Perfume
Once, he bought me perfume. It was a Tuesday. It was raining lightly and he let me in. I was dizzy and weak with the world’s worst headache, having only slept 3 hours the night before, and by that afternoon I had trouble registering everything. The world was a blur. I sat down for a moment and put my face in my hands as he reached for his bag, fishing around for a water bottle or a lighter and a cigarette. I told him that I didn’t even feel like I was there. I told him I felt like I was floating.
“Here,” he said, “I’ve got something for you.”
The perfume bottle he pulled from his bag was the brightest pink I had ever seen. The sharpness of my headache seemed to make it glow.