I knew quitting smoking would be a bad idea. Now I realize why my mother never even attempted. I have not slept for more than three hours since I started this battle two days ago.
When I closed my eyes, I saw her sitting cross-legged in front of me on the balcony of our Houston condominium. I gestured down the street, where someone had left their blinds open and their TV on.
“Other people need to sleep to the television too, I guess. It’s not just you.”
She laughs and turns to look while I stare at her—how her hair flows when her heads turns, how her body stretches provocatively and how the pajamas she borrowed from me accentuate every curve of her body. I wanted her so badly, I could feel my body temperature rising.
“Remember when you were kicking me off your bed and I knocked that shitty TV over? And you fell asleep on your living room floor because you were addicted to it.” We both laughed and fell into a comfortable silence.
“I’m glad we’re friends again, Krystal, and that you came to Houston with me. After everything that’s happened—it’s nice to know someone will be there when you really need them.”
She smiles because she never talks in my hallucinations. In real life, if she talks to me, it’s to yell or insult me or somehow hurt my feelings. That’s why my mind keeps her silent, I think.
I opened my eyes, a good idea since they’re swelling up with tears. When my sleeve wipes them, the fabric grazes my skin and it feels hard and cruel. It scratches me, bringing a new onslaught of delusions.
This one is more like my dream every night.
I sit on the same balcony I imagined she once did. My cigarette is almost finished, and the cherry is the brightest thing for miles once the morning fog settles in. It’s almost five in the morning. Doors are shutting from houses below the eleventh floor, where I watch. Little kids are waving goodbye to their mommies and daddies. A car rolls by with tinted windows and a base I’m sure is loud enough that even my house back home can feel. It sends vibrations through my body and makes me shiver, though there’s only a tiny breeze.
I look up at the clouds that are slowly fading away and in them, I can see her face. Her teeth, how insecure she was of them because the front ones are less straight than the rest, are white as the walls in this stuffy company apartment. Her skin is as tan as it was after the many beach trips we took instead of going to school. The best part about her is that she is smiling at me. She looks friendly, inviting. So, I stand up. My cigarette falls from my hand, almost in shock, that I’m seeing Krystal in the sky, and even worse, she’s being friendly. She gestures for me to take her hand, and I know she’s far away, but I step onto the railing and climb to the ledge anyways.
I let the air encase me and I revel in the excitement of being in her warm arms again, of being in her favor. I take a step forward and falter, because there’s no more ledge. She’s almost pleading with me now to join her, but, again, she’s silent so she uses her eyes; those damn copper coins I can’t avoid, lie, or stand firm against. I nod, and shrug in a careless way, before jumping to reach her outstretched fingers.
Then her face disappears, I wake up in panic, and realize how close the street below is coming to my face. I hit the ground before my screams leave my throat and I die. But my last thought is always that she didn’t mean to kill me because she loves me.
Writing this is a horrible idea. Talking about it is worse, true, but if this gets recognized as my life, my secret will be out. Talk about your walk-in closet—mine has everything I need. I’ve lived in that closet for about two years now.
I built it when I kissed Lucy at her sixteenth birthday party. That was a lifetime ago, but still detrimental to the forming of my decaying heterosexuality.
“I need a smoke.”
The condo in Houston was worst than diarrhea. The times ran on forever, even my pocket watch stopped ticking. The days and nights got so lost they came late or early, whenever I wasn’t ready for them. Three in the morning became the new afternoon and after endless streaming on the internet, my nicotine withdrawal was kicking strong. Cutting back is almost worst than quitting altogether.
“Go ahead.” Krystal muttered, waving her hand dismissively with her eyes never leaving the screen.
“Come with me—in case the balcony crumbles.”
She sighed irritatingly.
“It’s fucking cold out there. Your vices aren’t going to give me pneumonia, sorry, and I don’t want to fall with you…then I can’t say at your funeral how stupid smoking is and how it found an exciting new way to kill someone else I care about.”
“So you do care. C’mon.” I gave a pleading look and she relented but not without an accompanying eye roll and meaningless sarcastic comment.
“I hope your lungs jump off the balcony.”
I grinned and carefully moved the sliding glass door, cautious to avoid all noises. I opened it with just enough room to slide through and I held the zipper on my jacket so it wouldn’t scratch the metal loudly. Krystal followed suit.
“Fuck Mariah, why am I your friend again!” she said through chattering teeth once the wind blew full throttle.
“Because you care. I know that if I jumped, you would jump after me. Right?” I looked at her expectantly and held my hand over the lighter to start the cigarette in my mouth.
“Call me crazy, but I would.”
“And I for you.” There was a pause. I inhaled and let the smoke trails from my lips to the sky, encasing the moon and filling the air with the scent of a pool hall. I loved smoking back then.
“Why is that?” she finally asked.
“Because I love you.” I answered plainly, as if she should even have to ask.
She fiddled with the hemming on her jeans and the string unraveling on her sweater.
“Is it really that simple? That if someone you love does something ridiculous, you follow behind them and fix their mistakes? It sounds more like parenting."
“Well, it is, but on a deeper level. I would jump after you, not because I love you and want to share in your pain. Not even because I couldn’t bear to live without you. I would jump so that you know I would. So that you don’t have to feel alone and so that maybe you can take comfort in my jumping blindly after you. Does that make sense?”
“But I wouldn’t for you.”
I stared at her. I could see her depressed calculating look illuminated by the computer screen coming through the glass door.
“Why not?”
“I wouldn’t jump because someone needs to tell the story. In order for a legend or a myth or even a lesson to be learned, a moral to be taught, someone has to survive. If you jumped and died, I would tell the world about your dumb-ass and hope that it helps them make better decisions. Don’t get me wrong—” she began at my hurt expression, “I would miss the shit out of you, but I wouldn’t want my journey to end with yours. Not if there’s more I can do to extend the idea of life and love.”
“So I would jump for you, but you wouldn’t for me. What a pair” I angrily replied, dragging off my cigarette again and choosing to look away from her and at the city, instead. The beautiful sleeping city with its lights and sky scrapers and little people with little children and little cars they use to drive to their little jobs. Not everything in Texas is big, I guess, but maybe this conversation was a big mistake.
I contemplated right then about actually jumping. Or at least, preparing for it and hoping she would intervene. I knew I could never really do it. If anything should ever happen to me, I would want to see her reaction and there’s a chance that death or heaven or hell or whatever was ruining my life would not allow me to watch. I don’t think she would even cry.
“It’s classic, you know” I bitterly shot at her, “Because everyone sees how I like you more than you like me—”
“That’s not true!”
“Let me finish!” I tried not to raise my voice since it was extremely late and waking up my parents would prove more disastrous than jumping from an eleventh-story balcony. “I like you more because I have feelings for you. I am completely infatuated with everything you say, with your perception of the world, and how you act based on everything that’s happened to you. I love you more than a best friend should and it took me awhile to realize that you can’t ever feel the same way. You’re incapable.”
I was ashamed to look at her, but she moved closer to me despite what I’d just revealed. Didn’t she understand how hard it was for me?
“If you think I didn’t notice your…'feelings’ for me, then you’re way off. But you’re right about everything else and I can’t change that. I’m not unable to feel, because I am so sorry that I can’t feel the same way about you, but that’s a part of me that won’t budge.”
“I’ll settle for your friendship. I didn’t know that you already knew.”
“Lucy told me about the nightmares on the bus from North Carolina.”
I had no response so I lit another cigarette after flicking the other one far away, where I wished I was.
“If you’re scared that you’re wasting your time, then you need to know this: I will never be in love with you. You’re my best friend and I don’t ever want to lose you, but if you’re going to spend your days waiting for me to feel that way about you, it’s not going to work out and it’s only going to hurt you.” It was like those nights I tried to cut myself but couldn;t work up the nerve. There was a lot of pain, and I was more scared of this conversation than anyhing else in my life.
“So I’m wrong in feeling like this? Why is it always me?! How come you and Lucy and Jessie don’t have this clingy attachment to the group or an individual like I do? Why does everything affect me more than it should? And if I wanted to wait, I would. I can’t help the way I feel, either. I wouldn’t choose this if I had a choice.”
“You’re not wrong. I don’t know what you are. Except that you’re my best friend and I love you like that, so I don’t want to lose you. Just forget this ever happened.” She smiled encouragingly at me and I wanted to stab my cigarette in her eye.
In the script of my life, this is the scene where I start bawling and I run away to the bathroom and lock the door. She would follow and attempt to coax me out but I wouldn’t reply. Eventually I would let her in and she would hug me as I cried. End scene.
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