he sits in a corner with a cigarette in his mouth and i can barely make out the features of his face behind the wispy smoke. i am wide awake and blinking wearily, my trademark playlist for the 'sad and lonely' beating away quietly in the background. our meetings have become frequent rituals where misery and metaphorical silence fills the air, gazing at each other until one gives in.
as always, he speaks first.
"and here we are, we meet again."
i stare blankly at him, watching the way his eyes glow under the dim light of my room. he is twenty to my seventeen and the three years mean nothing, not when he is here within arms' reach. it has never mattered, i think back in retrospect; i have loved him just as long.
"you insist on appearing when i least want you to return, why is that?" my heart clenches on itself harder, the beating of my pulse no different than angry smashes to my rib cage. i have come to hate our meetings, but i am powerless to stop them.
he grins and it is a stupid little thing, the cigarette rolling freely in between his thin fingers. the pause in his reply is long enough for him to take another drag, smoke billowing out in thin, circular shapes as he purses his lips together.
"you know perfectly why, it's because you miss me."
what a self absorbed, conceited *******, i find myself thinking. i lean forward to tear the cigarette out of his hand and crush it in mine, the heat a welcome sensation to the icy tension between the two of us.
"you're a terrible liar, you don't even actually smoke."
he stares at me properly now, eyes twinkling and fever bright.
"i can be anything you imagine me up to be - and today you wanted cigarette smoke and me to fill up the lonely."
the smell of nicotine slowly fades to that of a familiar faint vanilla and honeysuckle of my room, the image of the boy in my vision similarly humming silently in a preparation to disappear.
"i'll see you the next time you want me to. same time, same place?"
i have never been able to watch him leave, so i close my eyes and nod silently. there are only so many times you can watch a person leave you over and over again.
"of course," he whispers, and the smile in his voice is evident. "only for you."
-
by the time i open my eyes, he is gone.
(A.H.Z)