Smoke Rings

Smoke rings. She could blow them perfectly now. Six days spent practicing and she finally had it down pat. Ensconced in her stuffy apartment for nearly a week and this is all she'd accomplished? No. She'd slept a lot too. Irregularly for hours at a time, day and night, causing her to lose track of time. Mostly she slumbered on the overstuffed corduroy couch, but four days ago, before the liquor had run out, she'd awoke from a drunken stupor to find herself on the floor of her huge walk-in closet wearing a fleecy, navy blue sweatshirt. HIS sweatshirt. She'd buried it deep in a box of her winter clothes along with a bottle of his cologne after he left that day. She could smell HIM now all over her.

"I don't know where your goddamned shirt is! And what the fuck use do I have for your cologne?"

She had lied. But then, she was pretty drunk by then, she could have forgotten. No. She'd lied. She never forgot anything. Ever. Just like she would never forget how she screeched at him when he came back. While waving a nearly empty bottle of HIS 25-year-old Macallan scotch with one hand and gesturing a lit cigarette with the other she'd shrieked, "GET OUT! Get ALL your SHIT and LEAVE! Ask your new WHORE about your missing SHIT because I DON'T FUCKING HAVE IT!" Then the burning of her throat as she tilted the bottle back and emptied it with one last deep swig and took another drag off the clove. "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY GODDAMNED HOUSE!" she'd spat. Then she'd thrown the bottle. It missed his head and shattered against the wall. He shot her a disgusted glance and left. Yeah, she remembered that look too. And the nerve he had to be disgusted with her. Bastard.

She lit another fragrant cigarette. Smoke wove halos around her head. Some angel she was. Flash of the angry red welt she'd left on the soft cheek of that pretty girl after she'd caught them together. Poor girl. Couldn't be a day over 18. It really wasn't her fault…she'd known that right away. But he'd pinned her arms against the wall after that until the girl could safely escape. She wouldn't have hit her again. Really she wouldn't have. No telling what she would have done to him, though.

"Now hit me if you want!" after the girl had gone. She did want to. A lot. But instead, her knees buckled and she slid down the wall to hug her legs as her body was racked with sobs. She'd heard him dress and leave…probably to find that girl. She stumbled to the door to lock the dead bolt after him. Didn't matter. He didn't come home until the next night. That's when she'd ordered him out.

She lay back on the couch now and pulled her free hand inside the long sleeve of the shirt. Circles of smoke hovered above her face, dissipating before her eyes. Rolling and stretching before dissolving into the haze surrounding her. She should open a window.

She plodded across the room and pulled up the shade. Morning. Squinting against the bright sun, she tugged at the sash. A gust of wind blew through the front room unsettling dust and smoke. As the staleness cleared from the room, her stomach gave a low grumble. Had she forgotten to eat? Had she emptied that cereal bowl yesterday or the day before? She couldn't remember. OK. She'd eat.

She passed the fireplace en route to the kitchen and flicked her cigarette butt into the ashes. Little bits of charred lace of the coverlet from the bed were still visible. If she could have found a way to set fire to the mattress without damaging the rest of the apartment or her building she would have burned that, too. It's not like she could ever sleep there again…not after…The couch was more comfortable anyway.

With a sudden haste, she tugged the ratty sweatshirt over her head. It still reeked of his expensive cologne. She'd emptied the bottle on herself before violently smashing it on the cold tile of the bathroom floor. The broken glass was still there.

Fumbling in the pocket of her pajama pants, she found her lighter and touched the small hot flame to a long blue sleeve. Within moments, the shirt was aflame. She hurled it into the fireplace and stood back wincing against the heat. The fire from five days ago had burned even brighter, consuming every momento she had from her latest love. The pictures had been truly bizarre to watch as the flames licked smiling visages into bubbling blobs that finally transformed into black ash. The fumes of the melting plastic of the CD's had given her a headache, but she'd burned them anyway. Everything had to go.

She tore her eyes from the crackling pile of burning fabric and continued to the kitchen, opening every window on that long wall along the way. Just as the smoky clouds lifted and cleared with each breeze, so did her spirits. She smiled a slow healing smile to herself as she started planning the first day of the rest of her life.