When your eyes met mine for the second time, I knew that I wasn’t the only one who had something to say. Not even a greeting could be said between us, as I approached you and your eyes travelled over me like long forgotten terrain, but we both knew that something had to be said. Time didn’t seem to be present as I raised my eyebrows and started the conversation.
“We need to-“
“Talk. Yes.”
Silence, as we both walked in perfect sync through the crowd and onto the deserted corridor.
“Trust us to do this on the fourth floor,” I remarked, trying to make a joke. Acting as if you were an old friend, and not an old love. You must have noted the unease in my voice, because you gave no reply.
“I’m sorry.”
That, obviously, would never suffice, but it was the beginning. If words were my paint, then it was the first layer on a stark canvas. You had never been one to paint, though, and I knew you used words far more luxuriously than I ever could.
 
“I knew you would offer a cliché apology.”
“You know me well.”
“No, I don’t think so. When I knew you, you didn’t lie so openly.”
“I guess a lot changes in… Three months? Or was it four?”
“Seven.”
“You’ve been counting.” I was going to add that your adding was abnormally quick, but decided against it. You didn’t respond, again, and instead pulled out a phone. I asked to see it, stretching my hands forward, forgetting the boundary that those seven months had made between us.
“You can never leave anything alone, can you?” Your voice was suddenly uneven, serrated. “I guess that’s how you got to be with him.”
“I guess so.” I placed my hands firmly at my sides again. There was silence for a while. “I really am sorry. But we didn’t do anything wrong. It honestly wasn’t to spite you; we couldn’t help the way we felt. It only developed after you and I ended, in any case.”
“But with him.” You were still fiddling on that stupid contraption.
“I know… I apologize. Honestly I do. But I can’t take it back. I’m sorry. What else do you want me to say?”
 
Suddenly your eyes locked with mine again and I saw that you still had something to say.
“I’m… lucky,” you began.
“Lucky?”
“In an odd way. Let me try to explain… You remember when I entered that competition?”
“Vaguely.”
“I was convinced my entrance wouldn’t even be acknowledged. I wrote on two hours of sleep and I made a million mistakes… Or at least, I thought I did. But you know what?”
“No?”
“No, you do know. I won.”
You smiled that superior smile and I suddenly felt sick.
“What does this have to do with us?” I asked. The smile vanished as you tried to remember the point you had strayed from.
“I’m lucky in an odd way. If bad things happen to me, they always right themselves. But you were the opposite. You were something extremely good, but things ended badly and got even worse. And nothing righted itself.”
“This is my fault?”
“Yes.”
 
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. I knew it was a stupid thing to do, but the ridiculousness of your logic got to me. As the cadence of my laugh turned to nothing, I felt the muscles in my jaw tense. A clock inside one of the rooms along the corridor ticked persistently, like a metronome set to imitate my sharp breaths.
“I thought we would at least have the decency to pretend we were still friends.”
“Friends don’t waste wine when there’s words to sell,” you said, indicating to my half-full glass and your half-empty one.
“I’m not in the mood for cryptic metaphors.”
“Oh? Then take off your mask and be honest. Or do you think that because you’re an actress, I can’t identify?”
It’s always hard to answer a question like that. I sipped my wine and gazed over the city that would seem to forever have me grasped in its glacial monotony.
 
“Did you ever write the story?” I saw confusion on your face, so I elaborated. “About me. I wrote the song about you.”
For the first time, a genuine smile crossed your face.
“I tried. It’s hard to write about a character when she writes herself out your life.”
“Point taken. I believe it must be easier to write a song. They’re more… Cryptic. Although I always have been one to second-guess the chord progressions and pace of my inventions.”
“You speak so strongly about music, still.”
“It’s all that makes sense.”
“Point taken.”
It was then that I hummed the song, which had certainly not been my intention. Somewhere along the tune, the hum of my voice turned into words, and I set down my glass and leant over the balcony. The wind carried the sound of my voice toward the repetitive tick of the clock, until they were in sync.
 
“Maybe I am lucky,” you murmured, once my voice had trailed off.
“Why?” I asked, my eyes still closed as I leant over the balcony.
“If all that happened was bad, then that made it right.”
I wasn’t accustomed to you openly saying something genuinely kind like that, so it took me a while to realize that you had intended it sincerely. By the time I turned to face you in surprise, you had gone. All that was left was an empty glass, on the balcony. I drained mine, left it next to yours, and heard the ticking of the clock fade as I walked away.