Thursdays Smell Like You by Ashleigh Adams

They smell like orange peel and oaky bourbon, same as your breath after three Old Fashioneds, like the Bud Lite we picked up at the gas station after the bar, like the lavender laundry detergent steeped in the threads of the blanket I used when I crashed on your couch, always the couch, because we were just friends, good friends who made out sometimes on Thursdays after happy hour when I was too buzzed to drive. 

They smell like sweat and sunbaked metal, like the U-Haul I helped pack when you moved to California to live with your brother leaving all our what-ifs unanswered, like the sandalwood and leather in your Tom Ford cologne when I hugged you goodbye and you promised to call every Thursday because Thursdays were ours, and you did for a while, before distance wedged itself between us, before I got married and you got sober and ten years slipped away. 

They smell like the mushroom risotto I was making when your brother called to tell me you died and asked if I could make it to Kansas City for the service because you always talked about me even though it had been a long time, It’s next Thursday, he said, and I wondered if that was on purpose, if this was your way of making sure no one took our Thursdays, because now, among all the other things, Thursdays smell like the lilies at your funeral, but most of all they just smell like you. 

Ashleigh Adams is creative director and fiction writer. She tends to write about messy and complex female characters because she is one. You can read her words in HAD, Bath Flash Fiction, JAKE, After Happy Hour Review and Flash Fiction Magazine, among others. Follow her on Bluesky: @ashdoeswords