[016]
05/14/2007 05:07 p.m.
Staring at a boy while she breathed cigarette smoke, she remembered a girl she once knew who compared blowing smoke rings to falling in love.
"It's okay," the girl would say, while blowing two, "Some people never get the hang of it."
She, on the other hand, had mostly found it easy. Formulaic and repetative and these days boring.
Except that he had started the conversation with "I'm smarter than you," and she had welcomed him to be, and had lit his Camel and thought of all the ways she could hurt him first.

By the end of the night she was down to three cigarettes and only driving half well.
And she was half detached and all bravado.