The trick is to keep breathing

Sunday night, Chloe mourns another weekend lost in opium fumes and rye whiskey. To me it makes no difference, waking up to the 5th Avenue requiem is always the same.

I dream about Henry when we're not together. "Are you happy" he asked me once in the blackout after a storm, looking away from me and into the fire, my shivering hand in his. When mother asks me I always lie and say yes, with him I can be honest because I know it doesn't scare him. Nothing does.

Happiness is fragile, like butterfly wings, it never lasts longer than it takes to remember time slipping through your fingers like California sand. Memento mori. It used to be different back when everything seemed endless and he was still there by my side to protect me from the pain, my father. I only manage to go on without him now because of those sudden flashes from the past when I'm reminded of something I thought I had lost, the recovered memory of something forgotten, of what it felt like to be truly and uninhibitedly happy.