Someone Else’s Perfume

by May Chreideh

I took what was left over from my sins and walked towards my biggest one.

“Love has no meter, as you are the ship that never sails; it’s always prone to drown, and I am

your anchor, until when?”

Facing my biggest sin, I was not able to breathe, mainly because I was hit with the worst cold

anyone could imagine. But I had to stand in a place that I pretended I never knew. I knew that

place by heart, every corner, including what was in the cabinets and how many scattered cups of coffee there were. I gulped as he eyed me up and down; I was doing well, glistening, and

shaking.

“What is there for me to fix now?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I was a lunatic, which was weird because he was the one in need. I was never in need; my heart yearned surely, but I was never in need, though I was on the edge of a cliff. 

“How did you know?”

“Two souls who have once collided still breathe the same air; a soul that once loved a soul so

much still lies between the layers of your skin. So, utilizing this, if you’re in need, I am here to

save. And vice versa, supposedly.” I smiled; my cheeks were burning.

 It took him a moment, having to blink so much, to register what I had just said. He knows exactly what I was talking about. And that was the thing about my biggest sin; he would either stab me with his words and twist the knife or remain silent. He would look into my eyes and let them speak for themselves,

for he knows our eyes speak the same language, fire.

The moment I sit, he stands up, and when I stand up, he sits down. Maybe that was why we

never saw eye to eye, and when we did, fire would arise, and no one would be able to tone it

down. 

“I can’t show anyone I am weak; I don’t know, I always grew up running from expressing

myself, maybe because I don’t know how to love myself.” He chuckled at the harsh truth, and it

was a truth that was too late for me to discover, or I thought I was the one who didn’t love herself and sought love from someone who knew what love should be like. 

Little did I know we were just two people who sought love in one another, and despite the denial and the teeth-breaking-bone-biting-scar-opening-glass-shattering miscommunication, we admitted to loving each other.

We didn’t love ourselves, and we misinterpreted love that we mirrored bitterness to one another.

We were looking for the sweetness of it all in between because the sweetness lay somewhere

under our messy sheets. It was always sloppy, our teeth clicking, our bed sheets, our music

tastes, our eyes meeting, our confessions.

“I swore I wouldn’t come back to my sins; I was fully convinced that I am free, that I feel

nothing, that the layers of skin no longer recognize you.”

“But you haven’t changed your perfume,” he interrupted me, and I froze, for I assumed he

wouldn’t remember anything about me. But he does, and he remembers more than he should; it

concerns me because while I was forgetting his voice, his eyes, and the way he spoke, he

remembered my perfume, my laugh, and my lame jokes. I nodded as a response, because it was true. I never changed my perfume, and I was so attached to what we had that I still purchased the same perfume over and over again, hoping he would smell it in the air somewhere and remember me. And he did, surprisingly so, he did.

“I know, it’s my favourite perfume.”

“You’re reminding me of the good old days,” he said.

“So you do remember the good we had, I thought it was just me. And I was called crazy for

longing for the good, I was taught to cling to the bad when it came to you. I don’t know why. “

“Because I have done more harm than good, while you did way too good even to harm me.”

Locking eyes from across the living room, while I made two cups of coffee for the two of us, and

as music played in the background, we were drowning in the world we created just for the two of

us. I don’t know if I should be scared, but the light shines brightly in this little world, even

though it’s too tight and crammed enough to fit two people. I don’t understand; his eyes are

reading mine, and I am reading his; I want to stay, but I should leave. I want to stay.

The screams in my head are quieter than the whispers escaping our lips, so close to death.