The Painter and Toker

Camel Cigarettes

Hyde Pv

Hyde and the rest of the guys walked from the water-tower to Forman's basement. As they walked up you could clearly see the outline of Kelso', van sitting in the drive way. They walked in the basement, Donna was sitting on the couch staring at a cosmo magazine, but she was clearly somewhere else. She hopped up when she saw Kelso and Fez

" You guys are such jerks! Addie is going through a bunch of shit, what the Hell was with the fire crackers you really shook her up, I mean damn Kelso",

Both Fez and Kelso where staring at their feet ashamed
" what you just saw that she was chill and relaxed, and for once not scribbling away like a mad man in her sketch book, and you thought what the Hell let's freak the girl out". Donna was about to go through the door.

" Donna; you know the guys didn't mean to freak her out like that, nobody could have known fire crackers would set her off" Eric, had grabbed Donna by the arm and was no slowly stroking her back. He pulled her to the couch and threw his arm over her shoulders.
"yeah, We didn't know the girl was crazy in the head" Fez said, and if Donna could have killed somebody with a look Fez would have been dead.
" Hey she's not crazy, she's going through a lot of shit man", Hyde grumbled sitting down in his spot. " I don't know why fire workers set her off, but they clearly did".

Donna nodded " I'm not sure it was the fireworks, she was lost in her own mind when those things went off, Honestly I think it brought her crashing back down to earth, and she wasn't happy about it"

"Yeah man, I mean who likes to be jolted out of a fantasy like that" Eric muttered

"No fantasy, I've ever know had me crying" Kelso said rubbing the back of his head " Man I feel real bad"

" It was a memory" Hyde said quietly.

" yeah maybe" Donna said nodding with approval " I've just never seen her that upset, and I've seen her upset. But she didn't say much, just made me pull over at the gas station, and when she got back in the car she was smoking  camel cigarettes , just like her dad use to have. He dad's office was filled with them, but I'd never seen her smoke them."

" Her dad smoked cigarettes 's man, That why he had lung cancer he was basically killing himself. Why would she go buy something that killed her bad, that's so"
Hyde interrupted Eric " the smell man, I bet you anything her dad reeked of them"

"So exactly man, they reek and they killed him, why would she go drink from the same poisoin, we can't let her continue" Eric shook his head

"No Eric, Hyde' right it's the smell, a comfort something she can hold on to; God I'm so stupid" Donna rubbed at her temples

"But still we can't just let her smoke". Donna frowned at Eric, pushing his arm off her shoulder" She using it as a connection to her Dad Eric, you can't just tell her to stop"

"man Forman you just don't get, you've never lost something like that"

" hey my grandma"

" Eric, she lost more than a grandma who come over for Sundays dinners and holidays, her dad basically raised her on his own, her mom was studying to become a surgical nurse when she was young, then when she became surgical nurse, she became carrier obsessed, she was almost never home. Addie and her dad we closer than most, I met Addie grandma over the summer when she came to visit Addie, she said that their souls were made of the same things, that they understood each other on a different level than most people"

Eric complained "I understand, is why the things to took her dad away,would be her comfort, why wouldn't she take to carrying his books, or where something of his as a necklace." Hyde ran his hand through his hair, Eric just didn't get it. Addie was sitting there on the water-tower and he just had to pull out the cigarettes man, the smell sent her down a black hole she could probably almost feel her dad, then when those idiots set of the fire crackers, it sent her zooming back to earth with a crash.

"of course you don't Forman, you've never craved just one more minute of being safe, one more second denial, on more second where you're ok; just for that tiny moment when you can smell them" Hyde got up and walked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He grabbed the camel cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and flushed them.

Sometimes that what he wanted just one more second, one more smell that could make him believe even for a second his parents hadn't abandoned him.

The basement was silent.