Stale Smoke In A Running Circle

The arm is slowly going on my neck and being trailed, well, the fingers are, slowly trailing up and down as the rear window is too cold and air is now the smell of stale beer. I just look sideways to see nothing besides my hair trailing everything on my skin, maybe making a suicide attempt, not enough alcohol was bought with the low amount of money and need to at least buy a night bus ticket.

I get out in the middle of nowhere those places which are far from London and have Waitrose somewhere tucked in the high street with pharmacies for whatever reason making their own lives and countrysides of sorts.

I sit.

I wait for another night bus, lighting a cigarette and breathing out the smoke, wondering when would the bus arrive and the smoke of beer is still stale and you cuddle yourself feeling the medicine of the night, the chill going in as a teenager walks and sits besides me.

I just keep smoking.

“Can I have a cigarette, ma’m?” He asks me, brown eyes locked on me, baggy clothing.

I nod, figuring that the age gap should be about three or so years, making him in the golden teenage years.

I light him a cigarette and give it to him. He inhales, maybe coughs a little and hides it.

“Are you from London? Not the prettiest place to be, you live here or visiting? The pub on the high street is shit.” He says now smoking or faking it real.

I just don’t do anything instead I wonder if he will continue bragging but he doesn’t.

“Are you even old enough to go in there?” I ask, chewing on my cigarette before taking a long drag, wondering what the fuck would Jamie be doing, awake or not.

“No, but they just don’t bother IDing you.” Seemed like a lie to me, but then there should be some places, I came here old enough to drink.

We don’t say anything, but I wonder if I should have asked if people were drunk on the bus or were it some type of stale beer in the end. I look up to see the stars shake and fall as I open my mouth to catch them and the teenager just sits besides me.

“I’m Alex.” He says. I’m I his first girl attempt, but instead I keep my tongue sticking out.

He thinks I’m drunk but I’m sober against the sun and I dig in my hands into the plastic bench and he keeps staring, maybe I’m a crush already or in his head I’m developing into something else. My hair is barely reaching my shoulders and it looks straight enough today and the old leather jacket is Jamie’s from many years ago which I had taken on the way out, wanting Jamie as he had been doing breakfast for the girlfriend all over.

My bus arrives but Alex takes it anyway.

We both drop the cigarettes and we’re back to the stale smoke and I see a beer can, I feel tempted to drink from the liquid but I don’t and after a while, Alex offers a can he’s got himself, his arm going around my neck and it feels like London all of a sudden only I’ve got a clingy teenager instead of a grown man.

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