The Scent Of You

It falls to the floor before she can grab it, tumbling through her fingers and bouncing across the tile before cracking and leaking onto the rug in front of the toilet. Too much glass in here: glass shelves, glass bottles, glass mirrors. Her heart stops as the scent rises up into her nose, wrapping itself around her lungs and lining the inside of her belly. Her lips swell and palms sweat, she starts to tear up and get weak in the knees. Alex. All over her, inside of her, on top of her, away from her. He insisted she have her own scent. He wanted to buy her perfume so they spent days trolling drugstores and department stores, spraying, sniffing, coughing, choking, laughing, hmm'ing and haa'ing trying to encapsulate their connection in some sort of alcohol infused watery potion. Late nights leaning into her neck, he'd lift her wrist to his face and breathe her in, all the way down to his toes. They'd compare little paper swatches, over breakfasts of coffee and half-pans of supermarket premade black and blonde brownies. Sugar and spice and everything nice. Princess. Shi. Which one was the one. Wait an hour, take a shower. Get sweaty, here, smell me now. You'd swear they were buying a house or naming their first born. In the end the first choice was the wrong choice and they both fell in love with the second. When she left, the bottles stayed behind and arrived one day buried in a box of photographs, old notecards and two statues he'd given her when her cat died. Tacky but sweet. Angels in repose, or something. Made in Thailand. Suitable for the garden. Or garage. Now the perfume lay leaking it's pale blue liquid onto the polyester mat, and she was on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. She'll have to chuck the mat. it was old and stained anyway, from the attempt at home style henna. He always liked her red. Now their scent permeates the whole apartment, weaving it's way into the life she thought she'd left behind.