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You had met Faye Valentine by fate. Her hands had curled around a copy of the newspaper you wrote for while she was in front of you in the line at the coffee store, and when you had politely, if rather awkwardly, tried to make conversation by telling her that you had made the front cover of that issue.
(Although it wasn’t popular, the paper was a good source of steady income. Faye had initially laughed when you first told her, then promptly covered you head to toes – quite literally – in soft, featherlight kisses.)
You don’t know what it was about her that made her so dangerous. Maybe it was the glint of her eyes, the careful setting of her jaw before she spoke, but something was so enticing about her. The smell of cigarette smoke that clung desperately to her skin was the perfect perfume. You were a good girl; never touching a cigarette or excessively drinking, but Faye was just bad enough that she was unlike any other fling you had.
After the day in the coffee store, both you and her had made excuses to meet up there. She was distant, playing hard to get, tugging at her bottom lip with her teeth and moving her hips entrancingly from side to side. She let it slip one morning, in a soft tone, that she had no where to stay.
(“Stay at my place,” You had insisted, without a second thought. She looked bewildered, as if no one had ever graced her with such a gift. Then she tipped her head back and laughed. Your heart fluttered aimlessly in your chest. You were definitely in love.)
Faye Valentine moved her few possessions – a pistol, three packets of cigarettes, and a whole lot of debt – mere days later. Nothing happened for a while, save for you cooking dinner with her help and awkward nights on the living room couch where she slept, watching old reruns of old game shows. Once, a rerun of a Big Shot ad played. You saw the way she flinched, pain surfacing in those green eyes. You didn’t say a word. You pretended you hadn’t seen it.
It all happened one night, with your new roommate pulling a bottle of something awful smelling from the couch, underneath the blankets that crinkled into every crevice of the couch. Your eyebrows had jutted upwards, hers only wrinkling together playfully. Her words echo in your ears, even now.
“Care for a drink?”
(You had only two, maybe three drinks before you felt yourself going. You barely remember what you said. It was probably something horribly awkward. You had this horrible tendency to say I love you to people who you were attracted to, but people you barely knew. It must’ve worked on her, because the next thing you knew, she was kissing you, her warm body pressing against yours.)
Faye no longer slept on the couch. You hadn’t defined your relationship; Faye was too good for you to lose through asking simple questions like are you my girlfriend. Her breasts pressed against your back at night, her arm draped over your side, while you stared at the wall, half asleep and in the dark, thanking whatever gods there were that they had brought such an angel into your life.
A month passed, and then another, and then another, and soon you were in your fourth month of living together (being together?). That was when you had asked her about her past. She had frozen, her eyes wide and cautious. She didn’t answer straight away. You had flushed, trying to force out an apology as quickly as you could, but Faye held a hand up, stopping your words from tripping over themselves almost instantly.
“It’s about time I told you, right honey?”
Faye spoke the pet name with such ease that it melted you to your very core.
(Listening to her story, it was almost unbelievable. Frozen in cryogenic sleep for 50 years, waking instantly to mountains of debt and living on a ship with bounty hunters since. It was almost unbelievable, but you clung to every word, watching the corner of her mouth twitch, etching every moment into your heart. In exchange, you told her about yourself in your quiet voice; nothing you say is half as interesting as her, but she still listens intently. It makes your stomach erupt in butterflies.)
Your life with Faye moved swiftly. There were nights under the stars on the roof where you were both wearing as little as possible, both in nothing but lacy bras and underwear one size too small. There were nights where Faye drank. She drank and she drank and you watched as she grew sad or sappy or sleepy – any one of them were fair game.
Faye Valentine would press rough kisses to your collarbone, sucking and leaving deep hickeys on your skin, but she would cup her soft hands around your cheeks and do nothing but kiss you sweetly on the lips. Her hands would leave scratch marks down your back during hot, heated nights, but sit in silence and paint your toenails while you napped on the couch. She was a mix of opposites and conflictions. Faye Valentine was one of a kind.
(And it all lasted just under a year. As quickly and easily as she had arrived, she had disappeared again. There one day and gone the next. You howled and cried and sobbed into your empty bed for days, cradling the half-empty packet of cigarettes to your bruised collarbone, smelling the vanilla shampoo she wore that still clung to her pillow, holding your cold body against the dip she had made in the bed. You howled and cried and sobbed until your throat was hoarse and no more tears would cry.)