Page 80 of Smoke and Glitter

The apartment is dark when I finally go upstairs. The blanket is folded over the back of the couch the way Autumn leaves it, and her gray socks are still bunched under the coffee table. I get a beer, sit down and spend five minutes staring at them.

Then her voice comes back from the night in my apartment. Tell me what this is. What am I to you?

Girlfriend. The word has been sitting in my head since she left, simple enough to make me feel sick. I could've said girlfriend. It feels strange, but not wrong. I could've told her I didn't know what came after it, that I had no fucking idea what I was doing, but she hadn't imagined the last few months. Instead I gave her every reason to leave with the question still open.

I reach down and pick up her socks. They barely fill my hand. For a second I think about taking them into the bedroom with the charger and everything else she left here. Instead I slide them back under the coffee table. Not tonight.

After Elise, I got good at staying busy. Do something until you're tired. Sleep. Get up. Find something else. It worked eventually. I tell myself this is the same thing, then spend half the night awake anyway.

The next afternoon, Bex drops the weekend schedule onto my desk hard enough that it slides into the liquor invoice.

"Tonight's act is asking for another dressing room."

I pull the schedule closer and scan the changes. None of it is complicated. "They can use my office during the show."

"That's what I figured."

She makes a note on her copy, but when I turn the page, she doesn't leave. Bex is usually halfway back to whatever she was doing before a conversation is technically over, so I make it through maybe three lines before I look up again.

"What?"

"Have you heard from Autumn?"

The question irritates me faster than it should. "No."

Bex stays where she is, one hand still wrapped around the schedule. I wait a second, then set mine down. "You clearly have another question."

"I asked the one I had."

"Right."

Her mouth tightens, but she doesn't bite. That makes it worse. Since Autumn walked out of my apartment, Bex has mostly left the subject alone. She watched me stand behind the same bar and do absolutely nothing about it. I don't need her to point that out.

"She didn't even say goodbye," I say.

Bex goes still. "What?"

"You heard me."

"I heard the words. I'm trying to figure out how you got there."

I lean back in the chair, already pissed enough that stopping now would feel like backing down from an argument she hasn't even made yet. "She had nine days, Bex. Nine. She packed her apartment, saw Summer, saw Marisol and Lucia, got everything handled for London. She had time to do all of that and never came to see me."

Bex stares at me long enough that I can feel how stupid it sounds without her helping. I keep going anyway.

"She didn't call either. I sent her a message and got nothing back."

"What did you send?"

I rub my thumb along the edge of the schedule. "I asked her how the tour stuff was going."

For the first time, Bex looks genuinely offended on Autumn's behalf.

"That's what you sent?"

"I know it was shitty."

"Do you?"