Persephone killed herself two years ago. She took a razor to her wrist. Pretty unoriginal if you ask me. Made a mess out of my bathroom too. She never was the type to forsake theatrics so I guess it makes sense.

I don’t really know why she did it—I mean I should but I honestly don’t have a clue. I get the whole ithurtssomuchIcantbreathe sort of thing. And I get that Persephone had her own demons or whatever people like it call it these days. It wasn’t some sort of hidden, deep rooted secret like she tried to make people believe. She was a talker and was ready to tell her life story to anyone who would listen. And if they didn’t want to, she would talk anyway. I guess this is why she didn’t have any friends. Except for me although I don’t particularly remember why.

We spent a lot of time at coffee shops together. Well, I would spend time at coffee shops and she would follow with mechanic movements, far more interested in her split ends than spending time with me. I would order us drinks—two large coffees, black—and she would pay with coins only. It was always like this. I asked her a few weeks before her death why she never had bills but she didn’t really give me an answer. Not one that meant anything anyway.

During our shared moments in the early hours of the morning, drunk on Bloody Marys, Persephone would tell me all the things she loved about me. It bothered me for a while that she could only be intimate when drunk but I soon got over it. That was just Persephone. And there was no point in trying to decipher why she was like that.

She would tell me my eyes are like emeralds, that my body fits perfectly with hers. That my voice makes her heart flutter and swoon. Basically, just a lot of fluffy garbage. I liked to hear it though and after I made sure I had successfully ignored the fact that she was drunk, I would kiss her. Her words made me put the thought of her being an apathetic parasite out of my mind.

Tuesdays we smoked hand rolled cigarettes beneath a birch tree near my apartment. She would always nestle her head on my shoulders. Her hair smelled like lavender which was strange because we used the same shampoo. My hair never smelled like lavender.

I told her I loved her one autumn afternoon under that tree. She began to cry and asked me why I had to say that. I immediately wished I had some wine on hand. She might have been more receptive that way.

I gave her a look that resembled what someone would look like if they got shot. Maybe not that extreme but I could definitely imagine myself looking like that now that I think about it. I took her face into my hands and wiped off her tears and told her that I loved her again. Her eyes closed and we sat there for an hour, her face smothered into my jacket that was becoming hot with her slow breathing, before she got up and walked away without saying a word.

I keep wanting to believe that all she intended to do was get us coffee.

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