A short draft for 'Nicole'

Raining…

It’s raining? 

Waking up on those same streets which I was once familiar with while she was around, it doesn’t feel like guilt.

“It’s not that heavy.”

I didn’t bother with an umbrella, that’s the least of my worries.

Feeling that faint trickle down my arms as I trudge through streets that I thought could never get buisier, unchanged since I was young. It still doesn’t feel like guilt.

Sat on that same, sad slope. I know what to call it.

Regret. 

Maybe fear of changing what once was?

“Take it all in. What does it feel like?” I asked, expecting not much more than a shrug

“It’s not too bad. Not bad at all, actually.”

I remember how happy she was, that smile. 

Her crooked teeth were never something I would turn away from, I always found them endearing despite how much she always complained.

That was one of the few times where she actually let her hair down in front of me. She felt comfortable with me.

Her thick blonde hair was something I could only ever dream of running my hands through. Her curls would only ever trap my fingers within it, as if her hair were a venus flytrap and my hand? The fly.

I don’t know where she is now. 

Nicole has been gone for years now. 

Never opening my messages, never answering my calls. 

Silence. Off the grid and, unfortunately, far from me.