Bridge To Her Heart <3

Chapter 16 (Smoking)

Cleo awoke in the middle of the night to a strong scent that had drifted into her dreams. She groggily lifted her head and peered through the darkness, noticing that her tent flap was open. She usually zipped it up at night and wondered what had changed her mind this time. 

Then the events of yesterday- or you can say earlier that evening -came back to her, and she quickly crawled towards the opening. Just as she expected, Anthony sat at the edge of the ledge, letting his foot hang over the side as he stared into the night air. 

The questioning smell she had wondered about earlier was answered as Anthony raised his hand to his mouth, and took a drag from a short white stick. “Pssst?!” Cleo hissed, calling out to him in the darkness. She giggled as the moon light silhouetted his jostled form, clearly not expecting her to be awake. 

“Cleo?” Anthony whispered back, twisting his mid-section to squint at her in the dark. She watched as he pulled his hair out of his eyes and searched the tent entrance for her face. 

“Boo!” she snapped, startling him. Cleo laughed teasingly and crawled all the way out of the tent. She settled next to Anthony and tried to figure out why he was up so late. 

“You should go back to bed,” he said, breaking the stiff silence and taking another puff of smoke. 

“You should too,” she shot back. 

“Cleo-”

“Your not the boss of me.”

“Immature much?”

“Annoying much?”

“Penguins.”

“What?” Cleo gave Anthony the weirdest look and suppressed the laughter erupting inside of her. 

Anthony shrugged, “Thought if I said something random you’d finally give up.”

Cleo huffed. 

“Seems like my plan worked.”

She wasn’t about to give up so quickly. “I’m not going back to sleep anytime soon so your stuck with me.” Anthony shrugged and she studied him, analyzing him up and down and wondering how she could get him to talk. “Your addicted.”

“What?” This time it was Anthony’s turn to look puzzled. 

Cleo sighed, eyeing the white stub between his fingers, “To cigarettes. Most teens who smoke just do it for show, but you…. Your genuinely addicted.”

Anthony studied her face for a long while and Cleo wondered if she’d eventually crack under the intensity, but then he finally looked away and snuffed out his cigarette bud, as if trying to prove something. “Where’d you learn how to smoke anyway?” she asked, scooting a little closer to him now that the smoke was gone. 

“Taught myself.”

“Yourself?” a light breeze blew under the bridge, causing pieces of Cleo’s hair to whip out in front of her. She watched as the wind effected Anthony too, giving his eyes an orb like glow in the moonlight. 

“Yes,” he answered simply, “Myself….See I have this uncle, Uncle Tido. He was a good guy, came on all of the family holidays, even stopped by for my tenth birthday, but he was an avid smoker. I can’t recall one time when I’ve ever seen my Uncle Tido cigarette free.”

Cleo settled in comfortably, not wanting to break probably the only story about his family that Anthony would tell her. 

“Now Uncle Tido was also what you could call ‘cool.’ He was the uncle with the real leather jacket and hair slicked down with jell. He never went anywhere without his aviator glasses and always rode his motor cycle up to see us. I guess you could say I looked up to him.”

Anthony leaned backward on both hands and continued to stare off into space. 

“I remember it was the day after thanksgiving. We were all cleaning up the mess from the night before and I had been given the honorary duty of sweeping. So there I was, my scrawny thirteen year old body dragging the broom across the floor when I saw it. Uncle Tido had dropped a fresh cigarette, and of course…. I tried it.”

“Did you like it?” Cleo blurted, daring to break his glazed over gaze. 

Anthony cleared his throat, “To tell you the truth I thought it was awful at first. Like someone trying to suffocate themselves with smoke, but I wanted to be ‘cool’ like Uncle Tido. So, I forced myself to except it and eventually became…. a smoker.” He looked over at Cleo, to her reaction and watched as she nodded her head slowly. 

“You know it’s not good for you right?” she asked timidly.

“Yes Cleo, I think every smoker knows that.”

“So why don’t you stop?”

“It’s not that easy.”

“I can help make it easy.”

Anthony gave her a confused yet interested look as Cleo scooted closer to him, rearranged herself so that her head now rested on his right leg. “And how can you so call ‘make this easy’?”

“I’m not kissing you again unless you stop smoking. Simple and easy as that.”

“Are you threatening me?” he raised a single pierced eyebrow at her. 

“Maybe.”

“What if I don’t want to kiss you again?”

Cleo looked up at Anthony with deep and searching eyes, wondering if he meant what he said. She dug into his bluish green spheres, hoping to find something of value in there. Then she saw it, a small glint, a tiny flicker of emotion. Anthony Muchette hadn’t meant a word he just said. 

“Oh trust me Tony, you totally do.”

He snorted and looked away, continuing his hard core stare at nothing. Cleo didn’t ask for permission as she took his hand in hers and was glad he didn’t argue. She could feel sleepiness making her eyelids turn to lead once again. Playing with the rings on his finger, she yawned. 

“Anthony?”

“Huh?”

“Do you think the police are still looking for you?”

“Go to sleep Cleo.”

“But-”

“Your tired Cleo.” She was surprised as she couldn’t protest. There was just something so gentle about the way he carefully pulled his hand from hers and placed it on her cheek, willing her to close her eyes. 

Cleo’s eye lids fluttered, her lips moving to say something else, but Anthony quietly murmured “Shhh” and softly closed her lids the rest of the way. It was impossible for her to open them again. 

“Goodnight Cleo.”

She was too tired to answer.