Page 164 of Before You Fell

His back is all ink and muscle. I notice the marks my nails left on his skin last night, which I am not sorry about.

He pours coffee and adds exactly what I take without asking, before bringing it over. His fingers brush mine as he hands me the mug and my body wakes all over again.

“Thanks,” I say.

He picks up his own coffee from the floor and takes a sip. He settles back on the floor, leans against the couch, and puts the guitar in his lap.

I sit on the floor next to him as Phoenix takes another sip, eyeing me over the rim.

“Ready to show me that song you wrote?” he says.

“I don’t know if it’s anything good.”

His eyes stay locked on mine. “That means it’s something.”

“You haven’t heard it, Phoenix.”

“I know your face when you pretend a lyric doesn’t matter.”

I hate that he has a point.

I also hate that it feels as if we’re younger. Like the years are peeling back to when I’m thirteen with a notebook, shaking hands, and way too much riding on what Phoenix thinks. Except now there is soreness between my thighs and a thousand things we have done wrong, sitting quietly in the corners of my apartment.

His eyes stay on mine, patient in a way Phoenix rarely is.

I set the mug down and go get my notebook before I can talk myself out of it.

When I come back, Phoenix is strumming the same quiet progression he was before. He looks at the notebook in my hand as I sit.

I open it to the page and slide it toward him.

“You wrote this in there?” he asks, eyes moving over the words.

“Some of it.”

He looks up. “It’s good.”

“You always say that.”

“No.” His gaze drops back to the page. “I say that when it’s good. When it’s shit, I tell you the second verse needs a mercy killing.”

I laugh before I can stop myself.

His mouth curves, but his eyes stay fixed on the lyrics. “The opening line works. This part here is better than you think.” He taps the page. “But you’re hiding in the chorus.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” He plucks a few notes, testing something. “You wrote around the issue instead of through it.”

I stare at him.

“You do it when it scares you,” he says without looking up. “You always have.”

We work on the song together. Not in some perfect, pretty way. We argue. He tells me one line is too soft and I tell him his face is too loud. He changes a chord progression and I hate it for three seconds before realizing it makes the lyric hit harder. Which I will not admit out loud. He hums under his breath, then sings one line low, letting his voice carry my words across the apartment.

The sound moves through me.

I forgot this. No. That is a lie. I never forgot. I buried it beneath all the ways he hurt me because it was easier to survive him that way.