Kat Beeton | Originally published in The Other Side anthology
Featured on BBC Upload
You are not the missing piece. My jigsaw still has plenty of puzzle pieces waiting to fit into place, and you were never one of them. I am staring through this coffee shop window stamping the winter off my boots and breathing my hands back to life. You are not inside. The girl with the pink dress is sitting in your favourite space, flicking curls like yours over her shoulder and laughing with her friends. Her smile is like yours, the kind that gives the world its colour, but she is not you. I turn away from the multicoloured balloons and steaming cups of coffee, leaning against the cold white wall. The stone is rough at my back. I can feel it scratching through my clothes and scraping my skin. I raise my shaking hands, eyes watering against the winter wind. If I close my eyes, I know yours will be there waiting for me in the dark. I sink back further, the pain reminding me I can still feel something. Your smile warms me as my eyelids drift closed in sweet surrender to the fragments of colour I crave. The scent of coffee, chocolate, and fresh baked bread that always drew us in pulls me deeper into the memory. That day when my steps had bounce and the street was full of music, I came here looking for you to tell you with a diamond that I only ever wanted you. I found you but you were not alone. You gave the girl in blue jeans your cherry lips, and she gave you back all her colour. I hear your voice and my eyes are wide open now. There you are standing in the doorway, smiling.
