Sitting on the porch, cigarette in hand, he looks out into the 3 AM street. Alone in the porch light, drinking a beer and coming down from a 12 AM buzz, he simply couldn't sleep. All the party-goers crashed by 2 AM and honestly, this moment alone felt good. Really good.He'd stolen the cigarette from a buddy passed out on the living room floor. He'll never miss it. The smoky coils calmed him a bit as he transitioned back to himself.
"I can't believe this is my life," he muttered to himself, sipping the beer.
When it came right down to it, he didn't want to be here. Didn't want to be anywhere. He didn't know himself in these shoes or the ones before or the ones before that. The last time he recognized himself was at fifteen or sixteen years old.
So few and yet so much time had gone by.
Now he was here, stationed on the porch, smoking alone and wondering again who the hell he thought he was.
He hated that he felt unnaturally timid and hesitant in this place; hated that he couldn't open up about the money and the literature stashed in a hole in the wall and covered with a poster. He hated that he had to hide his quiet, sentimental side for permission in bed. He hated that he didn't go to bed much anymore.
When he was fifteen, he fell in love the first time. She wasn't particularly beautiful, but she had blonde, spiky hair and an attitude of "let's just f*ck this place and leave" that he couldn't resist. She wore hemp necklaces and tight jeans with sneakers. She always colored her sneakers and drew curlicues on her hands, arms, and legs. "I want a tattoo," she'd told him in class, "but you have to be 18."
He would sit in algebra watching her tattoo herself and snap peppermint gum. He could smell the mint on her breath if she turned toward him and could smell the hint of more of it on her wrist whenever she reached for a piece of paper, pencil, or book. She had a peppermint cool about her.
Gina, that was her name.
Right before his sixteenth birthday, a Thursday, she turned to him in class. "Hey, I'm cutting biology at the end of the day. Wanna cut with me?"
He looked at her, astonished. Gina rarely even spoke to him at all.
"Come on," she persisted, "I'll give you a cigarette or two. It'll be fun."
He nodded. "Sure."
Six months later, she broke things off with him, turned 18, and finally got a tattoo. She chose a cherry tree, small, on her upper arm. He couldn't stop staring at the newly inked spot as she explained her reasons, her needs.
"I just can't do this anymore, ya know? I mean, I'm just not feeling it anymore."
Standing at the edge of the lake where they first smoked and drank a six pack during seventh period, he stood fixed to the spot. All he could think about was how much he wanted her, how much he could not just not feel her anymore.
She was fresh, intriguing, smart, pretty, and hell on fire. At sixteen, he swore he'd never meet a woman like this again.
Ever.
Weakly, he met her gaze and responded, "But, it's not been that long. I love you."
There - he said it. He felt like a child, a hopeless, desperate child.
Images of laughing, drinking, hiking, love-making, biking, studying, ditching class, listening to music, going to the mall to lift trinkets from the novelty store, actually looking at porn together,...growing up with her flooded him.
And now she wanted to just...go? Where?
"Where are you going to go?" he asked.
"Nowhere," she responded, "We're breaking up. That doesn't mean I leave town or some shit like that."
She lit a cigarette.
He reached out for her hand or for a hug, he now can't remember. She let him hold her.
She felt like wind.
And smelled like peppermint.
He kissed her neck. Lingered. Pulled away.
Two weeks later, she was gone. She left town with her family or a friend and never answered his calls or messages.
A year later, she sent him an email.
"Dude, you won't believe where I am. I came home. It's not the same and it is all at once. I have to tell you this, crazy man, but I love you too."
Gina.
He finished his cigarette and looked out into the street. Maybe his life didn't stop at sixteen, but he felt no older or wiser since then.
And he was still in love.
