Cigarettes & Dark Rum

It was in one of those rare moments where every 30 seconds you could look up and the air around you had changed, the blue space between night and day that painted pockets of perspective and limbo, that they had arranged to meet. He waited at the end of the street next to the traffic lights at about half 6, but that didn't determine anything. It wasn't the fact that it would only be the two of them, or the secret texts or missed calls, or even the bursting smile they concealed as they thought "they want to go with me?". It wasn't even in the assumptions of strangers as they walked back up her street to a park bench, or in the way his arm instinctively stopped her crossing the road before him. Maybe it was in the conversation which fluttered between school, cigarettes, clothes and parties. Or the way her eyes saved him when he didn't know what else to talk about, as if to say "I know, me neither".

They both awkwardly sat on opposite ends of the bench, using their bags as an excuse for the space between them, and a reason to avoid each other's eyes. He pulled out a bottle of dark rum whilst she rummaged through all the shit she regretted bringing like perfume, lip-gloss, an ID card and keys until she found a packet of cigarettes.

"I nearly drank my mum's glass of merlot before I left."

"What?" She laughed lightly as she patted her pockets down for a lighter.

"It was one of those weird OCD moments where you think, I have to drink that, even though I knew I wouldn't like it."

"Hmm I sometimes get that when I'm driving. I'll clench my jaw every time I pass a lamppost. Its almost like a challenge." By now, he's kindly lent her his lighter, and she's unintentionally making him blush by puffing smoke back in his face; she thought it was because of the rum. "Do you want some?" She shook her head in response but ended up reaching for the bottle a few moments later, "I don't feel like drinking a lot tonight". She was only pretending, she did, just not here. Here, she wanted to cover each cigarette with the lip-gloss on her lips and count how many trees freckled the edges of the field. He took long swigs and short breaks between each one, which was the reason why he talked so much for the next couple of hours and time became an invalid source of reality. "You have not stopped talking. You're getting too drunk." She laughed awkwardly in fear that it came out harsher than intended but he laughed back, putting the bottle away as he said "shit sorry." But it wasn't really that bad, she loved the sound of him rambling and he liked that she wasn't afraid to respond to him. He had too many friends, been with too many girls, that were afraid to just respond. To tell him to shut up, that he was wrong, that the joke wasn't funny anymore. He always thought he was too confident, to the point that people felt like they couldn't be themselves with him, he could never be serious. And that in that superhuman confidence he didn't even know himself. But it was very different with her, she always told him to shut up, she loved proving that he was wrong and wasn't embarrassed to get upset when he took the joke too far, and all of that made it okay for him to know himself. The Sun was starting to set very quickly now and they hadn't even mentioned making their way to the party yet. Sometimes she could see him fighting back the urge to put his arm around her whilst she fought her own to kiss him. It was in these moments, they thought, between night and day, that everything was the most perfect. And it probably wasn't until he had asked nervously "How's Alex?" ( her boyfriend ) and she replied "yeah he's okay. How's Jade?" ( his girlfriend ) and he just said,

"Clingy", that they realised they were on a date. It wasn't the place or the time, or the fact it would only be the two of them, or the bursting smiles and sexual tension, or the way he used her gaze as a scape boat from reality that made this a date. It was the incredible lack of love and inspiration that bled from the words, "Okay" and "Clingy" and the beautiful realisation between two nameless people who sat smoking and drinking on a park bench, that would forever live in the smell of cigarettes and dark rum.