Saturday, January 26, 2013

17. skeleton in a top hat

The tip of the cigarette grew orange and crackled when she sucked past the filter. Lilith imagined herself a skeleton, a cartoon skeleton in a top hat, and the smoke wrapped itself around the ladder rungs of her rib cage. She could finally inhale without coughing.

The park was not empty, although it should have been. They pulled the entrance gates closed at 10, but that didn't stop anyone from parking on the street and hoofing across the green. They brought pockets full of weed and backpacks of whatever whoever could grab from wherever. Rudy once brought her mother's Chardonnay, and they drank it from blue solo cups.

Lilith was alone and felt every pound of it.

Derek said he would be there by 10:15, but it was 10:45 now. They said the swings by the pool, didn't they? They did.

Voices rang from the north, the wooded hill that overlooked the petting zoo. Suzette, maybe. Breanne. Astrid and  Ben. It didn't matter. They'd stopped talking to her, and it was fine. She missed the pot Suzette scored every time she sucked off her brother's friend, Samuel. But that was it. And not even that, really.

"U coming?" she typed into a text. Cancel. She would not care. The chain squeaked in its hook from the frame of the swing set. She just needed the alone time.

As if she didn't have enough already.

She had not slept with Derek like they said. It was not her fault that Derek dumped Breanne. They said that, too. Breanne was a needy little bitch all on her own.

Lilith pulled the lighter from her pocket, flicked it until it produced. She held her palm over the flame. Closer. Closer. It stung her skin. She let it go, tucked the lighter back into her pocket, licked her thumb, rubbed her burning palm again and again. Held it open to examine, although she could see nothing through the gray.

"Fuck you," she typed into a text. Send.



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