It had been six months, but in one five minute span, it was like they'd never happened. She was back in New York, back in the cloud of loss and sadness and pain as fresh as the day she had walked out the door with the last box.
She still remembered the night she had lain awake next to her fiance for the last time, counting her breaths like seconds until the darkness had lightened to gray and then to full color. She remembered pretending to be too tired to get out of bed until he left for the pawn shop and then flying out of bed to a whirlwind of activity. She'd touched nothing that could have been labeled 'His' and taken only what she felt belonged solely to her. Her recording equipment, her keyboard, her clothes... Her toothbrush out of the bathroom and the shoebox under the bed with the magazine pictures mod podged all over it. The pictue frames she'd left, the CDs and Vinels they'd bought together. The cups and plates and the blankets on the bed they'd shared for years. She remembered dry eyes the whole day until she'd gotten to her friend Anna's house and the safety of her couch. She remembered crying herself to sleep that night, the first night she'd slept alone and single again for the first time in almost four years, as though not a single day had passed.
Ice had changed though... The man who'd stood in his gothic finery in the women's bathroom was a different man than the one she had known. Sid had been surprised at how beautiful she still thought he was, which was probably a pretty damn good sign that she was not as removed or recovered as she liked to think. She'd though she had skipped right over the grieving process to the moving on part of all of this. Skipped the tears and the ice cream in bed and the rebounds.
She'd hit her bowl hard that night after he'd left her there, smoking a lot more than she would have as a casual pick-me-up between sets. The club had dipped and spun around her by the time she emerged, but it hadn't been enough. A bottle of water, a little blue pill and a half hour later, it had been hard to hold onto the pain any more when everything in her screamed how good she felt. It didn't matter that Ice was here, after she'd fled from the ghost of him in New York. It didn't matter that he'd reminded her of everything she'd lost in the shape of his face and everything she'd ever done wrong in the coldness of his eyes. Alcohol furthered the numbing and dissolved the rest of the night into oblivion.
Sid didn't remember what music she played. She didn't even remember finishing her sets, or how she ended up at home. Her beater wouldn't be outside the next morning, but how she'd magically traversed the miles between home and the club would remain forever a mystery. It was how she wanted it. She wanted to forget tonight had ever happened and scrub the memory of Ice from her soul. The next morning found her with a monster of a headache hangover and she wouldn't have left her bed at all, save the itch for a smoke that wouldn't go away. The cheery late autumn sunlight had been too much for blood-shot eyes and the short woman had broken her flatmate's rule about no smoking in the house to creep into the bathroom, crack the window, and curl up in a ball on the cold tile floor.
Knees gathered to her chest and toes curled under, Sid let her elbow rest on her knees as she cupped her face in her hand, fingers blocking the painful light. She considered, briefly, packing up her things, loading them in the Impala, and getting the hell out of Dodge. She hadn't set down roots here... one city was like any other, right? She didn't have to stay here, knowing he was somewhere nearby, ruining her fresh start.
But...
Rob was here. Rob, who she hadn't seen in years on years, but who had thrown open his home to her without a second thought. Who cared enough to set things up for her and make space for her, and when she suddenly turned up with powers, had taken the time to explain it to her, to make sure she knew what she was doing. He wanted to keep her safe and cared about her happiness. There had been a whole total of four people in Sid's entire life that she could say that about... two were dead and one had stopped caring six months ago when he came home to an empty apartment. There wouldn't be a Rob in Phoenix, or Tampa, or L.A.
Sid dropped her hand away from her face as she blinked blearily at the bathroom door. Was she willing to give up the one good thing she had managed to find past all this ******** up mess, and be alone again?
No. No, she didn't think so. She wanted to stay here. She wanted her fresh start. She'd barely dabbled a toe into the waters of the club scene here and her own room with her own bed and a music studio in the basement beat out smelly hotel beds and the lumpy couches of just-met-tonight friends. This city was big and bustling. She wouldn't have to see him if she didn't want to. Just avoid the places she knew he liked to frequent and maybe she would never run into him again. It sounded simple, put that way. It made her feel better, just a little bit.
Ice was a problem she had left behind in New York. She didn't need to let that problem follow her here, even with the man himself haunting her city now. Sid shoved to her feet and reached into the shower to turn on the water, the hiss of the spray drowning out her thoughts. It took only moments to strip to her skin and soon enough she was under the water, letting the heat sooth away the lingering traces of Ice.
Word Count: 1049
