Number 3

Suki and I stumbled into my flat with several shopping bags between us. She had dragged me around to all sorts of shops after getting our tattoos and I now had a new wardrobe to wear about Berlin.

“And now,” she said handing me a bottle of beer. “A toast to a very successful day.”

I clinked my bottle against hers and took a long sip.

“I can’t believe we did all that today,” I said. “I’ve never had more fun.”

“I think you just liked knowing you’re doing things to royally piss your mother off,” Suki smiled, knowing the truth.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I smiled back.

“Cut the bull shit, Jon,” she laughed. “We both know it’s true.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It is.”

“The first of many,” she said gesturing to our bottles. “I assure you.”

Oh, how right she was.

*****

Multiple bottles of beer and several shots of whiskey later, Suki and I were both thoroughly intoxicated. I don’t remember all the details of that night, I’m sorry to say. But I do remember what came next.

Our lips crashed together and her hands knotted into my hair. My hands gripped her tiny waist and held her against me. In a flurry of heat and passion, our clothes fell away and I carried her to the bedroom.

Collapsing onto the bed, I knew that night was far from over.

*****

I had been right. Much later that night, Suki fell asleep in my arms, our bodies sweaty and tired. She was more beautiful than I could have imagined and I hoped that that night had cemented our relationship.

I was so, so wrong. Because the next morning, I woke up alone.

Suki was nowhere to be found in the apartment. Her clothes were gone, as were her camera and the stack of books she had taken to keeping on the coffee table. The only memories I found left of her where a few things sitting on the kitchen table.

She had left me a Polaroid camera, an envelope, and a pile of snapshots of our time together.

Suki Davis had left me and now I was left to figure out why.