Smoke Trails
by Chelsea Allen

 

 

“Why do they come up for air?” you asked one languid afternoon when we were ten, plucking a blade of grass from my backyard and splitting it into two clean halves. You handed me one half. I watched the pond, the little fish gulping air at the surface, sending out tiny ripples, popping bubbles when they suddenly disappeared. 

“I don’t know,” I said. “Guess they’ll teach that in science.” 

“Funny, isn’t it?” You traced the blade up and down your fingers. I drank in the scent of the sun-warmed grass - the scent that almost always clung to you, while you continued. “Your world is meant to keep you alive. And you go up out of it to breathe?”

In eighth grade, you had your first kiss with the boy you loved, at the end of the football field. His mates whistled and clapped as if the two of you were getting married. I stood yards from you, not knowing what to do except smile. And watch you kiss the boy I loved. The perfect breeze through your perfect hair.

The air hung still on the Saturday they buried your mum, and the sun scorched a hole in my neck when someone came and told you softly that your dad was out drinking again. You stood still, watching with dry eyes the freshly brown grave before you. The perfectly manicured grass at your feet waited, while I scoured it vainly for words. Words other than the “it will be alright” that everyone else was offering. It seemed like such a grand lie.

When I first saw you smoking, slumped against the brick wall behind the school auditorium, shutting your eyes as you took those long drags from your cigarette, my fingers went numb. I wanted to tell you to stop it. But you’d long built a wall between us, hadn’t you? Acted like we’d only ever been strangers.

And I’d watch you go up. Up, towards the surface. And I’d sit on Dad’s bed, and gently stroke his thinning hair, and feel foolish to want you to talk to me. 

The day Mum and I were driving down to the beach, she wondered if you’d like to come along, so I called you. And you asked, “This out of pity?” 

I hung up and threw the phone in my purse. “She’s busy,” I lied.  

“Oh, well, that’s okay, honey.” She patted my thigh. “Maybe next time.” 

I looked up at the sun-dappled meadows that rolled past, the tall grass waving as the hot wind swept through them. It wasn’t a lie. You were busy. You were busy with all those boys you knew better than to hang out with. Busy gulping down booze with the kind of people we’d scorned at as kids. Busy disappearing for days on end, with your father not giving a care. Busy smoking cigarette after cigarette after cigarette. 

Last night, as I walked home and found you sitting on the curb by the lot all alone, I wondered if I should walk on. I should have. When you saw me, you flicked your cigarette to the ground and snuffed it with your shoe, as if just the sight of someone smoking would remind me of how my dad passed away.

I wanted to ask you why you wouldn’t talk to me. Tell you that this wasn’t you. But then, I didn’t know who you were, did I?

You glanced up at me before sliding your gaze to the ground, and the street-light in your eyes shone through a crevasse. The one I should have been able to mend, a long time ago. And as I sat down on the cold pavement beside you, and the night stilled into silence, with just the acrid bite of the stale smoke in my nostrils and the November wind whispering through our hair, the words throbbed under my skin, waiting to burst it apart.

“It was not your fault.” I stared at your shoe.

“Huh.” You almost chuckled, but still didn’t look up. Minutes later, when you spoke again, your voice trembled. 

“The fire.” You swallowed hard. “The fire was because of me. She was in there because of me. She died.” You breathed in sharply. “With all that smoke in her, she died, because of me. So which part do you think was not my fault?”

You looked at me now, with eyes reddened and brows furrowed, breathing shakily. 

“It was an accident, Lizzie.” I tried placing my hand on yours, but you withdrew. “You have to understand.” 

You furiously wiped your face on your sleeves. A car screeched to a halt before us, blaring its radio into the quiet night. 

“You coming?” one boy shouted. You leapt to your feet and walked away. Just drop me off at home, I heard you tell him. Then, as you reached for the door, your sleeve inched back, and I saw those marks on your pale wrist. Crimson and long. 

 

 

I try to see the picture of your dad’s car on the paper, totalled at the bottom of the hill. But it grows blurry. The papers say your death was an accident. That you might have swerved to avoid something and the car careened down the hill. 

Mum holds me close, weeping. I don’t hear what she says to me. I hear nothing. I see you reaching for the car door, and your sleeve inching back. Over and over and over. And I see myself sitting there. If I’d stopped you, would you have gone? If I hadn’t talked about your mum, would you have gone? 

You keep reaching for the car door, and sometimes, sometimes it’s just your skin. Pale and smooth. Like the kid who handed me a half of a blade of grass, a hundred lifetimes ago.

 

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