“You know,” she said, looking over at me, “I don’t think you can see what’s going to happen next. I know you think you know everything, but I don’t think you can see the forest for the trees-“
Yeah, I know it’s bad to write with cliches. But they’re cliches for a reason.
“Life is neither as bad nor as good as your heart wants you to believe. Look- even now, you’re orchestrating your own guardian angel.” I flick my cigarette out the window. She’s right. I’ve always considered myself more intelligent than most, but maybe that’s the dead giveaway that I’m fucking not. It’s not that nothing can save me, it’s that I don’t need to be saved- or maybe I don’t believe I need to be saved. What is it really about except for the disparity between what you think should be happening versus what is actually happening?
Anyway, she keeps telling me to quit smoking and it’s for selfish reasons only. She wants me alive, but what does it matter to her? She can see me dead or alive. “It’s not about that.” She exhales, and pinches the bridge of her nose. “You know I’m just saying what you’re thinking, and if you think it’s coming from somewhere outside of you, it’s harder to argue with it.”
I argue with it anyway, because of course I do. It’s hard not to. I always have argued most with those who care the most. Is it a way to test them, to see if they think I’m a worthy adversary? Is it boredom? It’s probably both.
“You always want to sound so compelling, but coming out of your mouth I can’t tell what your motives are.” We both say this at the same time somehow. The dimensions are blurred. I don’t know the specific mechanics of it, but it has to do with loving things so hard that they fragment. Like a dried leaf a child picks up because it’s shaped like a heart, or their face, or a shoe. They hold it so tightly and with such excitement that the leaf starts crumbling, little bits of leaf dust being the only remnants of a fervor so innocent.
We breathe in and split again as she turns the key in the ignition. “You gonna smoke another one?” She asks, knowing the answer before I touch the matchbox. It’s tough. I consider that maybe I love myself too much, enough to lie to myself about how awful, how manipulative of a person I am. I put my hands on my knees, the lit cigarette balancing between the pointer and middle of my left hand. “I don’t know, and I’m so scared of not knowing.”
I look at her and she’s glowing, happy to see me finally admit my fear. But she’s also literally glowing, because she’s the best parts of my psyche mixed with the best parts of the angels I grew up reading about. “Have you decided you don’t want to have kids?”
“I don’t know. I can’t trust anyone with anything, and being a control freak doesn’t make me a good mother. Being scared of everything doesn’t make you safer, it just makes you tired.”
I inhale, praying that this is the drag that changes it all, that there will be a my-life-before-this-smoke and a my-life-after-this-smoke.
But it isn’t, and it’s not, and unfortunately we are on a one-way street in Denton, Texas, and if that’s not a metaphor, I don’t know what the fuck is. Miss your stop on Elm? That’s okay, take a left on Ferguson, take a left on Locust. Take another left on Third, and then you’re back on Elm. Miss it again? That’s fine, go up to the square. Make a bigger loop and hope for the best next time.
“So, do you know what’s gonna happen next?” I ask her. I try not to think of what she’s gonna say, because sometimes she does still surprise me.
“Who does?” exasperation, but also desperation. A complicated retort.
“Yeah,” I say, with a wave of my hand holding the cigarette, because obviously we’re being pedantic and she just wants me to get the fuck on with it.
“A little. Not of this, or of you, because this is what has to happen.”
I nod, like i know what the fuck she’s talking about. This girl talks in riddles, and it almost seems like she’s trying to seem cool, but then I remember that it’s me, and she’s lost but about ten times more hopeful.
“I can’t believe you still wear that necklace,” she says, holding my cigarette.
“I love this necklace,” i say, touching the aforementioned necklace.
“Do you? Or do you think one day it will serve its purpose?”
“Both. Is that a crime?”
She laughs at me, while I touch the carnelian heart that lives on my throat. I bought it years ago because it’s waterproof fake gold and carnelian is supposed to bring love into your life. But honestly, I don’t even know if it’s real carnelian, or if I care. I just know that I’ve always worn a necklace and it’s nice that this one doesn’t turn the back of my neck green.
“Do you still pray?” She asks me.
“Yeah, all the time.”
“Anyone who will listen.” I picture myself on my knees, begging to be heard. The problem with always looking for a sign is that you’re gonna fucking find one.
“Tell me about it.” She rolls her eyes but I can tell she wants to hear me say the real answer.
“Um, I pray to my grandmother I never met. I pray to saint Christopher too-“
“He’s your only experience with saints. You should broaden your horizons. There’s a million saints-“
“You don’t think I know that?”
“I know you like to pretend you have catholic guilt, but you just have regular, old-fashioned girl guilt.” She turns into a parking lot.
“Yeah, but saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers.”
“Maybe someday. I think I’ve been enough places for now.”
“Has he protected you?”
“As far as I can tell, but who knows what’s actually protecting me?”
She laughs again, echoing my own.
“Like I said, I don’t think you actually know anything. You just expect certain things and you’ve been proven right one too many times. So thus you believe you’re always right. But sometimes, honey, you’re wrong. And I hate to say it, but it’s for the best.”
“You don’t hate that I’m wrong.”
“Of course not-we love to be proven wrong.”
“Focus. Why do you care if I pray?”
“I’m just wondering if you’re still willing to look outside of yourself for answers.”
I look to the taxi drivers for penance. I try to ignore the songs that remind me of you. Unfortunately they’re everywhere, every genre. How compelling.
