Twenty Cigarettes

1

The first cigarette Marina ever smoked was on the 19th February, exactly one year and a day after she had bought the unwanted package. On the 18th, she was sitting on the bench she couldn't erase from her mind, ever since the year before and the strange boy with the abnormal blond hair and ridiculously blue eyes. He had crept in her dreams and nightmares, introducing himself the same way. 'Call me Max.' So whenever she asked a question, like 'what's your favourite colour?' He'd say: 'Call me Max.' It was freaking her out.

There was not a day that had gone by where she had not thought of him. She had even fantasized about possible names, and the standards for beauty had risen considerably after she had seen his smile.

Marina was not entirely sure why she had come to this particular bench, but she figured it was because of Max. And her aunt.

She was driving her crazy, every day more. The rules, the smoke, the condescending manner... it was all driving her insane. Now she had almost finished school, she couldn't wait to finally get out of her aunt's house and find her own apartment. She just had to wait three months before she had her exams. With the money her father had left her she could pay the rent and pay the additional costs to her scholarship. She would still visit her mother, although she didn't recognize Marina anymore. Not since her father had fled.

Marina often blamed her father for everything. If he had not run away with another brainless girl, her mother wouldn't have gone mad as a March hare, causing her to be shipped off to an asylum where they kept insane people and where it smelt like someone had accidentally poured an entire bottle of detergent over everything, the walls, the ceiling, the floors...

She was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she didn't hear the nearing footsteps. She just kept looking at her fingers, how they mirrored the ones of her mother, so long and knobbly. Her mother's nails were all bitten, of course.

"I don't suppose you have a cigarette to spare?" Max's voice startled her and her head shot up. Marina scanned him from his black shoes to his astonishing eyes. She couldn't help the tiny smile that plastered itself on her face.

"Of course. But no lighter." This was his cue to smirk. She couldn't believe he had actually come. When they had said goodbye the year before, he had just walked away. Without turning. Had he even thought about her once?

"You do smell like you smoke twenty packages a day. Care to explain?" Max said after he had settled himself on the spot next to her.

Marina knew her clothes were stained with the everlasting stench of her aunt's addiction, and she hated the odour. It had taken her new light-blue coat precisely two days to stink like everything else.

"It's my aunt. She's a chain-smoker." Max snorted.

"Yeah. That goes without saying." A silence fell between them.

"I have given thought about your name." Marina caught a glimpse of him lighting his cigarette and bringing the thing once again to his mouth.

"Enlighten me."

"After much consideration and hours spent in the libraries, searching through ancient books, I guess Bartholomew is your name." Max turned his face towards her, and they had eye-contact for at least ten seconds, before he started laughing like a maniac. He kept laughing until she had no choice but to giggle along, and then they were both laughing at each other's laugh, which was by no means charming.

"Oh Marina, you're so funny," Max said when they were finally able to stop.

"Well, is it? Your name, that is."

"Unfortunately not. But maybe next time you'll guess correctly."

By the time Marina got home and in her room, it was already one o'clock. She and Max had been laughing and talking all the time.