On the first day of kindergarten the blonde girls in taut pigtails whispered to each other when they saw me. They sneered at my brown skin and abruptly chopped black hair. They wrinkled their noses at my aromatic lunch packed meticulously by my grandma.
I felt different.
At sixteen we lay on my bedroom floor and the smoke from our cigarettes sculpted itself into a ballerina and danced away. When the record paused, she ran her fingers along my bare back. I glanced at her bony hand painted with chipped black polish. She didn’t mind when my lipstick wasn’t smeared on right or if my parents chased her out of my house when they caught us. We inhaled as many cigarettes as we could, tallying the days they stole from us on our wrists.
It felt nice to be different.
Soon after, I met you at a bus stop as I chased her around the country. You gave me your sleeping bag in exchange for me throwing out my cigarettes. You had qualms with all the days they stole. You listened to my stories about her. We chased her around the country, hoping to find her before she ran out of days to tally. I called my parents one night, like you said I should. They told me they’d seen her crawl back to town. She made regular visits to the drug store in search of a smoke. I could picture her lying on my bedroom floor, an unlit cigarette in her bony hand.
It felt nice to be indifferent.
