Man, I wasn’t lookin’ for love. I was lookin’ for a night I wouldn’t remember — you know, whiskey in one hand, maybe a protest sign in the other, and a warm body if I got lucky.

But then she walked in. Didn’t even say anything. Just that look. That walk. Cool as hell. Like she didn’t care the whole world was on fire — like she was the fire.

Fritz lit her cigarette before she even asked. Just grinned and said, “Stick with me, baby. I can’t promise heaven, but I can sure as hell show you purgatory with a view.”

We tore through the city like a lit match and a puddle of gasoline. Rooftop makeout sessions, jazz clubs that reeked of spilled gin and broken dreams. She’d lean on the railing, all quiet, just letting me rant about the system, the pigs, the phonies — all that beatnik crap Fritz half-believed when he was stoned enough.

I thought I was the wild one.

But she? She was something else. Not loud. Not flashy. Just there. Never flinched when I cracked. Never chased me when I vanished, either.

And Fritz did vanish. More than once. Fell off the map with some chick who read Kerouac once and thought she was deep. Woke up in a stranger’s bathtub with more regrets than brain cells. When I dragged my ass home, she was still on the fire escape — just smoking, staring out, like she’d already written my obituary.

Fritz walked up, tried to joke, something like, “Miss me?” She didn’t even look at me.