New York City Is A Place For Love

Jackson slumped on his bed, messing up the blanket and sheets that he'd made neatly just an hour before.

He'd woken up too early again, and subsequently started to think about her. It was a terrible thing to be doing.

In New York outside of his apartment it was raining like crazy. It was too hot and humid to have any of the windows open, so he had to settle for the central air. It came up from a vent just underneath the windows in Jackson's room, and he could hear the noise it made, slipping in.

He could feel the bump of his pony tail hard on the back of his head when he fell back onto his mattress, but just tilted his head to the side until he was staring at his gray wall.

He wanted to tear it out, and just go to sleep.

It was four in the morning, and there was barely any light save for the gray skies outside. He gulped. He'd made the fatal mistake of opening the single drawer on the second bedside table. It was the one he only used to put down a book he wasn't interested in reading anymore, or a glass he'd emptied.

That's because his side of the bed was always the left side.

Hers was the right.

She had used the right beside table, and when she ran out on him, she'd forgotten everything in that drawer. When he opened it he was groggy and angry and the yank he gave didn't work with the badly made IKEA furniture—the drawer broke it's stopper and came flying out of the table entirely.

It lied on the floor for another hour, until he was ready to pick it up again.

He took it off the floor, and put it in his lap while he sat up on the edge of his bed again. It was almost filled, he noticed.

Inside, the first small item he picked out was a cheap lipstick. The color was pink—a very light shade that was named, “Dusty Rose,” by NYX; her favorite color, if he recalled it right. Of course, he did.

He laughed hysterically for a moment, tossing it to the side, only to have it roll back and rest by the edge of his pants pocket.

He ignored it.

Tucked in the corner was a balled up, wrinkled scarf. It must have been discarded the first day she stayed with him. His deeply pigmented lips curled up in a crooked, Southern smile.

“Why on Earth did I pack this scarf? It's the middle of July, and I hate it any way.”

It was soft, and felt like feathers. It was an atrocious shade of teal, though, but he knew that it was just another one of the features she truly loved about this scarf. It contrasted with her short, dark brown curls, and he'd always caught her wearing it. He felt it—crusted with time and yet still so soft in his fingers before he put it beside her lipstick.

As he lifted it out of the drawer, he spotted a spare bobby pin sat, stuck in the corner.

He yanked it out, before tossing it in the direction of his garbage.

He cussed, realizing he would probably hurt himself on that later. His back hurt now, from leaning forward so long. There wasn't any care about that in his blank, light blue eyes.

His friends worried about them—more specifically, the deep dark circles that had grown under them, making the jobs of his make up artists that much more difficult, and the stubble that just grew and grew day after day underneath them.

A few tissues. An empty glass bottle of peach and green tea Snapple. A CD.

The CD was one he recognized, because he bought it for her.

On the second day of the only week she'd spent with him, sleeping in his bed, he'd brought her out for breakfast—at four in the morning. Technically, she only wanted a drink from Starbucks, and to walk around New York while it was still windy and cool, but even in the dark they had fun.

A small stand sat outside the pink filled boutique that she surreptitiously cringed at, before she ran to the stand and it's owner.

Just like she always did, she gave the wandering salesman a smile. “What're you sellin'?”

There, he'd bought her this CD—the greatest hits of an old seventies blues musician she instantly recognized, that he'd never heard of.

The CD was gone, figures. All that was left was the case, and the lyrics packet that rested onto of something black in the drawer. He closed the case, put it with the rest of his treasures, and looked through the lyrics packet.

She's written notes in it.

The last of his findings rested at the bottom of the suddenly empty drawer.

Her Bible was black, thin, and worse off than the musician's lyrics. Notes in black, blue, and sometimes purple pen fell into the margins, and small, multi-colored Post-Its were on every page.

She'd miss this, he thought.

Oh, well. I miss her, too.