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The smell of her cigarette smoke lingers in the air. It clings to my skin like some sort of poison, wrapping me up in the stench. She’s leaning against the building, her eyes half shut and she’s watching me.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
I don’t know who’s said the words, or if they’ve been said at all. But they’re there nonetheless, floating in the air between us. There is no answer forthcoming from either of us, though I’m sure we both know what it is.
Why are you doing this to me?
She slowly breathes in, holding the smoldering cigarette between two of her fingers. She drops it to the ground and crushes it under the heel of her boot.
The sky is an iron gray, the type that looks like snow, and all around me everything seems to be in black and white, like we’re in one of those old movies.
We’re no good for each other, you and I. We think that we love each other, but I think we just need to make someone else as miserable as we feel.
She’s looking at me again, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest. Her lips are painted a bright, almost garish red, and against her white skin it looks like blood.
But on her it’s gorgeous.
She’s going to leave soon. I can feel it in my soul, my bones. She’s going to leave forever and I’ll never see her again.
Something is coming down from the sky now, but it isn’t snow. It’s rain. A cold, wet rain. It drips down my forehead and off my nose, and I can’t tell now if I’m crying or not as she slowly turns her head to look down the road at the oncoming bus. I want to reach out to her, bring her back, tell her everything will be alright it’ll all be alright we’ll make it through I promise-
The bus is coming. She begins walking to meet it and I’m rooted to the spot, rain soaking me to the bone.
It’s almost at the stop. She begins to run.
She flings herself in front of the bus, and all I can think of is her red lipstick, the same color as her blood spilled across the pavement.
