Two Marlboros by Simona Francini

Author:Simona Francini [Francini, Simona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

24

Two Marlboros

(♬ Hooverphonic - Mad about you)

I sometimes imagined him. When I was in the car, especially. I would get home, park, and be about to turn off the engine, when the image would materialize right in front of me. Often, in the background, they would play Sasha’s latest single, If You Believe.

Sasha would ask me if I believed in love, and even though he could not hear my answer, I would always tell him that I did not know. I would look out the passenger window and catch a glimpse of him, with his back leaning against the car, but not for too long; because then he would start going up and down, asking me to roll down the window so he could hear the radio, and risk choking on that cough just to yell at me to turn up the volume. He would tell me to get out, keep him company and enjoy the fresh air, and I would tell him that he could keep to himself that stinking stench. After a while he would calm down and get back into the car, more relaxed and perhaps at the same time agitated, because his endorphin dose was already waning. Each time I wondered why I imagined such things, so I would drive out of my mind all the scenes that had formed in my head and wait.

Not that ten minutes could cure me of the illness Sasha was talking about, of course.

It was not yet dawn. The city was sleeping, but I was wide awake. Resting would have been good for me, because that was going to be a busy day, but I couldn’t do it. From the balcony I could observe my life at the pace I would have liked. There were no interruptions in my nights, just plenty of time to think and to let Oliver’s ghost scare me.

He, in fact, had figured it out. He understood that I missed Nathan and in a way that was not normal. Finally, although I had known him for a short time, I felt that he had become part of my life. I kept his schedule in mind as if it had been mine: the plastics, the exam to give, the friend to worry about, and the cigarettes to buy because oh my God, I’ll get anxious without them.

I turned over in my hands a packet I found under the couch, which I had no idea how it got there. Inside, there were only two Marlboros.

Those two cigarettes, after all, looked like him and me. Two people so different, but at heart so much alike, meeting by chance and beginning to share a piece of their lives. Just like those two Marlboros, who ended up in the same pack by mere chance and were destined to stay together until someone or something separated them.

I slipped one out and peered at it. I was immediately reminded of Nathan’s lips, barely moistening the filter. I gripped it with my thumb and index and brought it closer to my mouth, dry as few could be.

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