In sleep, I dream of smoke. I read in a story once that, “A burnt child loves the fire.” It reminded me of my father´s cigarettes. The bitter smell that brings comfort to headaches, the way it resembles the curls in my hair, how my father looks like a dragon whenever he lets out big puffs and sighs. He’s not a dragon though, he has no treasure to hide. He only has his cigarettes, which I’m convinced he must love more than me because I can’t burn. One night when he was drunk off the night, he told me he started smoking when he was thirteen. “It’s awful,” he’d say. I was confused because he would always go through packs like the damn things were going to disappear. When I asked him why, all he could say was, “Peace.”
I often wonder who I need to blame for the smoke and the burns brought with it. A high school senior behind the bleachers? A girl my dad had a thing for showing him how to hold smoke in his mouth and keep it in like a secret? A man in a magazine in a leather jacket, leaning against his motorcycle, holding his cigarette between his fingers like a prize, a reward? I stopped guessing after the third time my father said he would quit and I caught him smoking in the garage. I’m mad at all of them, even though they only exist floating in and out of memory, like shadow and light slipping between fingers.
I don’t think the burn marks have healed yet. I can still feel them, on my arms and tongue, behind the walls, in photographs, starting to smell wounds that no one pays attention to. Like the way my father puts out his cigarettes on concrete, crushing them until the orange and red turn gray, and there’s only a black burn mark to tell you the thing even existed. I´m worried it’s gotten into my heart now.
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I tried to see if smoke would ease the burn. In the attic of Matteo’s house, he’s sitting in the dark of his room, as I secretly hoped one of the ashes would catch on the wood and burn. I never coughed, because I couldn’t feel a thing. I could just taste the ash. I imagine how it felt for other people, like Matteo. He smokes, vapes, drinks, name it he’s probably done it twice and in a school. I don’t know why I’m friends with him. Probably because I like the way his eyes look lighter in the dark. And he says he likes the way my hair looks when it’s wet.
We sit crisscrossed on the wood floor opposite of each other, his eyes rolling when he places the cigarette in his mouth and breathes in, finding biting bliss in the burn. I feel the jealousy creeping in around my cheeks. He doesn’t talk to me for the few minutes after he puffs out love letters in smoke to his cigarettes. In the dark, I imagine what his brain must feel like.“It probably thinks it’s on fire and doesn’t know how to escape.”
“What did you just say?” Matteo’s eyes come back into focus, out of his trance.
“Your brain,” I say back, and feel myself go still.
“Whatever, Mia, you high?” He asks me, because he was there when I’d tried weed for the first time, and got a migraine so bad I puked an hour later. He still has a picture of my head in the toilet on his phone. I still haven’t forgiven him for that, or the way he’s looking at me now, like I’m unsuspecting, weak.
“No,” I say in a lower voice, thinking for some reason he won’t believe me, trying not to feel stupid for letting the thoughts slip. “I just-… I don’t know why.”
“Why what?” His voice goes up in annoyance.
I can only nod my head in the direction of the cigarette in his outstretched hand. I want to steal it, to try again and see if I missed anything before.
He leans forward and gets so close to my face that I can smell the smoke that still lingers on his lips, not wanting to fade into the dark. “Everybody’s got their reasons Mia, shitty day at work, bills need to be paid, people suck, kids won’t listen, the world’s dying… it just drowns things out for a while.” Our faces are so close and the scent of smoke is so enticing I tell my hands no when they want to pull him to my mouth and suck in the sensation of the smoke filling his head and blurring the world around him. I want to drown in it, to know.
I don’t.
He does.
Something in his eyes shifts in the low light. I can’t see him, not clearly, I can just feel his hands grabbing the sides of my face, pulling me to him. He’s on me before I can ask where he put the cigarette, I forget it because he’s touching me like he wants to learn, to know something, just like me. His hands move like question marks in my hair. His teeth ask me in bites of my lip about how it must feel to live without a mind on fire.
¨Nothing.¨
I say when he’s gone to my neck and I come up for air. I don’t think he hears me or notices the building glow behind him. I don´t care, because he´s back to my lips again, and I’m trying to find the feeling that should be in my stomach somewhere. Shouldn’t it be there? Butterflies? Building? Breaking? Burning? Hot. It’s just hot everywhere, in my legs and my face, my brain is aflame and I think he’s finally letting me taste the smoke. I can smell it on his skin, the heat grows, and I´m too hot. I push him up to take off my hoodie. I can tell he’s excited at the thought of taking my shirt off, but I just want the heat to slow down. I can’t get the hoodie off in time, so Matteo stands up to help, pulling and tugging at the thick material struggling to get over my head. When the hoodie is finally off, he’s the first to try and touch me, but trips and falls into the flame. He doesn’t scream at first, or I just can´t hear him. The light is now taking up half of the room, building so fast Matteo can´t get away. The light’s red-hot rage drowns out the screams I only see. My mind is still for the first time at the sight, my body is just hot with the smoldering glow and the lingering touch of Matteo.
For the next searing seconds, I´m not real. Nothing feels like my own as I climb out his bedroom window and breathe in air that finally isn’t laced with fire. Invisible burns erupt as I fall to the ground, the drop from his roof wasn’t far, but it stings, a thousand piercing thorns at my back as I lay in the grass, escaping the heat. Punishing me for what I´ve done. The fire department would be there before his parents. At this, I remember the way he felt against me. I take a breath and stand up.
When I walk home, I roll up a small receipt from my pocket, place it in between my fingers, and pretend to hold a cigarette. I let my wrist go slack as I lazily bring the paper to my lips, and think of other burning children.
