smoke slow

Four days before your wedding, your ex is watching you smoke a cigarette in the parking lot. 

It’s not like it’s a purposeful thing. You’ve been sitting in your car with the windows down and the sunroof open wide for the past hour, give or take. Lately you’ve taken up the habit of going through your own Instagram in an attempt to see what your life looks like from the outside. The verdict is: gorgeous, enviable, perfect. Your smiling face and your fiancé’s smiling face. You at your bachelorette party; you and that huge fucking ring on your finger. You’ve made it all the way to the engagement photos when you look up and see Kim Gaeul standing in front of your car.

“Hey,” she says. 

You don’t scream but it’s close. You flinch so badly your wrist jostles into the horn. 

“Whoa,” Gaeul says. It’s past midnight. Under the light pouring out from the front of the hotel her hair looks darker than you remember. Longer, too. But it’s been three years; that’s a given. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to - sorry.” 

She’s smiling like something’s funny. Even in the dark you can see the sharklike flash of teeth. You wait until she steps up to your window before you say: “I didn’t think you were coming.” 

“You knew I was coming,” Gaeul says. “I RSVPed. There’s literally no way you didn’t know.”

You have nothing to say to that. You must be making some sort of bitchy face because now Gaeul is looking at you with the same grin she wore back in college when she used to ruffle your hair and call you difficult, call you baby. 

“Same hotel, though?” she continues. She might be staring at your mouth or maybe just the cigarette. “Kind of a wild coincidence.” 

She doesn’t believe in coincidences; she’s waiting for you to tell her this. Most likely so she can say something flirtatious and smarmy about it. Like: Oh, honey. Look at you. You can’t forget a single thing about me. 

“It’s the closest to the venue,” you say instead. “The entire wedding party is at this hotel. So.” 

“Right, right,” says Gaeul. Then she nods to your cigarette. “Can I have one?”

You reach for your pack. “I’m supposed to be quitting,” you say as you hand one to her. But she leans down for a light and you give it to her; you’re nothing if not a girl with some manners. 

She laughs. The flame catches. “You’re never quitting.” Then she adds, like it’s an afterthought and not the whole reason you’re both here: “Congrats on getting married, by the way.” 

Your fiancé is upstairs, already asleep, tolerant of your vice but unwilling to stomach the smell. You’re already in your pajamas but when you go back upstairs you’ll have to hop in the shower again just to scrub the smoke from your hair. Somehow Gaeul’s tone suggests she knows all this. Or maybe she just remembers what you look like when you’re doing something you shouldn’t. 

In your lap, your phone is still open to your own Instagram pictures of your engagement. You’re on a beach in a white dress. Very unsubtle bride-to-be. You’re clasping your hands to your mouth like you’re surprised but your manicure is fresh and your hair is blown-out. Your fiancé’s down on one knee, not even hunched over unattractively or anything. His posture is so perfect it makes you think of Prince Charming on horseback. Your caption even says something about this day being a fairytale, totally unreal. 

Probably Gaeul has never seen these photos. You blocked her on all your social media years ago. Then again, there are ways around that - friends’ accounts, incognito tabs. If she wanted to see your face she would. She’s certainly seeing it now. 

“Well, in four days,” you say. “I’m not married yet.” 

Around her cigarette, Gaeul smiles.

-

You’re using the term ex loosely. More accurately, to you, Kim Gaeul is this: 

Freshman year of college and you’re at some party that your new roommate dragged you to. You say roommate and not friend because it is quickly becoming clear you two have nothing in common. Case in point: she’s drinking and you’re not and you began developing a tension headache the instant you stepped into this intolerably hot frat house and you’re still stuck here an hour later because she is, apparently, having the best time. 

“Really? I’m glad,” you say, for the tenth time tonight. You think your pasted-on smile might be starting to look a little scary. “I’m so glad you’re having the best time.” 

Fortunately she’s too drunk to detect sarcasm. She’s also too drunk to notice that you’re not really looking at her. 

Instead, you’re staring at Kim Gaeul across the room. 

You have never met Kim Gaeul. You share no classes and no mutual friends; you’re pretty sure she’s older than you, surely not a freshman. You only know Kim Gaeul’s name because twenty minutes ago you accidentally caught her gaze and for some reason found yourself unable to get untangled from it. After about a minute of almost competitively intense eye contact you said to your roommate: Who’s that? 

Kim Gaeul, your roommate said. And then: Oh, I didn’t know you were gay.

You are not gay. You told your roommate this very firmly. The fact that you’re still staring at Gaeul twenty minutes later means nothing. You’re just trying to figure out whether she’s tiny or all her friends are abnormally tall. Also she’s wearing something kind of atrocious, this overly loud patterned button-up with the sleeves pushed to her elbows. You haven’t decided whether this outfit is a cry for help or not. 

It’s nothing. Natural curiosity. Her hair’s up and she’s pressing a beer bottle to the side of her neck to cool off. You stare for too long, or you must, because when you look up at Gaeul’s face she’s looking back at you. 

“She’s pretty infamous,” says your roommate. She sounds proud of herself for already knowing this essential detail about your university’s social ecosystem less than a month into the semester. “Among the gay crowd.” 

Gaeul’s on the move, coming closer now. Definitely not towards you; definitely just walking towards the door. Her hair must be cut short because half of it has already fallen out of her bun to frame her face. When she tucks it back you’re suddenly somewhat distracted by her fingers, blunt unpainted nails, the delicate shell of her ear. 

“I’m literally not gay,” you say, just as Kim Gaeul comes to a deliberate stop right in front of you. 

“I’m sorry?” Gaeul says, after a moment. The side of her neck is still slick with condensation. 

Her voice is softer than you thought it’d be. “Nothing,” you say. “I didn’t say anything. Hi.” 

“Hi,” Gaeul says. She’s got these real big eyes and a look on her face like you two are already friends. “Do you smoke?”

“What?” you say, a bit offended. You’re touching the cross around your neck and you have a bow in your hair, shiny Mary Janes and socks with a frill. “No.” 

She grins a little. Her lips are chapped and her eyeliner’s melting at the edges, clumsily applied. Pretty is the wrong word for her but it’s the only thing coming to mind. “You wanna try?” 

Jesus, this girl. Sorry, Jesus. “Um, no thank you.” 

Gaeul shrugs. She wiggles her hand in a little wave. “If you change your mind,” she says, while you’re still staring at all the rings on her fingers. Then she turns and walks out the door. 

Once she’s gone it’s like the sound kicks back in all at once. The whooping frat guys and some awful pop song, your heartbeat loud as a gunshot in your ears. The dry click of your throat as you swallow, then swallow again. Your roommate leaning close, saying for some inane reason: “She likes you.” 

“I’m just really likable,” you say, which is something you’ve learned through several years of enthusiastic feedback of your job performance as a counselor at church camp. “That doesn’t mean anything.” 

“Nah,” your roommate says sagely. “It definitely means something.” 

It doesn’t, though, is the thing. You’re certain it never will. 

-

Roughly ten minutes later you’re in the front yard of this shitty frat house, melting in your sweet sundress in the late-August heat, watching Kim Gaeul smoke a cigarette. When you first came out here you were seriously considering walking right past her, pretending you’d never spoken. But she turns and pins you with heavy dark eyes before you can. The whole thing sort of feels like a foregone conclusion. The corner of her mouth curls like a beckoning finger. 

You drift closer. “I didn’t mean to be rude, earlier,” you say. “I’ve just never, uh.” 

You gesture dumbly at the cigarette in her mouth. Gaeul’s eyes crinkle. “I figured,” she says. “Look at you. You’re a very good girl.” 

Your mouth falls open. 

The phrase itself is generally inoffensive. Actually several people in your life have said this to you. Teachers, tennis coaches, your youth pastor when you were fifteen. Sometimes you even preened at this: yes, of course, you’re the best, a straight-A student, a perfect backhand, an invaluable voice in church choir. But Gaeul says the words good girl and then she smiles like there’s a joke you’re not in on and not unlike the cigarette between her teeth your whole body flares red-hot. 

From anger, probably. Because this is ludicrous. So you say: “Not that good.”