me to dinner sometime. How does this weekend work for you?” After a quick look at her profile, I was interested enough to message her back and tell her I would love to take her out and offer a few restaurant suggestions to see what she would prefer. 

I proceeded to scroll through the app for another hour, placing a heart on 5 other profiles before slamming my phone back on the nightstand and closing my eyes. To encourage any chance of sleep, I try to drown myself in the memory of the girls I had hoped would help me forget the taste of your lips and the smell of your perfume, sweet and warm. I try to picture the girl with the red dress I went on a date with last month, or the girl with the big green eyes who kept staring at my hands all through our dinner date two weeks ago, or even the hot brunette I brought back to my house two nights ago. I picture the girl who texted me from last week and the way her tongue felt slipping into my mouth; the way my name sounded when she whispered it into my mouth; the feel of her neck. I squeeze my eyes shut and remember the taste of the salty sweat when I kissed her neck and the smell of her perfume, sea salt and sandalw... 

I must have dozed off at some point because I wake to the screeching of my alarm clock telling me it’s time for me to get my ass up and get to work. I’ve already been late more than a few times in the past few months. Despite the fact the rocks we blow up and grind have been there for thousands of years, my boss seems to think they’re going to disappear every time I’m late. The quarry is not the most mentally stimulating job, but it does make the day go by quickly. The snooze alarm sounds, telling me if I want to have enough time to shower, I need to get up now. Twenty minutes and two cups of coffee later I’m out the door and arrive at work 10 minutes early.  

When I get home, I get the chance to message the girl I’ll be taking out for dinner tomorrow. She’s quick to answer and is cheeky enough to keep me interested but without trying too hard to make me like her. I’m starting to get excited about meeting her tomorrow and try to rehearse in my head how the night might go while I reheat my leftover ziti. I imagine what she might wear and the jokes I’ll hopefully get the opportunity to make, if I can only make sure one of us orders something with shrimp. I wonder if she will try to hold my hand across the table like some girls do, or if she will be too shy and avoid eye contact the whole dinner. I hope she blushes when I look at her smile and blows a little too long on the first bite of food before putting it in her mouth... like you did. 

Thankfully I’m able to sleep most of the way through the night and am feeling moderately rested and eager for the date. I spent the better part of the morning trying to decide what shirt looks better with blue jeans and the same ratty vans I’ve had for too long. I just can’t bring myself to replace them even though you kept telling me to. I decided on a grey T-shirt and my clean Snap-On hat to dress up the outfit. After skipping lunch and spending the whole afternoon checking my phone to make sure traffic didn’t change, I got in my truck and headed to the restaurant.  

When I get there, I message her that I’m waiting by the door of the restaurant. After I receive her “gotcha!” message I look around the parking lot and see her approaching the door. I’m thoroughly impressed with what I see walking up to me; long legs, tight jeans, a low-cut, but tasteful top and medium length light brown hair that she left down. We head inside and after placing our orders, which thankfully included shrimp, I’m able to start asking her some questions. She’s forthcoming with personal information, but not too chatty, which leaves me wanting to know more about her. After our meal, I walked her to her car and invited her over to my house for some drinks. Her throaty laugh and killer eye contact make it hard to stop talking with her and the thought of what is under those skintight jeans is killing me. She must have been able to pick up on how I’ve been checking her out all night because she quickly agreed to come home with me.  

When we get to the house, I’m quick to pour her the vodka soda that she seems to favor. Comfortable conversation turns into slurred words and her grabbing my arm when she laughs which encourages me to move closer to her on the couch. One more arm grab and I moved my leg to lean against hers. She glances down at my leg smiling mischievously and, in one fluid motion, positions herself in my lap bowing her head to mine and kissing me. I let her keep me pinned to the couch for a few minutes before I picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, ignoring the light switch and instead making a beeline for the bed.  

We are both quick to lose our clothes in between gasps of air and clashing of mouths. I catch glimpses of her with the bit of moonlight shining through the window behind the bed. She looks beautiful in the pale light with her hair sticking slightly to her face from our frenzied kissing. Her voice has gotten a little hoarse from all the vodka induced laughter and it makes the way she moans sound like honeyed flint. I catch myself starting to let go and enjoying every second of this moment with her. I love the way her hands feel in my hair, the warmth of her inner thighs, the familiar tangles of her hair as I grab her face stealing kiss after kiss. The way she feels like you in the dark when my hands grab her hips, the way she tastes like you with the burn of vodka in the back of my throat. She even sounds like you when I close my eyes. I bury my face below her ear and her smell overwhelms me. She smells like cherries and something I can’t quite put my finger on, something sweet........ like vanilla.  

But she can’t smell like vanilla, because that would mean she’s like you and she’s going to leave me too. That would mean that she’s going to forget all the promises made to me and start to hate me just like you did. My hand slides from her face to her throat squeezing slightly because that’s what you used to like. I bury my face in her neck and smell that sweet scent again and squeeze a little harder as I get caught up in the memory of how it felt to be with you. I find her mouth with mine, feeling her teeth cut my lip as the taste of your kiss creeps up my throat. I pick my head up and look at her to see if your face has become a part of hers. I move my ear to her mouth and half expect to hear your velvety voice call back to me, dripping with disdain. Instead, I hear silence, not even a breath. I look into her eyes to see if she’s still staring at me with that heated look and instead, I find nothing. No love, no hate, no confusion, no life.  

Shit shit shit. I try to wake her up but she’s not moving at all. She’s staring straight up at me with the same dead eyes they all have. I hate this part; I can’t stand looking at her expressionless face pointed at the ceiling. I jump up and throw the blanket from the floor over her body. After pacing back and forth for 20 minutes I throw some clothes on and grab the keys to my truck. I lift her body up and bring her down to the garage. Once she’s on the back seat it’s easy to just keep driving like it’s any other normal night, if I don’t turn around. When I get to the old pit at the quarry it’s an easy hike down to the bottom with her over my shoulder. I unwrap her from the blanket and lay her down on her side. By the time I climb my way out of the pit my legs are burning. I headed over to the excavator to check that I could start it. Thankfully my coworker can never remember to take the key out of the damn thing. I drive over to the pile of rocks on the left side of the pit and fill the bucket. I make my way over to the edge of the pit, above where I left her at the bottom, and empty the bucket into the hole. The dust that follows the tumbling rock clouds my view for a minute, until it settles enough for me to see the outline of the other small rock piles along the bottom of the pit. I parked the excavator where it was, leaving the key in the ignition where I found it and I headed back to my truck to go home.  

When I pulled in the driveway, I realized her car was still parked next to the garage. I go back into the house and take a few minutes to find her purse, phone and car keys. I drive her car 10 miles to the nearest state park entrance and leave it there. I start making the long walk back to my house, throwing her keys in the river when I pass over the bridge a few miles down the road. Once I get back home, I realize I still have a lot of cleaning to do. Using some branches that came down in the last storm, I light a small fire and burn her clothes, shoes and, for good measure, throw the sheets in as well. I take steadying deep breaths as I watch the fire turn everything to ash and then simmer to coals. I head back into the house, grabbing the blanket from the back of the truck, and decide its best to crash on the couch, hoping sleep will find me at some point. I close my eyes and reluctantly replay the night’s events over again. I curse myself for still thinking of you so much. You’re not here anymore, why do you still make me so angry? Every time I think I’ve pushed you from my mind you manage to crawl your way back in. Tired of thinking about it, I roll over and grab my phone and start to scroll through the dating app, figuring that it will distract me long enough for me to fall asleep.

I wake up in a panic, grabbing my watch and checking the time to see that it’s 20 minutes past when I should have been up. I free myself from the blanket that has me trapped like a carp in a net. I run around the house in a frenzy grabbing what I hope is everything I need for work and fly out the door. As I’m pulling the truck out of the garage, I’m praying that I can manage to get to work on time. My boss is going to kill me if I’m late again.