She spoke to me like I was supposed to break apart in the rain, like castles made of sand drifting into the sea. She spoke to me like I was disposable lover, something she’d fuck until the batteries were dead, and then leave for the maid to throw out in some roadside hotel. 

“Next time you shoot the little cops first,” she warned me. “They’re the ones with something to prove. Past that, it’s from smallest moustache to largest.” She’s got all these little codes of conduct. “White wine with vanilla ice cream,” she lists off. “Unmixed gasoline goes to the right, and that shitty homemade napalm is in the jugs to the left.”

She puts her hand in mine, and it’s cold as stone. She looks at me, and she’s evaluating how many bullets I could absorb if she was crouched right behind the wider parts of me. She doesn’t have to hide it. She’s not likely to.

“I’m in love with you,” she tells me. I remember when I said that to somebody once. It fills me with one of those oddly places sense of, lets call it, regret.