Cherry Cola by Lesley Whyte

"Oh, hey, they're bringing back cherry Coke," Stephanie said.

I looked up from my guitar. "They never stopped doing it."

"Are you sure?"

"Certain."

Amy was obsessed with cherry Coke. Every time I kissed her, I could taste it on her breath. It was the only thing I didn't really like about her, because I'd never liked the drink myself. I mean, I'd tasted worse things, a lot worse things, but I'd never been a fan.

She always used to take a bottle of it to house parties and then frown when other people drank it, that tiny puckered line appearing between her eyebrows. We'd be sitting in someone's garden, surrounded by music and laughter and warm bodies, and she'd get that little line because she'd spotted someone coming out of the kitchen with Coke. It could have been regular Coke, but the suspicion was enough to bother her.

I remember she even took a couple of cans to my cousin's wedding, stashed in her handbag. The first time we slept together, she shared her cherry Coke afterwards. Sometimes, when she was low on funds and she ran out of the stuff, she'd be really crabby, like a smoker denied her nicotine fix. She always asked for it in the pub, even though we went there at least twice a week and she knew they didn't stock it. Then she started bringing it with her and we were asked to leave, so we ended up in the park, swigging from her smuggled cans like teenagers with a can of cider, only somehow less glamorous.

Cherry Coke was Amy's one and only vice. Well, that and the part where she slept with my best friend.

"Oh, you're right," Stephanie said. "It's vanilla Coke they're bringing back. Gross."

I nodded. Vanilla Coke was just awful.