Pretty Little Bones

Oh, Baby You're a Classic, Like a Little Black Dress

But she never asked for a drag.

And I made sure to never blow the smoke in her face. She lived in too much of a haze already. If I couldn't see her, even for a moment, I'd start to worry.

One night, a strange silence fell on us as I took out my lighter and flicked out a flame. Ava's eyes gleamed red as she watched the fire make shadows across my palm.

"Ew," she said, wrinkling her nose. "What the hell is that?"

As she breathed in deeply I told her it was a menthol.

"Gross," she teased. "Who smokes menthols?"

I did.

"Why?"

With a grin I told her the truth. Because nobody bums menthols.

She laughed. She laughed hard and watched as the ash started gathering on the end of the cigarette.

Then she wrapped her long fingers around my hand and held it in her own.

"So cold," she smiled, pressing my flesh between her palms.

But her hands were colder. Her hands were always cold and bony.

And soft. God were they soft.

Gingerly, she put her mouth by my thumb and blew warm air across the skin before rubbing up enough friction to light a cigarette. I took a drag as she smiled against my knuckle, laying her lips so softly against bone.

"I love your hands," she said, and I started anticipating what was coming next.

But she didn't run her short nails over my chest. She didn't undo the top button of her jeans.

Instead, she laid my hand over backwards and examined the creases of my palm with an almost superficial intensity. "This one is your lifeline, I think," she said, tracing one of the dents and setting my nerves on fire.

I laughed and took another drag, laying my head back and accepting the fact that we weren't going to play games. She wasn't going to be bad for me. She wasn't in the mood to rewrite her past.

Exhaling out the side of my mouth, the smoke running across my cheek and away from her oval face, I told her she was wrong. The line was too long.

For a moment she laughed, a light hearted giggle that dissipated into the night like a soft smoke.

I hadn't been joking.

"Do you ever think about getting older?" she asked. "I mean, like, forties, I guess. Not old. Just...older?"

That elicited a laugh and I couldn't stop the smoke from rolling out of my lips and above our heads. For a moment, watching her gray eyes worship the clouds of gray, I wondered if she was going to run her hand through it. But she didn't.

I told her no. No, I never thought about getting older.

"Oh," she said. "Well, do you think you'd ever want a family? I mean if you did get older. Would you want kids and stuff?"

That wasn't funny. Since the age of seven, Ava had been adamant about not having children.

And although she swore it was simply because she didn't like kids, I knew the truth. I knew she wouldn't ever want another kid to go through what she did. And if her kid lead a perfect, happy little life, I knew she'd resent it whether she meant to or not.

Poor Ava was backed into a corner and she knew it. The safest bet was to not have kids.

And she really didn't like them.