SAN FRANCISCO-

Hello, my name is Zoë Brock and I am a hopelessly hopeful romantic.

Love and I have a long and sordid relationship. We’re stuck to each other with that cheap, tacky glue that never dries properly and gets hairs and other bits of icky dirt and effluvia stuck in it and ends up looking like a coughed up owl pellet, minus the skeletal bits. It’s horrible, trust me.

Sometimes I feel as if I live my life adhered to the cheap pulpy paper bound between the flowery covers of a Harlequin romance novel.

Sometimes I wonder if some sticky-fingered house-wife isn’t pouring over the sordid details of my love-life, swooning, moaning and gasping at the more elaborately descriptive paragraphs as she takes a break between episodes of ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ and ‘Days of Our Lives’.

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

“I can’t remember what you look like,” I admitted to Cole one day. “I know I thought you were a bit on the yummy side, but let’s face it, I was drunk and slovenly and talking shit on a chaise to a total stranger.”

He paused.

“Check your email,” he said.

He’d sent me a photo of himself walking away from the camera. A tall body and the back of a messy head was all that was visible.

“You’re an asshole,” was all I could muster.

“Heh. Check it again.”

I checked.

“Yep, you’re funny.”

I examined the crime scene. Self portraits with spilled red paint can appear quite realistic and gory if you squint hard enough.

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

(… BUT ALSO AN ACCEPTANCE OF CHANGE AND A DESIRE TO SEE WHAT’S NEXT.)

His name was Cole and beside him I looked like a midget.

At six feet tall this is no mean feat.

We met at The Chateau Marmont late on a Spring evening. I wore red leather fuck-me boots and eyes of smoky green, he wore a vintage tuxedo with the word GUCCI embossed all over it.

I looked hot and he looked ridiculous, but in a most intentional way.

We started talking by accident, somehow drawn to each other from across the room, snug in the cushions of a beaten-up chaise. It wasn’t a long conversation, but it was an electric one. We recognized each other but knew we’d never met. He made me laugh, he drew me in, and five minutes later I left him to catch a flight to Australia with no idea when I’d return. I scribbled my email for him in his raggedy journal, downed the remnants of my vodka with regret and stood to go.

Cole stood too, bound by his southern gentlemanly impulses.

“Jesus!” I laughed as he unfurled. “Are you wearing heels?”

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