Ten Years Later.

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Five steps left and I’m counting each one.

Four.

Five flights in I was having second thoughts on taking the stairs up. Five steps left I’m cursing myself and cursing the bags of groceries hanging from my hands.

Three.

And I’m muttering around each breath. I think it’s the only thing keeping me going at this point - the only thing I consist of must be swear words by this point.

Two.

And all I can think about is that I only have one more step after this one.

One.

And my toe scrapes on the lip of the stair – my whole trip flashes through my head. I’m so sure I’m going to just collapse down at least three flights of stairs and end up choking on some of the celery stalks on my way and that’s how they’ll find me; a crumpled heap stuffed with vegetables.

Zero!

I lean against the wall to try and gulp down some stabilizing breaths, but then I start getting self-conscious of all the noise I’m making. I close my mouth and just hiss through my nose, making the last few steps down the hall to my door.

I drop the keys and I’m muttering again, putting one of the grocery bags on the ground – a relief that I swear is almost as good as any orgasm I’ve had. I swear. I don’t hear Kevin in there as I’m sliding the key in, but he better be in there. I didn’t just walk up twelve flights of stairs to put these groceries away on my own. Plus he needs to know I walked up twelve flights of stairs! Who else will share in this victory? Not the cat I’m not allowed to have because of this fucking archaic ruleset in this fucking buil-

Click.

There we go, door’s open, and I have to turn the light on. “Shit,” I hiss and bend to pick up the grocery bag on the floor. He’s not here.

I get the bags onto the island counter, pushing aside some dishes in the process, trying to ignore the bit of shaking in my arms with this last bit of effort. A detail I’ll be sure to drop when I tell Kevin about the triumphant climb.

The phone’s blinking at me from the other side of the counter. I let it keep blinking for a while, knowing what’s waiting for me in the messages before I even make it over and dial in our inbox and password.

“You have… one… new message. Press –“

“Beep.”

“Hey, Stace. Yeah, I’m not coming in for dinner. Things ran late and I’m just gunna hit a pub with Jeff and the guys and get some food instead of fightin’ rush hour. Sooo… yeah. Don’t wait up! I’ll b—“

“Beep.”

It’s weird that I’m still surprised by shit like this. It’s weird that I still care.

Fuck him, then. He can deal with a counter full of dehydrating vegetables. I’m not a housewife tonight. Tonight I climbed fifteen flights of steps. Tonight I’m a champion.

I root around in my purse, find the secret pocket and unzip it, pulling out the pack of smokes. I almost – for just an instant – think about smoking it right here, out in the open, where he’d be sure to smell when he got home. Be sure to get angry about.

I open the sliding glass door out to the cold-footed concrete patio, wearing a cardigan I grabbed on my way through the living room – trying not to think about how I forgot what row I was in with the stockinette stitch at the bottom of the cardigan so now the pattern bunches up in the left bottom corner and I was almost done the damn thing and didn’t want to turn back but now it haunts me to this day.

The wind is harsh out here, and loud. I’m greeted by my dead plants and a single, rain-stained plastic lounge chair. The mass of the city is stretching out through the black railings of the porch, a swathe of lights and windows, moving dots of white and red in the streets, the face of another high-rise across and to the right – more porches and windows looking back at me.

Leaning bare flesh on the railing makes me hiss – it should not be this cold still. Doesn’t March count for anything anymore? I tap out a cigarette from my secret pack and it takes a couple tries to light it - the wind is so interfering – but once it’s lit I hold that first drag in, feeling it crawl around in my chest and take root before I exhale. Slow and deliberate, and I breath a sigh, leaning heavily on the railing with the first grin I think I’ve had all night.

I’m in the middle of my second pull from the cigarette when I hear a cough. I freeze, spinning some excuses on my tongue, when I realize the cough was far too high-pitched to be Kevin.

I glance to the side, around the concrete wall, and see a pair of thin legs dangling from the balcony next door. A pair of thin arms wrapped around the railings. Strands of long dark hair tossing in the wind.

“Hello?”

There’s a pause while the thin-legs-and-arms-and-hair does nothing. And then – “Can I get one of those?”

She sounds like her limbs look – reedy. Young.

“I’m sorry?”

“Can I bum one of your smokes?” she insists.

At this point I’m pretty sure it’s a trap, and I’m glancing around for parents or Kevin or some sort of authority. Is this a fine-able offence? “Uh…”

“You’re the one that came out to smoke. I was here first – and I can’t stand cigarette smoke unless I’m smoking too, y’know?”

I try my best to peer through the concrete wall separating our balconies, to see if anyone’s with her. “Are your parents there?”

“Nah, ‘course not.”

I pass a cigarette and the lighter around the concrete wall – I see her thin arms reach up for it and and pull it within the railings. The cold metal railing oranges up from the lighter and I see a puff of smoke come out, and then the thin arms are passing the lighter back.

“Thanks.”

I tuck it back into the creased cigarette pack. “No problem.”

Leaning against the railing again, my eyes roam the city and I can hear her say, “It’s not like you’re givin’ me my first smoke or nothin’, so don’t feel guilty, right?”

“I’m not,” I tell her. “How old are you?”

“Why, how old are you?”

And I shrug, feeling a lash of the wind cutting through the poorly-made-cardigan. “It’s just that I first smoked when I was probably around your age too. So I’m not surprised.”

There’s a pause before, “Oh.”

I end up hearing a few spatters of raindrops hitting the metal railing before I feel one on my shoulder. “Dammit,” I hiss, pulling away from the railing. “It’s starting to rain.”

“Yeah, I know,” and I can see her feet, wrapped in striped wool socks, kick as they dangle from the edge of her patio. “That’s why I came out. Why’d you come out?”

“To smoke.”

“Well why don’t you just smoke inside?”

Glancing at the dirty patio seat and it’s speckled, sunken plastic, I decide to lean against the cold concrete wall instead. At least I’m out of the rain. “Because my boyfriend would kill me if he knew I was smoking again,” I tell her.

“He doesn’t know?” I can hear her taking another drag, and she sounds 13, and I start to feel guilty I gave her a smoke in the first place.

“Do your parents?”

“Still,” and she exhales, “it’s different, right? I mean, he’s not your dad.”

“It’s a relationship with a guy you love,” I shrug, realizing she can’t see me. “Only you sleep with your boyfriend.”

“That’s so gross.”

I cackle a bit around my cigarette, inhaling. “What, sleeping with your boyfriend?” Exhale. “Maybe you are too young for that smoke.”

“God,” and I swear I can hear her rolling her eyes. “No. I don’t even have a boyfriend.”

“Eh. You’ll learn.”

“Learn what?”

The spattering of raindrops seems to have spread out a bit, the threat of full-on rain holding off for now, so I go back to leaning on the railing, breathing in a nose-full of wind and city. “That your parents are going to be as good of a relationship as you’re going to get.” I rub at my temple, sniffing at the crisp air. “You hide things from them, they try to control you, and chances are you won’t really know much about each other in the end. But they’ll look after you and protect you. Ten years later you’ll realize how good you actually had it.”

She’s silent for a bit, and out the corner of my eye I can see her legs hanging, arms wrapped around the railing, trail of smoke drifting out into the air. The hand with her cigarette disappears from view between the railings as she draws a breath of it.

“What if your parents beat you or somethin’?” she says around an exhale of smoke.

“Mm? Do they?”

“Mine? No. I’m just sayin’.”

And I’m secretly relieved, because I wouldn’t know who to call about child abuse, and really wasn’t looking forward to all the awkward conversations that would have come out of that. “Then I guess you’re lucky, because you’ll think your boyfriend’s the best.”

“Pfft, whatever!”

She’s definitely too young to be talked to like this. I shouldn’t have said anything. Shouldn’t have given her that smoke. I need to change the subject. “I walked up nine flights of stairs today,” and when I say the truth of nine flights, it doesn’t feel so epic.

“Okay.”

Defeated.

There’s a rumble in the clouds and the rain starts up a little harder again. I pull away from the railing, watching the slashes of rain starting to strike through the sky.

“So why’d you come out when you knew it was going to start raining?” I ask her. “Are you some kinda goth girl?”

She scoffs at me. “Yeah, like you’d know what that is, right?”

“What, you think goth girls are some new invention?”

“No, I mean – you are one, Miss ‘Relationships Suck’.”

“I didn’t say they sucked. I’m just saying…they’re not what you think.”

“Or they’re not what you think,” I hear her say.

And I chew on that for a bit.

“Yeah. I guess not.”

I notice the heat on my fingers and I glance down to see the end of my cigarette looming. Reaching my hand around to the outside of the railing, I snuff the end out against the metal, away from where anyone can see the damage. From where Kevin can see any damage. “Well, that’s enough freezing my ass off for cancer for one day.”

“Hey, thanks for the smoke,” I hear her say.

“No problem. I won’t tell your dad.”

“Heh. I won’t tell yours either. Seeya around.”

When I close the door behind me and I’m back inside, the silence is sudden. I flick the TV on as I pass it to the kitchen, stepping open the trash can lid. Some sitcom is blasting away behind me, a dad walking in, a crowd laughing. I hold the cigarette butt over the trash can, just looking down at some old coffee grounds and expired bread.

Fuck it. I shrug to no one, and step off the pedal. The trash can lid slaps back down and I just put the butt down on the counter. Fuck it. I’ll let him deal with this truth.

I’ve got to worry about what I’m having for dinner.