Milk and Cigarettes

Chapter 10

It wasn't in the way he taught me how to slowly suck in and let the smoke linger inside of me, it wasn't in the way he seemed to carefully watch me as I did this either. Something in the way the sky began to grow darker as it still held a soft purple light everywhere, and the way my free hand rested against the car while his free hand just leaned centimeters away from it, the way you could faintly hear the song 'Electric Avenue' playing from inside the gas station, and the way he said, "Wendy?" after a while once I got the hang of it.

"Yeah?" I answered, breathing out as a thick, gray cloud surrounded us.

"What do you think?" Leo looked down at the unpaved ground beneath our feet, his eyebrows fixed in a concentrated manner. "I mean, of me." He looked back up at me, not in an insecure way, but in a way that seemed as though he needed to know.

I thought about his question and how I should answer it for what felt like a lifetime. In reality, I probably answered in those next 5 seconds. "I- I think you're the best thing to have ever entered my life." A weight had been lifted off my chest once I voiced those words. I could feel my heart pounding inside of me once I realized what I said, the deep thudding made it hard for me to continue. Leo didn't look at me or at the ground, he just dazed off at the blinking, red 'open' sign that buzzed across us. I suddenly felt the warmth of his hand lie on top of mine. Feeling my cheeks get hot, I slowly looked down to reassure myself that he intentionally placed his hand on mine. Leo rubbed his angular thumb across my skin and I felt a calmness in me that was completely new to my mind. "I know you just came to town, I know it hasn't been long at all. But, I don't need anymore time to know that. You really are the one thing I was waiting to come to me all along." I felt silly once I finished my sentence, but everything I said was the truth. The few seconds between my last words and his response seemed to never end and I kept focusing my vision on the sign, trying to numb down my nervousness back to the calmness he once gave me.

Leo rose in one sudden motion and ran his fingers through his hair, turning to face me. "My heart can't really stop beating." He nervously laughed and I wondered if he starred at the sign to numb hisself down, too. Clearing his throat, he began, "I want you, Wendy." He stated, emphasizing on the 'want' as his shirt rippled with the evening wind. "And I want you to run away with me."