⠀just ⠀nᴵᴷᴷᴵ ⸮⠀ *⠀

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ 𝔇̲ⁱ𝚊ʀᵧ ᴱ𝒩𝗍𝚛𝑦...

ℑ have always been 𝔰𝔲𝔰𝔭𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔦𝔬𝔲𝔰 of people who claim... they remember the exact moment a relationship began. It is almost never true. People remember the moment retrospect makes important. The first kiss becomes destiny. 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙵𝙸𝚁𝚂𝚃 𝙵𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃 𝙱𝙴𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙴𝚂 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙿𝙷𝙴𝙲𝚈. The first time someone says ℑ 𝔏ᵒvₑ ɏøᵾ becomes the point where the trap snaps shut. But real beginnings are smaller than that. A glance. A sentence. A shared joke. 𝒜 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹, and a plate of fries.

𝚃here is a 𝖘𝖚𝖇𝖚𝖗𝖇𝖆𝖓 kind of tame to our house, it’s what people imagine when they spend ₃₀-years climbing toward it. The quiet sold in real-estate brochures; THE QUIET BOUGHT BY MY TRUST FUND. Our backyard stretches beyond the kitchen windows in curated agricultural perfection, that can bring 𝓜artha 𝚂tewart to tears. Hydrangeas. Rose bushes. A little stone pathway Nick promised he'd finish himself and never did. Just like Nick to.... Somewhere beyond the manicured hedges, fireflies drift lazily over the lawn, ƀłɨnꝁɨnǥ in the darkness like tiny surveillance cameras. Inside, the grandfather clock ticks. nick is asleep upstairs. One arm thrown over my side of the bed, probably. He always sleeps like he expects me to return. The thought makes me smile, or perhaps it makes me sad. The distinction grows blurrier every year. This year, it's cotton. I sit curled in an armchair with a 𝐇ermès throw draped across my knees, and a glass of Puligny-Montrachet balanced on the armrest. ACROSS THE ROOM IS NIKKI FREEMAN. Cocooned on my couch like an alley cat. The one that curls around your leg, & purrs beneath your touch. Blankets are swallowed around her shoulders. 𝙴𝚇𝙷𝙰𝚄𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 𝚆𝙾𝚅𝙴𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝚁𝙾𝚄𝙶𝙷 𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙴 𝙾𝙵 𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝙱𝙾𝙳𝚈.

@fremania⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ── ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ [ 03∶11 ], ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ THE LIVING ROOM.

𝚆hen I opened the door to her 𝖘𝖎𝖑𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖙𝖙𝖊 outlined in the darkness, glossing over the grime under her fingernails, and the questionable stain decorating the front of her 𝐂herry-red top, There is something strange about Nikki Freeman. ───𝙸 saw a girl with sharp eyes in a bar in Manhattan in the summer. I saw a group of teenagers ᵽɍɇŧɇnđɨnǥ adulthood fit them better than it did. I saw sweat tearing through lined eyes & glossed lips. How fleeting to be young in New York. I remember buying her a plate of fries because she hadn't eaten enough. I remember her sitting across from me in a cracked vinyl booth. Elbows on the table. WATCHING ME. Studying me like she expected an answer to a question she hadn't asked.

[ ɑׁׅ֮ ꩇׁׅ݊ᨮ꫶ׁׅ֮ all pale composure, silk-spill hair, expensive stillness. This cultivated femineity that seems entirely natural & painstakingly engineered, & Nikki turns her face to study this diorama of sovereignty; the curve of her mouth, the geometry of her profile, the minute fluctuations in her expression. Nikki wants to remember her this way, to press Amy into the soft black tar of her mind & leave an imprint there deep enough to survive flood or fire. ]

𝙰 woman sitting on a couch. “ You were nice to me. ” The words are soft as dust shaken from velvet, & yet their softness does nothing quite to lessen the density; if anything, it adds the weight. [ NEW YORK, ₂₀₂₁ ] In that fever-bright little terrarium of summer where the city sweated through makeup & everyone under twenty-five pretended they belonged to themselves Amy looked across the space & seen Nikki as more than a spectacle, more than a delinquent slip of a thing trying on adulthood. A girl with appetite, a girl with little splintered rebellion under the skin. ᵀᴿᵁᵀᴴᶠᵁᴸᴸʸ? Nikki had been trouble then in all those drab, adolescent ways: angry for the endless reasons, restless in the bones, trying to live free with the desperations of someone who did not know freedom. Amy had looked at her just as she was & not with the nurturing recoil of women who can smell volatility on girls. Let her be watchful, strange, hungry, & across the way, Nikki had studied her in return with the grave, unblinking fixation of a girl glimpsing some otherworldly species of womanhood. [ Amy was like that of those grand houses she'd seen by the beach with all the curtains drawn beautiful & everything had a place, but unnerving when one senses what goes into such order. ] What have you been up to since New York ? & Nikki feels something inside react with animal convulsion, bone-deep flinch. How could she left out the correct sequence of horrors & rinse them clean enough for this perfected living space? How could she bring such torture to comprehension? gσ∂, she fucking hates him. A hatred grown like willow roots into riverbank mud drinking the rot, thickening on it. [ HATES WHAT HE MADE OF HER. ] Blood, psychic moral of it all and fury, great vats of it. “ ... Nothin' good. ” Simply said. A bleak reduction, small & absolute. Her gaze slips away from Amy, over the manicured serenity before her. “ Things got a little weird, y'know. Later on. ”

i want you to stay for a while.

i'm laying here in denial.

intimacy scares me a lot.

why can't you see what i see?

if you saw what i see, you wouldn't come when i call.

instead you waste late nights on a screen laying next to me.

can i stay for a little while?

this isn't meaningless sex.

i want to fall in love again.

people pass me on the pavement and they don't seem to make a sound.

when you're away, all my thoughts are fuckin' loud.

is loving just how you fuck? is it just how you get off?

i've seen the way you look at me, and you look at me like you're seeing me.

say i'm not just your pornography, a quick fix and some company.

i need this to stay alive.

can you kiss me?

can you love me how you fuck me?

i'm happy for closeness.

i want you to kiss me.

i don't want this, i want you.

i'm not obsessed with sex, just fucking myself over.

it's been a while since i last checked my bank.

reckless overspending feels better now i've drank.

i know i'm gonna cry when i make it home.

it's fine, i know it's fine, i'm safe.

the buzz keeps me alive.

i'll count to ten, and once it's over, we'll go again.

i wanna pretend.

i only feel alive when i'm not in my head.

i only used to smoke when i got too drunk.

didn't think i'd live this long, didn't think i had the fight.

i don't wanna wake up and feel the same thing.

drugs aren't fun when you do them alone.

i'm so glad that i live out my head now.

i know why i'm like this.

a part of me died when i left you.

we have history, so you're owed all of me.

now i've been smoking a lot with your friends.

i think it's better if i just pretend.

your garden never grows.

i think it's better if i just pretend that we're cool.

friends don't kiss and tell.

does he know about the cheating?

but i didn't tell, is that worse?

would you come to my funeral and mourn the me you never knew?

i can't relate to motherhood. maybe i'm scared they'll turn out like me.

you believed i would never settle down.

there's a seat laid out for you.

i couldn't pass without telling you.

is it why i look forward to sleeping?

i wonder if you're still smoking, just to get a kick out of me.

why'd they always go for someone younger once i begin to step away?

but if i knew i was dying, you'd be the first person i'd call.

i say i never think of you, but i don't know who i'm lying to.

this time last year, i was someone. now i'm jealous of the pictures of my friends.

it hurts to look back.

it's always when i'm scared of being alone.

i sleep with the light on, you used to do that.

my therapist said i look stoned.

i said i'd rather do it alone.

you can't fake it; that's telling.

tell your dad that it's weed he's smelling.

you're too young to know her.

i think i'll go to sleep.

i won't think about you.

come over again.

i see how you used to be before you knew me.

i'm just so sick, i can't even look at myself.

take her name out of your mouth.

you don't deserve to mourn.

you just love the attention.

you like the power you have.

do you think that you're happy?

i woke up alone and i looked at my phone.

you called me four times, but i still felt alone.

i can't tell you i'm not thinking of you anymore

i travelled six hours for the sake of distraction.

i know it would be easier just to settle.

i don't think of you like i used to do.

your body knows before your mind.

i got too used to you.

missing you isn't enough. wanting you isn't enough.

we were too young to call it what it was.

hate being alone, so stay the night.

you don't love me. you just need me to stay alive.

it kills me to be kind.

but i fear the suburban life.

now i'm in new york because i couldn't wait any longer.

i don't think of you like you want me to.

i heard you fucked somebody else.

need somebody in your bed to drown that noise in your head.

you could give it all up for us and it won't be enough.

you'd give it all up for us, but that doesn't mean it was love.

i wanna kiss you while standing in the cold without a jacket.

there's a part of me that needs to think for myself.

you're the best night i ever had.

but i love you, and i love you 'cause you're my home.

i'm in love, i'm in love, until i think too much.

if it's love, why does it hurt so much?

we're at the same party with a different dealer.

how much would you do to feel wanted?

i'm the other apartment.

i'd do anything for this though.

a rented house isn't a home.

i know that you dream of a townhouse.

i know my head is self-aware of its problems, but the child in me can't stop them. maybe it's something i got from my mother.

i bet you're thinking of me while you're pulling off her jeans.

i'll do anything for you to see me, for you to wake up and want me.

i've built this house i'm now alone in.

maybe i'm better off alone.

this is love isn't it?

call it love, call it anything you like.

i think it's best if i stay.

my money's telling me no, but that's all just in my head.

now i'd rather not have loved at all.

i know that you'll leave me.

everyone can see the way you look at me.

can you please love me gently?

they're wearing your clothes.

they're starting to get loud.

there's comfort in the sadness and the mess i seem to make.

no one's gonna know you like i do.

you're always on my mind.

sold my morals for a smoke.

you know my body more than most.

i think i'm all the things i hate.

no one tell you drugs can kill you?

it isn't where i thought my life would be.

don't tell me how to get better.

you know that they love it when i'm getting sadder.

the people won't like me if i'm any louder.

i'm the one who's insecure.

not healthy but at least i got a way to cope.

i want you to hold me.

i'll be your poltergeist.

i thought you were pretty until my sight was fixed.

if no one was watching, would you still call me a friend?

are you smoking weed again?

i've seen how you touch her, and it's the way you used to touch me.

you said you loved me, you said you'd want me.

it was the last time i was loved innocently, but i know it's because we were young.

but if it was now, i would've held on to you longer.

i want you to notice how much that i've moved on.

i think i'm a liar.

i've been lonely since you left me.

did you treat her well tonight?

it's like when my parents fight.