Every time I was in that Subaru I felt the urge to hold the hand of whoever was sitting next to me. The air was cold, the windows were foggy, and something was constantly rolling around in the back, banging metal on metal. I always felt just a little bit safer with a hand in mine, despite the confusion of the person next to me. Their mouth would become an "o" but they would continue to hold on nonetheless.

i started becoming really good friends with my brother's ex-girlfriends, but they had to be secret friendships. i would spend one night talking to one and the next watching yet another play a show. it felt like i was sneaking around except that everyone else knew but him. i felt a little bit guilty but tried not to let it get to me (or the social media, really). after all, they were happy in their new situations, and he was thousands of miles away living his dream job. anyways, these girlfriends were the only people i really got along with. they didn't ask too many questions about my bizarre personal life and were willing to drop everything and go on an adventure. i was the third wheel to new relationships more often than not, but i shrugged it off. things were still in the 'honeymoon phase'--both for the new couples and for our friendships.

after all this, though--all of the travel and the secrets and the running around--i still miss you. i saw a man today that reminded me of you, except he didn't look at me or the same way, which truly says it all.

i read through my old journal the other night and realized that basically i am the same. i have just been through more, and my hair is longer. plus i am learning outreach again, so that's cool.

my brain is mushy from waking up at 5:30, 5:45, 6:00 four to five days a week. sometimes i just find myself sleeping. that or laughing, or crying. days like these make me miss the way things used to be, lastfalllastspring.

there is an elderly couple sitting through one of my classes. the woman is really cute and wears a neckerchief and the perfect amount of makeup for an older lady. her husband is scholarly with his glasses, and his pattern balding. he wears yellow sweaters. together they are darling and i am so happy about them.

the problem is, though, is that i am very uncomfortable for them, when the professor mentions the s-e-x word, which he does a lot because it is an english class. i am embarrassed to have a grandmother sitting in front of me since the whole time i am just thinking that i would like to cover her ears for her, since mine are turning red. there is something strange about someone so proper sitting near you when the professor is on a dirty tangent. i hope this woman drops the class, or at least doesn't say anything creepy back, because that would just make it worse.


what i am saying is that i feel like she is a guardian angel sometimes, sent to watch how far back we as american students have slid. and i hope my professor will realize she is there too and get slightly shocked and embarrassed that he is teaching a cute little grandmother about the terribly modern, sad reality of goings-on today.

we left off under that tree. that cigarette truly had been the smoker's last. after that day i never saw him light up again. things changed fast. the thin-mustached man called for a few weeks but then disappeared as fast as he'd shown up. i acquired a dog, with big, bulging eyes, and ears that perked up every time i said a word. he followed me around the house and so i spent my time teaching him tricks. eventually he was able to shake and play dead. he was a charmer. on the weekends the smoker and i would take him to the park and throw the frisbee for a few hours. if there weren't too many people we would let him off of the leash and go nap under a tree for a bit. it was always nice waking up with the sunshine on my face, the backs of my legs damp from the grass. the smoker and i would take turn picking the grass out of each other's hair. on the hottest days we would go wade in the creek for as long as we could stand, until the days became nights and the police would make their rounds.

at some point we ventured out of our town and onto the open road. we ended up among miles of fields, where at night the crickets sung us to sleep and the fireflies danced around as far as the eye could see. we tried to catch some in a jar but it was always harder than it looked. after the dishes were done we would run out to the barn and sit in the window waiting for the sunset; it was always so beautiful through our eyes and especially through the lens as I tried to teach the smoker how to take photos. after the sun had set the fires were always warm and many times i caught him staring at me through the shadows and the glow. the night before the vacation ended the smoker took me out to a haybale and we lay there for hours watching the sky for shooting stars. i had never seen such beautiful skies in my life and wasn't ready for the night to end, so we stayed and talked until my teeth were chattering. the smoker got down and poked at the last of the fire to try to warm me up until it was dead and we retired to our separate rooms. neither of us were ready for that week to end but it had to.

back home we climbed a few more mountains, and spent late nights forging rivers and sitting underneath bridges. more often than not we would end up watching old movies from our childhood's passed. the smoker's hands would always shyly find mine until our fingers were interwoven. we made it through a lot of movies and memories that way.

eventually that summer of sun flares and beginnings became fall, though. i started becoming busy with school and new work opportunities. the smoker had classes too and so the times we saw each other were few and far between. there was a distance that didn't exist over the summer, and so he tried to bridge it with sweet messages for me to wake up to, or smile on the train, but things weren't quite the same. the leaves became golden, then brown, and one by one they fell off of the trees and onto the sidewalks. one night the smoker met up with me and tried his best to destroy the distance. on the long drive home he put his arm around me so that i could fall asleep on his shoulder. our hands clasped together for warmth as we walked along the dark path afterwards, the leaves always crunching under my boots. it was the last great night of the fall i can remember.

winter came with more of a bite. we stopped talking to each other altogether, citing lack of time, school, disapprovals as our reasons, but really we were scared to talk to each other, because we just wanted the simplicity of summer back. so when the smoker is ready, and when i am, i will be back under that tree, waiting. but, for right now, i have other business to tend to. and so does he.

it is a lot colder now than it was a few weeks ago, the last time i saw him. but winter is going faster than i expected.

Every time I eat a brownie the Skinny Bitch looks at me as if to say, stop eating junk and learn to love yourself. As a result, I've become better at hiding things.

I never did like boxes. They told me that I was good at playing the guitar, so I started writing. They told me that I was good at writing, so I started taking photos. They told me that I was good at taking photos so I fell in love with a smoker. It was alright at first. We smoked under the moonlight while everyone else was dancing. In parking lots. Sitting on walls. But I got tired of spending the money because I wanted to have beautiful hair and that had a price too. That was okay for a bit too except that he still wanted to smoke all of the time. We would be together, discussing fallout shelters or movie stars, and he would disappear for five minutes. And in those five minutes I was sure that I needed him there. He was always leaving me at the times I was most unsure of what I was saying or doing. So I secretly took it back up, but by then our schedules were off. He would step out the door right as I would walk back in. I missed him all of the time, and he missed me too, but mostly I think he missed the nicotine. It was a bonafide love triangle, but one of us was better at tempting him.

So now I have been love with the smoker for three years, and for the past three months we have not said many words to each other. A dark-haired man with a thin mustache approaches me and asks me to go to dinner, and I wonder if it is even worth it to refuse a free meal. The smoker is too busy, anyways. We go to a cheap restaurant and he proceeds to tell me about how the humidity in Florida feels so good on dry skin and how to make money in photography. The whole time that the thin-mustached man is talking I am thinking about the smoker.

One night the smoker and I sat outside in someone else’s backyard for three hours. It was dark outside, but he was still wearing sunglasses, and I was wearing a summer dress. The grass was wet and the stars were bright behind the clouds. He told me about how he felt when he lit his first cigarette, when he was thirteen. The flame in his hands was the most powerful thing he had held up until that point. I told him about how I sometimes worried that I was insane. He proceeded to tell me that he felt the same way, quite often, especially after a long walk. We decided to take a long walk of our own.

The thin-mustached man thinks that smoking is a terrible habit because he wants to keep his voice pleasing to all of his fans. His music, he believes, is cathartic to young people everywhere. He tells me this over lasagna and I decide that I hate him. He also tells me about a story he recently heard on NPR about the economy. The thin-mustached man is too arrogant and too boring. I get up and walk out of the restaurant. On the walk home through the park I see the smoker sitting under a tree. I walk past him and he waves. I wonder what has kept us apart these three months. He loves my beautiful hair now, and I love the way that his clothes smell faintly of tobacco, but we miss those things about each other in silence. I decide to turn around, and he is smiling at me as best as he can. I sit down. He wraps his arms around me and offers me his last cigarette.