The noise of downstairs’s party guests dies out as I close the bathroom door behind me. I sense I’m not alone in Tony’s bathroom. ‘Why are you still here?’, Clara looks at me from across the bathroom wall. Her blonde curly hair wrapping up the sadness in her face. Her question echoes from the black-and-white tiles. This bathroom really is huge. The words are almost there, on my lips, but I pause, and say nothing. ‘When I’m here with you …’ – she cuts me off. ‘Oh, stop that bullshit, do you really feel all pink and fluffy when I’m here?’. She laughs loudly with her head back, then spits on the floor, somehow keeping it squeaky clean. The bathroom suddenly feels small; too small for the both of us. The black and white tiles feel like a chess board, and I’m the Queen. I clench my fists, then release them.
‘Everybody hurts, Clara’, I say, breathing heavily, ‘with every love song, every tune, every music lyric involving a ‘you’, I don’t think of a boy, I think of you’. She stops laughing, diverts her eyes, then looks me in the face again. Those big brown sorrowful eyes. Perfectly white teeth. “Best teeth a girl can have!”, the dentist used to say. ‘When I saw you for the first time’, she starts, ‘I felt so glad and so scared at the same time.’
‘When I’m here with you …’, she takes the words from my mouth, shaking her head, ‘… I don’t understand why you’re still here.’ Upon seeing her cry, I push the words out. ‘Because I love you Clara, like a parent loves her kid, and I’ll always be there, and I’ll never leave, and I’ll love you regardless of your flaws.’ She reaches her hand towards me; I touch her fingertips with mine. The mirror in between us feels so cold.
‘Clara! Come on, I need those glasses’, my boyfriend Tony’s impatient voice brings me back. He’s down the staircase. I dry my tears and close the bathroom door.

This flash fiction story was written after being inspired by the song “Here With You” by Lost Frequencies ft. Netsky.