Him.

The sort of, bubbled snap of a twisted ankle. Daniel opened the door for me, but he was the only one who could carry my weight through (he and only he). I hobbled through the common room of our student studios, still with drunk smirk and shuttered eyes. I threw myself on the filthy couch thrown between our two spaces. I couldn't speak really. But I could think. Even beneath the pathetic inebriation I could think. I could think of him, and only him. He took off my boots as I heard Daniel somewhere off in the distance of that cement expanse. He took my boots off and laid them next to each other close to me. He walked off for a while to his studio, as I felt my feet cooling slowly beneath the studio vents. And then he threw a blanket on me (how does an art student produce such a marvel?). And then darkness. I felt that blanket, his blanket, slowly and gently with my hands there in the black. And I thought of him, and only him. Beneath the metallic cricket of our student studio vents. Him and only him. Drowned in cabernet poison, quarter and sixteenth notes of tangerine and fragrant elm. Him and only him. In that shaded night I limped over to the studio sink and sucked water from its faucet. I'd waken up with a mouth of chalk, alone in that strange home and non-home. Thirst. Emptiness. Alcohol.

The morning gave the palest light into that space, somewhere off near Tatiana's studio, the only privileged room with a window in our basement. I sat up and wrapped his blanket around me, imagining him as he walked on the wet lawns of the University back to his student apartments. The heartburn of wine washed over me in acidic waves, frothing with guilt and a dull remorse. I'd poisoned myself yet again so he could take care of me. Care for me and walk off silently. In the snowed meadows of my imagination he climbed vertical steps to live in the atmosphere, somewhere cold and silent where I could look up at the sky and imagine him thinking of me. Was he thinking of me? The studios were abandoned. Saturday morning was blindingly bright out, a sheen and warmth so violent it made my shadowy form recoil. I folded his green blanket and put it in his studio.

I drove home.