Cigarette Smoke

About a Girl

I was walking down to the bus stop at my usual fashion: hair hanging down covering my face while my feet barely rose from the ground. Why should they, I thought, neither does my mind rise from the depths of my thoughts. My feet represent my mind and me. Or maybe I was just lazy and this was a fancy explanation.

Once again I got so caught up on my own thoughts I forgot to look where I was going. I almost walked past my bus stop and had to walk back a little while. I took a pack of cigarettes out of the huge pocket on my oversized jean jacket. It was my father's, but he hadn't worn it since he was 19 and that was 38 years ago, so I figured he wouldn't mind me wearing it. My favourite thing about it were these huge pockets, I was able to fit basically anything there. My mom never bothered to look in them either, so my cigaretters were safe from her.

I was pretending to calmly smoke, but to be honest my heart was racing like sped-up war drum. There were so many people in the bus stop. I felt like they were all staring at me, and maybe they were. There was a lot to stare about me, after all. My ridicilously oversized jean jacket, black lace dress and combat boots with untied shoelaces didn't exactly made me fit in with all of these officially dressed smallminded adults with boring dayjobs and dreams that never became reality. I hated adults who couldn't stop staring. I knew I was weird, they didn't have to stare and make that even more obvious. Some of them had no idea how to behave and treat even different kind of people as people.

I always felt anxious around people. My mom always said it was just because I was shy, but I disagreed with her. I didn't think it was just me being shy when whenever I tried to speak around strange people I started stuttering and eventually got no words out of my mouth, or whenever I knew I'd have to talk out loud in front of people I started feeling sick and my hands got all sweaty, or when I'd rather stay alone at home curled up in my own bed than go to a party where all of my numerous friends (and by that I mean the two persons, Kit and Robb, who still wanted to hang out with me every once in a while) would go. People just made me feel uncontrollably uncomfortable, so I had learned how to look so mean and intoverted no one rarely even wanted to talk to me. I was doing fine, other people didn't have to care about or feel sorry for me when they'd see me struggle at every social event, so I thought of it as a win-win situation. It was my mom's turn to disagree now. She constantly kept calling me unsocial and tried to paint me horrifying pictures of my future without a family or a friendbase, just completely isolated with no people to care about me. She wasn't helping at all, though. Making me feel guilty about my anxiety didn't really make it go away, if anything, it made it worse.

I was just finishing my cigarette when the bus pulled off to the stop. I took the last smoke of my cigarette and got into the bus. It was still rather empty, but I knew it would get really crowded soon. I had been with Robb and Kit at Robb's house, playing video games and watching some movies. I hung out there all the time, so this bus felt almost like home. I never really enjoyed these bus rides though. It was usually 10 PM or later when I left his house, and especially in the weekends people were drunk, loud and annoying. Today I had left earlier so I hoped I'd be safe from people like that.

While choosing a free seat from the back of the bus, I couldn't get my mind off a dream I had seen the night before. It was about a girl. She had the most beautiful hair: long, dark, kind of wavy without being messy or untidy, and when I touched it in the dream, it was soft like clouds, or how I imagined they would feel. And her eyes, oh god. I could've stared into them for hours. They were light blue, so light they looked icy, but the look in them warmed me deep inside. In the dream she had put her hands on my cheecks and then slowly slided them to my shoulders and hugged me really tight. It was the best hug I had ever had, even if it only happened in a dream. I remembered feeling so safe with her, like one of the classic childhood lies parents always tell their children had come true: everything was alright. I started to feel sleepy and right when I fell asleep on her arms, I woke up in real life.

It was by far one of the weirdest dreams I had ever seen, and the most vivid too. I had never seen a dream that felt so real. It was as if she was actually there, holding me until my worries were gone. Waking up from it was really horrible though: I finally felt piece and then I was ripped back into the world full of anxiety, unwritten social rules I was never truly able to follow, expectations I could never fulfill and judgemental looks I wanted to ignore but couldn't.

I could feel those judgemental looks crawling in my skin as I started reading a small paperback book, so old it was almost falling apart. I took a quick glance at my reflection from the bus window. My hair was a real mess, just like me. Trying my best to ignore an old rude couple sitting behind me talking about my looks very loudly as if I couldn't hear them, I sank into my book. Soon I forgot the world around me, it became irrelevant compared to my book. I've always been able to completely zone out while doing something I loved, a talent I highly appreciated since it made my life so much easier. I could just draw, write poetry or read for hours without realizing basically anything that was going on around me. I did that a lot, especially at school on boring lessons or at home when I was bored. Most people lose the ability to get so zoned out before they even make it to teenage. The constant hurry the world has leaves no room for slower people who like to stop to do things they love. I was 17 already and my ability was used everyday, so maybe there was something wrong with me, or then the world was wrong. Or maybe we both were right and we just don't fit together.

Maybe it was because I had buried myself so deep into my book, but I didn't realize there was someone sitting next to me until they accidentally touched my arm. I was too shy to look at them, but I secretly glanced their feet. I could only see the tip of her shoes since her long, beautifully flowing dress was covering most of them. I had the sudden urge to take a better look at them. I had no idea why, I just wanted to see what she looked like. Pretending to put my hair behind my other ear, I took a look at her.

My jaw dropped and I gasped. It was the girl from my dream, there was no way I could be mistaken of that. I remembered that gorgeus wavy hair and those icy blue eyes. If it was possible, she looked even more stunning than she did on the dream. I couldn't stop staring at her. Soon I realized she was also staring straight back at me. I turned and tried to pretend like everything was just normal. I felt a sudden blood rush on my cheecks and new that I had just blushed rapidly. In my mind there was an endless choir chanting my usual tunes: idiotic asshole, embarrasing loser, an actual example of human failure, completely useless, and so on. I couldn't believe how I could be this stupid and embarrass myself in public like this. Now literally the girl of my dreams probably thought I was a crazy psychopath that needed help, and now.

The bus ride seemed endless. I was still so embarrased of myself I wanted to just disappear. Unfortunatelly that wasn't possible. I tried to hide behind my book and act as normal as possible so the girl wouldn't pay anymore attention to me. I had to control my urge to look at her once more. How could a person from my dream be right next to me? It felt so wrong but in a magical way.

Suddenly I felt her grabbing my arm. I looked at her but I was unable to speak. Her touch felt cold but at the same time it send almost like electric shock waves all over me. I felt more alive than I had felt in months. Her eyes looked at the change of my expressions on my face. She smiled a little.

"I know, Lucy", she said with a deep dark voice. Before I could ask her anything, she got up and walked out from the bus.