Make You Mine

It’s been seven months. Holly misses you like crazy, sleeping on your side of the bed when I’m not home and meowing at the back door when I am, where you often went out to garden and tend to your succulents and high maintenance flowers. They’re all dead now, bar a snake plant trying its hardest in the corner of our my back patio. You replied to my text four days after you arrived in California:

I’m sorry, and I do love you, but it’s not working. I’m safe. _{Sent: 3:30PM ✔ Read}

You left no opportunity for a reply, and I didn’t try to force a conversation. I cried for weeks, while you seemingly moved on, and the pain cut like a knife. I tried to remove you from my social media but I couldn’t. I didn’t want you being out of my life to be final.

The sun is streaming in through the window as I wake, Holly’s ears perking up as she senses my movements. She lets out a tiny mewl, and scampers to my side, pressing her head against my collarbone. I scratch her head, murmuring good morning darlin’ at her. The clock reads 11:15AM and I shake my head: I’m lucky it’s a Saturday, or I’d have been running nearly four hours late. I get out of bed, Holly following eagerly, and go to the kitchen. There’s a mirror in the hallway, right outside of our bedroom door, and I try to avoid my reflection in it as I walk out. I already know what I look like: gaunt, with the darkest under eye I’ve ever had. My sleep is still restless, and it isn’t just from the added pressure at work. My breakfast consists of a glass of orange juice and the sounds of Holly swallowing her food almost whole.

Saturday is laundry day, and my saliva still gets stuck in my throat as I see how empty the basket is compared to how it used to be. I throw everything haphazardly into the washer before realising I’m out of powder. Rolling my eyes, and letting Holly out of the back door, I get dressed and walk to my car.



I’m scrolling through your instagram page, glass of (sweet) red wine in my hand and the television on with the volume low, providing only background noise (so I don’t feel so alone in this empty house). That’s when I see your latest post: you and a girl, who’s kissing you on the cheek. I can’t help but notice the striking difference in our appearance: her long blonde hair to my short black lob, her full (red-lipsticked) pout to my thinner (bare) lips. Even her fingernails, manicured to perfection and covered in a layer of dark polish as they rest along your collarbone. I look to my own nails, and consider buffing them to bring a slight shine to the dullness. The worst part is you: how happy you look, the light in your eyes and your wide smile, showing the world exactly how you feel about her.

It’s a look I haven’t seen on you in forever.

I close the app, trying not to think of how soft her lips must be, as she lands kiss after kiss on your mouth, your cheek, your neck. How her hands must be even softer, and gentle as she caresses your curves — your waist, your hips, the inside of your thighs. I don’t want to think of you and her under your pristine bedsheets (you always like fresh ones), doing things that I haven’t since two weeks before you walked out. How she must whisper in your ear, as her fingers move tantalisingly across your skin, how you press into her hand and she pulls you closer and holds you there, your mouth falling open as — I stop myself.

It’s a Saturday night. My washing is done, I cooked a rather average meal, and I am getting tipsy off of wine I don’t even like at home. I get up, and go to my wardrobe, finding the nicest outfit I can: I need a change of pace. In the bathroom, I rifle through the cabinet to find perfume — one you hated — and douse myself in it, trying to rid your hold over me. No doubt this girl smelled of all your favourite things: peonies and champagne, and just a hint of vanilla. Just to spite me. My Uber arrives ten minutes later, and I’ve finished half of the wine bottle.

“Are you Beth?” The driver asks, glancing over his shoulder as I climb in.

“Are you going to take me to the nearest bar?”



I’m one drink in at the bar when I see her: blonde box-dyed hair with a couple inches of brown root showing, a smattering of freckles across her nose and round gold-rimmed glasses. She’s sitting at a table with a few other girls, talking animatedly, her arms and hands moving in a frenzy as she’s telling (what I’m assuming) is a captivating story. My gut tugs at my heart, and all I can think of is how much she looks like the girl in your photo: everything that I need to be to have you back, and all that I can’t be.

Another drink down and I’ve got the (liquid) courage to go and talk to her. A couple of her friends have moved away to the dance floor, leaving her and one another to talk. My heart is in my throat — I haven’t done this in a while. How do I talk to girls? What if gibberish falls out? The alcohol soothes me though, telling me that of course I can do this, and I (foolishly) listen.

They don’t look up when I approach, and I slide into the booth across from them. A raised eyebrow, a concerned look. “Can we help you?”

I’m hoping she finds this endearing because I know the alcohol has tricked me: instead of cool and confident I am awkward and clumsy, like a gazelle first learning to walk, taking a few wobbly steps and tumbling down immediately after. “I’m sorry,” I start, eyesight slight blurry, trying to stay focused on the blonde, “I just couldn’t take my eyes off how gorgeous ya are.” Idiot. My stomach feels like jelly. What a ridiculous line. “Actually, I just heard myself say that, so I’ll go.” I start to get up, but the blonde haired girl reaches out, and holds my wrist. She has a faint smile on her face.

“Wait,” maybe I have a chance, “I haven’t heard a line like that in a long time. Let alone from a pretty girl.” Definitely a chance.

“I have more where that’s from,” I reply, leaning in to my awkwardness. “Can I buy ya a drink?”



Her name is Juliet, and she’s twenty three, a few years younger than me. She’s trying to get into journalism, but it’s not quite working so she’s tutoring English students in the meantime. She’s vivacious, with swinging hips and a multitude of stories to tell: the opposite of my somewhat reserved, more secretive nature. Her blue eyes lit up as she pulled me onto the dancefloor — just one dance, I’m not asking — and she kissed me with fervour as the song ended. I can see why you would want a girl like this — she’s exciting, in a way that I’m not. She smells of vanilla and raspberry, and I’m picturing myself bathing in her perfume, drowning myself so I don’t smell of the musk and grapefruit that you despise. I had asked her to come back to ours mine, and we are currently sitting in the backseat of an Uber. My hand is on her thigh, drawing patterns in her soft skin, and my lips are kissing her collarbone. Her long hair is covering my face, and I know our Uber driver is trying to avert his eyes.

“You’re here,” he says gruffly, ready for us to get out of his car. We stumble to the door and as I’m struggling with the lock Juliet is pressing herself against me, running her hands over my hips, fingertips digging in slightly at my hipbones as I open the door. She turns me around, and kisses me, pushing me back until I hit a wall. She’s slightly shorter than me, and it makes it easy for me to switch our positions: me pressing her against the wall, one hand next to her head, leaning on the wall, and the other around her waist.

“The bedroom’s just there,” I say, moving my head in the direction of the door three paces to the right of us. She laughs, pushing me away from her and sauntering into the bedroom. I kick the front door closed with my foot and follow her, finding her already lounging on the queen size bed. She’s wearing a yellow cropped jumper and light wash boyfriend jeans, her sneakers discarded on the floor somewhere. I climb onto the bed and straddle her, taking in her glasses, sitting neatly atop her nose and the lipstick that is all but gone from her lips. She pulls me down, and my hands wander under her jumper, taking it off as our kissing becomes more passionate. Her bra feels soft, and I open my eyes as we end our kiss to see white lace: delicate, like her. I think of my own sport bra under my button down, and blush. I’m lucky it’s dark and she doesn’t notice. Regardless, she is too busy undoing my shirt, pushing it over my shoulders and down my arms. My shirt is hardly off five seconds and she’s unbuttoning my jeans, smirking at my barely audible gasp.

“Did you think we were going to take things slow?” She asks, working on her own jeans, a task which I take over from as I reply,

“Not if you don’t want to, darlin’.” She laughs again (must be a giggly drunk) and lifts her bum off the bed so I can take her jeans off.

“You know what to do then,” she says, wrapping a hand around my neck and pulling me in to kiss her, her other hand leading mine between her legs, pushing my fingers where they need to go.



In the morning, after I roll over (away from Juliet) and stretch, I pick up my phone where it was thrown carelessly in the early hours of the morning. It’s flashing the charge battery signal at me, and my fingers scrabble at the cord on the floor next to it. Plugging it in, I place it on my bedside table and lean back on my headboard, moving my tousled hair away from my face. My phone makes a happy beep and I look to it, where notifications are popping up now that it is connected to a power source. I scroll through them on the lock screen: instagram, facebook, a couple of emails (nothing too important), until a text message:

I can’t stop thinking about you. _{Sent: 4:30AM}

My heart jumps to my throat.