In the morning, she was gone. Only a scorch mark on the bedsheet and the smell of smoke in the California air. John would later say she was the only one who ever made him feel small. Not because she was bigger. Because she was real in a business that sold dreams by the reel.
Afterward, she sat on the balcony, night swallowing the city. John brought her a club soda. “You’re sad,” he said. She laughed, dry as kindling. “No, darling. I’m just a blonde who learned that fire only feels warm if you don’t touch it.”
Los Angeles, 1979. The last year everyone still believed the amber sunlight could melt away a past.