text: My mother’s hands have always smelled the same from as early as I can remember. I didn’t realize that the odor wasn’t a natural product of her skin until I tried my first cigarette, after which I scrubbed my hands raw in realization. I don’t condemn smoking for the health risks; I’m disgusted by it because it is something that can make me more like my mother. I stay away from therapists and cheap coffee for the same reason. It was the summer after senior year and my curfew was set strictly at midnight, so naturally I came home around one a.m. every morning. I snuck in the back entrance of the complex so mom wouldn’t notice me from her perch on our porch balcony. There are six rooms total in our two bedroom, second-floor apartment, but mom never seemed to inhabit any of them. She was always to be found in the solitary, nicotine-stained plastic lawn chair on the back porch, double diamond black between her index and middle fingers. She had switched to the two-dollar drug store brand when she could no longer afford to buy Marlboros and still put gas in her car. She had given up on putting food on the table a while back- sustaining herself only on a diet of 7-11 coffee, cigarettes, and a cocktail of anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. She stayed on the porch all day regardless of the weather; during the winter months she would just wrap a filthy old quilt around her. She had the vantage point of the second story stoop, yet could not seem to see beyond the lit tip of her favorite vice. She never noticed when I broke curfew. I drove around each night that summer in my 2005, midnight-blue Jeep Liberty. That car made me feel invincible. I got lost on purpose every chance I could just for the rush of finding my way back home. My journey was never fully complete until I found myself at a starry-skied beach. While during the day I would much prefer a quiet lake over crowded shores littered with perfectly tanned and sculpted bodies, at night the beach was my paradise. On a night beach, you can hear the rush of the waves in perfect serene, silent bliss. Along the coast, away from the worries of the city, the stars can finally win their battle against the streetlights. I visited at least ten different beach shores that summer during my nightly Jeep cruises, all without aid of smart phone, GPS, or map. I felt like a primitive explorer, finding my way using only intuition and street signs. The self-satisfaction I got from exploring was its own kind of high. I had just come out of a long-term relationship, and for the first time in my life I was truly free to be alone. I did not yet realize how precious a commodity this independence was, and like a child given a fragile glass trinket at too young an age to appreciate its beauty, I broke it. I gave my new-found freedom to the very next boy to come along. David and I had started dating back in the eighth grade. Throughout the years, as other young romances blossomed and faded around us, we were the couple everyone could count on to stay together. We won the yearbook’s “cutest couple” superlative in a near landslide. What I didn’t know at the time was that I had no frame of reference for what a healthy relationship should look like. I ignored all of his flaws, thinking, “Who else will ever love me?” The façade ended in April of our senior year when he suggested that we stay together through the summer, then go our separate ways in September so he could “play the field” in college. In my first real act of self-respect, I told him to end it there and then because “I would not be involved in a relationship stamped with an expiration date.” I relinquished this self-respect when I begged for him to take me back two days later, and again at a party the next week when I had my drunken friends harass him with midnight prank phone calls. I don’t regret what we had. Dave and I practically grew up together, and the entire relationship was a valuable and much-needed learning experience. But, I do regret how early I put myself into a very adult situation. By the age of 14 I thought I had found the man I would marry and have babies with, and was not shy in the least about telling him this. In actuality, we were both still children. This fact took me longer than I’d like to admit to learn, but Dave had known all along. “Did you really think I was serious about marrying you?” he said. “I don’t even think I know what love is.” While I was exploring on those summer nights in my midnight-blue Jeep Liberty, I tried not to replay every “I love you” in my head, each antidotal evidence of his cruelty. When you date someone for as long as we did, you make an innumerable amount of memories together. After the break-up, every song I heard, street I drove down, person or place I saw - everything and anything - was a painful reminder of Dave. When Jason started chatting with me through Facebook one day, out of the blue, I saw him as a welcomed distraction. “Hey,” he said. “We have a lot of friends in common. You just graduated this year, right?” We exchanged cell phone numbers and started texting. I interviewed him carefully, asking all of the most important questions I could think to ask a person. Mostly, they reflected my newfound “single-for-the-first-time-ever” independence, which could more appropriately be labeled as recklessness. “Do you like the sand between your toes?” and “Would you want to live in Paris just for the romance of it?” At the time, those were the important questions. Shortly after we began talking, he invited me to his birthday dinner. “A lot of our mutual friends will be there and it would mean a lot to me if you would go,” he said. “I’ll smoke you up, too.” Shockingly enough, I had first tried smoking weed just a few weeks before. Dave had always threatened to break-up with me if I talked about wanting to try it. Jason picked me up in a rusty blue Toyota Corolla, the back littered with annoying political bumper stickers; from, “If you’re not a libertarian, you’re not paying attention,” to “Honk if I’m paying your mortgage.” I tried to wipe off my disapproving look before I got into the passenger seat. We made awkward small talk on the ride to the restaurant. When we got to the parking lot, he packed and lit a small, glass, hand-painted bowl. “We’re going to smoke right here in broad daylight?” I asked. “Yeah, I don’t give a fuck about pigs,” he responded casually. Something about his demeanor told me that if a police officer ever questioned him, he’d probably shit his pants. I lit the bowl and took a hit, imagining I was a dragon while exhaling. I didn’t let myself cough to seem more impressive. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw that he was staring at me intently with squinty black eyes. “What?” I said. “Nothing. I just think it’s sexy when a girl can smoke,” he replied. “Oh.” I didn’t feel sexy. I felt hazy, lost, and uncomfortable about being alone in a car with a practical stranger. While I was deep in thought about how the old me would never do something like this, I felt a hand brushing my hair out of my face and behind my ear. As I looked up, a wet pair of lips came into contact with mine, immediately followed by a tongue down my throat. I was too taken aback to stop it. The next thing I knew, we were in the restaurant, and Jason was telling his friends that he and I were dating. We were dating? Who forgot to tell me? I couldn’t find the words to stop it. It was like I was a mute bystander, or perhaps an audience member watching some cliché teenage coming-of-age flick. The character on the screen was a separate entity from me, and I had no say in her life. I made myself snap out of this delusion a few days later. I told Jason we needed to talk, and he came to pick me up in all his bumper-stickered glory. “Jase, I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I’m ready for another relationship just yet,” I said. “Just give me a chance, Em. I know I can make you so happy. We can take it really slow.” It has always been difficult for me to say no to people. I tried, nonetheless, to protest again. “Jason, I really can’t -” He didn’t let me finish. “I am so depressed, Emily. I hate my life and everything about it. I’m not worth jack shit, and none of my so-called ‘friends’ give a fuck about me. I was thinking about killing myself on the day I messaged you on Facebook. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. But you responded. You saved me. Please. Don’t leave me.” His words were a wave that crashed over me, pulling me in and obligating me to stay. He refused my offers to help him find a professional to talk to. My mom knows plenty of therapists, I’d say, but it was a losing battle. I knew I would be guilt-ridden if I left and he followed through with his threat. He was the riptide and I was the lifeboat; as I fought to keep him afloat, he drowned me. I grew to hate him. I hated his deeply misinformed political activism, equipped only with tacky bumper stickers and social media rants. I hated his manners, or lack thereof. He was rude to wait staff at restaurants, who conveniently could not speak-up for themselves without putting their jobs in jeopardy. I hated how he made racist comments about passerby on the street only while locked safely inside his Corolla. I hated his completely see-through “tough guy” attitude. I hated how much he bragged about his job at Chuck-E-Cheese and his grades in community college. Worst of all, I hated how he smelled. I hated how sweat pooled above his upper lip. I hated how he looked at me. I hated how he shoved his tongue down my throat, and I hated how he tasted. I hated that he liked me. I hated how I was stuck with him solely because I did not want to be responsible for him taking his own life. We never went on formal dates. He always picked me up late at night, drove to some vacant parking lot somewhere, packed a bowl, and attacked my lips with his. The cycle was monotonous and exhausting. He made me hate being alive. One night, he asked what I wanted to do. Excited to finally have a choice in the matter, I picked the one thing I loved more than anything. We set off to the beach on a long overdue midnight Jeep cruise. To my dissatisfaction, he insisted upon using an iPhone GPS app. We took highways instead of back roads and arrived much sooner than necessary. “Let’s sit and stargaze,” I said. “Please, Jase? Please just this once?” ​“Why don’t we put the seats down and lay in the back of the truck?” he responded. ​“Because I don’t have a sunroof so we won’t be able to see the sky. And I can’t get sand between my toes in here.” The beach parking lot was deserted. ​“Come on Em. I don’t want to get sandy. Let’s just stay in here.” Shortly after, the back seats were folded down and we were lying beside each other. He kept telling me how I was the only thing that made him happy. I wished my Jeep was a boat that could take me far, far away. Before I knew it, his tongue was back in my mouth. But this time, he was climbing on top of me. He was pulling his clothes off and trying to do the same to mine. “Jason, what are you doing?” ​“Shhh, just enjoy it. I want to make you feel good.” ​“But I don’t - ” ​“Em, relax. Just let the high kick in and you’ll be fine.” ​Again, I saw it happen like an audience member. Only this time, it was a very different genre of movie. I saw the clothes come off. I saw a condom being retrieved from a wallet. I saw my legs parted, and the distant stare in my starry brown eyes. I saw his satisfaction. I saw myself wishing that Jason had killed himself instead. ​When it was over I, alone, stepped out of my midnight blue serenity and walked until I felt the sand, soft and cool beneath my toes. It was far past one a.m. I looked to the moon and imagined my mother looking at it from her nicotine-stained, plastic, porch balcony lawn chair.