Devil Dog

The lanky boy sitting next to me asks for a square. I rummage through the pockets in my oversized jacket, even though I’m pretty sure his pack isn’t empty. I bum him one and light us up, then let the silence hang between us with the smoke. It’s too quiet.

“When I was biking here after watching the symphony orchestra play...”

“What happened?”

“I lost Emory, like, I couldn’t find him and I started to wonder...what if I made him up?” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, for a second, I thought he was imaginary or some shit. And then I started to think that I made up everyone in my life, like all of my friends, everyone I thought I’d known.”

“Wow. Maybe just keep up with him.” I joke. “Like, next time bike a little faster.”

He presses the cherry of his cigarette against my leg, high, below my hip, and glances at me sideways.

“Stop.” I say.

I smile and swat his hand away. My eyes jump to the welt he left and my hand does too. I listen to the breeze blowing harder in the trees and feel the scales of the rooftop skim against the back of my legs. My stolen skin cells will stay here even after I am gone, until the wind retrieves them, or they could burn up with the morning sun.

The darkness which usually liberates me presses down against my chest and steals all the oxygen from the blood running in their veins. My body feels wrong, like it isn’t mine. If he were to slice me open I bet he’d find a river of purple flowing in there.

“I know what we should do.” he says, his words cutting through my despair.

“What should we do?” I already spent tonight acting so out of character I almost don’t care what his answer will be.

“We should do it.”

“Did we just do it?”

“Barely. I mean the other it. The thing we were talking about yesterday.”

I inhale deeply and exhale smoke from my nostrils.

“I don’t know how....”

“I told you I’ll help you.”

He crawls back inside, still smoking. The last part of him to leave is his left foot. I hear some shuffling from outside and his head pops back out of the window. Through the dark all I see is a wicked grin, gleaming white. Then, the rest of him emerges. I place my free hand on his narrow shoulders to try and steady him but he jerks his arm up. In his hand is a white rope, glimmering in the moonlight. He holds it proudly. It almost doesn’t look thick enough.

“I don’t know how to tie it.”

“I said I’d do it for you. Look, it’s easy.”

I looked up at the stars willing myself to climb inside, down, out, somewhere, anywhere but here. Maybe, just maybe, a star will reach down and grab me if I stare long enough.

“I told you it’d be long enough for us.”

“But is it thick enough?”

“It doesn’t have to be. It just has to be tight.” he says.

“What are you staring at?” he asks me.

“A star....What are you staring at?” I ask back.

“A star.” he says, looking right at me, not really seeing.

“I’m no star. You’re just crazy.” I say, quietly.

I wonder why he burned me. I think he did because he thought it wouldn’t hurt. Or maybe he was just checking if I was real. He could have forgotten. Maybe he needed the reminder.

I don’t need this.

“Let’s do it.” he presses.

I pause for a second. Looking at the ground below, I try to make out the grass.

“Rachel?”

I take a moment, then say to him:

“Can you stop? If we killed ourselves....She’d go with us. I’m not about to do that to them. They can't die. I can’t have that on my conscience.”

“I just want us to be free.” he says.

“Stop it.”

Smoke gets into my eye and as I’m rubbing it to alleviate the stinging, I feel the air get crisper. I look back and realize that I’m alone.