Roses or Herpes By Danila Botha

The first pub we sauntered into was just a few blocks away from where we landed.

“I know a place,” he said, and laughed, his throat gravelly, his bright blue eyes flashing as his

voice dropped. “I found it the first time I came here. Everyone’s over the top warnings about

Toronto were reverberating in my head.”

I don’t know why but I grabbed his hand. Our fingers fit together surprisingly well, each of his slightly longer and thicker than mine, both his and my skin the faded olive of winter, like battered army fatigues.

We sat down in red leather chairs, our thighs almost touching but not quite, like he’d engineered the perfect amount of sexual tension.

He ordered our drinks, said I looked like a Manhattan kind of girl, and I held my glass up to the red metal light fixture hanging over our heads, the maraschino cherries swirling and tumbling.

I drank it slowly, taking in the way it tasted sharp and cold. He took that in, in the unnerving way he makes you feel like he can see clean through to your every thought and hidden feeling.

I’d kept my distance for a long time. I thought he was beautiful, of course, and talented, but it wasn’t a secret that he slept around, and that he’d had an opiate problem. The tattoos on his arms were part of his recovery, turning track marks into art, which I thought that was beautiful too.

I’d held back because I knew that guys like him made you do all the work, they didn’t chase girls, girls chased them, and they gave in like they couldn’t help themselves.

I wasn’t exactly a bring me roses or don’t bother kind of girl, but I wasn’t a give me herpes because I have to have you now type either.

My problem was, I fell in love intensely, a love that was more than love, to quote Poe.

I couldn’t handle chasing someone I’d know was never fully mine.

So we orbited each other from a distance, friends who waved from across the room or liked each other’s Instagram stories until he saw me on the plane.

He sat down beside me, a pair of yellow framed aviators hanging from his white v neck t shirt, a new spiderweb tattoo decorating his collarbones. He’d grown a small goatee, and I wanted to touch it. My life had already fallen apart; I wanted my swansong to feel amazing.

I kissed him now and he tasted like bourbon mixed with risk and hope, like a graffiti covered bathroom with my favourite Ramones song vibrating from the speaker to our lips.

He pulled back and rested a hand on the back of my neck.

“I think I should take you to a meeting,” he said softly. “And we should take it slow.”

I felt the room tilt around us.

I leaned my body into his and closed my eyes.

ABOUT:

Danila Botha is the author of three short story collections, Got No Secrets, For All the Men (and Some of the Women) I’ve Known and Things that Cause Inappropriate Happiness, which was published by Guernica Editions in 2024. Her novels include Too Much on the Inside and A Place for People Like Us, which will be published by Guernica in October 2025. Her first graphic novel, which she wrote and illustrated, Call Me Vidal, will be published in 2026. Visit www.danilabotha.com. Follow for updates on Bluesky: @danilabotha.bsky.social,  Facebook: @danilabothawriter and Instagram: @danilabotha.

EDITOR'S SONG PAIRING: OVSKY - Take It Slow