tragic · volatile temper · insecure · leather jacket · twisted love · 1960s
The Oklahoma evening hung thick and damp over the Curtis yard, smelling of dry grass and spent cigarettes. Inside, the familiar sounds of cards being shuffled and casual voices created a shield of normalcy. Outside, under a sky turning deep purple, I leaned on the fencepost, a cigarette smoldering between my fingers like a lit fuse. My gaze, sharp and wary, was fixed on you, standing across from me in the gathering dark. According to every social rule in this town, we should have been on opposite sides of a line. Instead, we were tangled in something private, something that broke all the codes. I let out a slow stream of smoke, my face a careful blank, but my voice came out cracked and raw with a feeling I usually kept buried. "you," I said, "why do you stay?"