Smoking in Sunsets.

"Don't wake me up." she said.

I was lighting my cigarette that afternoon as I sat at the sidewalk of the main road in the subdivision I lived in. The usual after-class hangout, except that I'm alone this time. My brothers - just childhood friends actually - were busy for basketball practice or evening class and it's our first day in college and I just have to live my after-class afternoons alone, because I don't plan to fool myself with any extra-curricular work anyway. I'm satisfied sitting in the sidewalk, smoking my cigarettes and listening to loud music with my headphones, and not giving a fuck on whose gate I'm blocking nor whose dog it was who would keep on barking at me. I don't care, this is how I tend to live my five-o'-clock-in-the-afternoons.

Then she kicked me in my hips one day.

"What the actual fuck?" I gasped, looking up at the owner of that damn foot. It was actually a pretty face, with long black hair that flows smoothly down her shoulders, with eyes as perfect as probably Diana from sixth grade, with lips so soft they could actually land on any part of my body I swear. She kicked me again but this time it was wonderfully done on my butt.

"Get out of my spot." she said. I almost dropped my cigarette. "Oh, so now we could actually pick a portion of the sidewalk for private property?" I asked, a bit irritated obviously. It does not feel good having pains in the butt, anyway, but probably with some good exceptions but surely not this one. "Yes, move." she replied, kicking me again, soft taps in my left hip to force me to move.

The moment she sat down I knew her. We suddenly knew each other very well. And this was how I spent my after-class five-o'-clock afternoons for four months. Sitting in the sidewalk, hanging out in her room, fucking in my room, running wild on empty grass-filled lots, smoking in sunsets. But as the ever-lame cliche goes, all good things come to an end.

It was nearly five o' clock in the afternoon and I was walking along the main road of the subdivision from school, smoking my second cigarette for the day, when she suddenly grabbed my right arm and dragged me someplace. I noticed that she was crying and I was trying to offer her a cigarette but she shoved my hand away and the lit cigarette fell on the grass, and fire sprouted. "Hey-" I blurted out but she ate the words I was about to say as she kissed me. The fire surrounded us, circled us in this vast field of grass, and there we were in the middle of it, making out. I couldn't make my logic function; I could have wondered why we were avoided by the fire but we're having too much of a good time here so why even care? She started unbuttoning my pants, which signaled me to take my clothes off and do the same to her and all that.

But instead of pursuing her suggestion of outdoor grassfield sex, I asked her: "Why were you crying?" The fire suddenly grew higher. It was then that I noticed that she was very pale, that if she had not smiled I could have guessed she's dead alive. "Is something wrong?" I asked her again in my ever-failing attempt to comfort people at situations like this. "Everything," she said, "everything's wrong. Nothing was ever right." Sure. That was a bit stupid, I thought. "Oh come on, when did you start joining the Drama Club?" I said, also in my ever-failing attempt to cheer people up. She glanced at me. The perfect Diana-of-sixth-grade eyes weren't those Diana-of-sixth-grade eyes anymore. They were eyes of gloom, of collected cold, of whatever sadness was attacking her straight to the heart.

To break the moment she reached for my shirt and pushed me hard down, making me lie on the surprisingly wet grass ground. I thought she was going to kiss me or something, but then she just laid down beside me as well. All the flames that surrounded us were gone in a wink. She reached for my hand, and locked hers in it.

"Don't wake me up." she said.

I turned to look at her, wondering why she said that. But no words came out.

I was just waiting. I did not wake her up.

She never did.