"Oh my god, can you believe this?

She stares out the window at the cold grey rain drizzling down the windows. "What shitty weather." She lights another cigarette and gives me an annoyed look when I let out a sigh. The girl's an addict through and through, and I've given up on trying to get her to quit, but I can't help protesting when she smokes. Pulling the smoke deep into her lungs, she holds it in as she stares out at the rain dismally. "What a way to start the day, huh?" she comments, and blows a thick stream towards the window that I always insist she open. Just because she smokes in my house doesn't mean it has to smell. Though when she leaves there's always a faint scent of nicotine left, usually in the bedroom, that makes me think of her.

I look at her while she glares at the clouds. Thinking. It's a bad habit of mine.
I turn over the same old track. I hardly ever think about much else these days. It always starts with the usual, "What am I going to do about you?" And no matter how long I spend on that question, I can't find an answer.

I met her in a class at the community college. She was outside in the dark. Smoking, of course. I wouldn't have paid much more attention than any other good-looking college girl, but she made eye contact with me. So I stopped, thinking I'd talk, nothing more than that. It was those eyes, I swear. They drew me in. Well, that and the fact that no one else had ever bothered to meet my gaze in quite some time. We exchanged the basic information. Names, why we were there, you know the bit. She was taking night courses because she couldn't affored full-time college. I was a bored 20-something trying to "improve my life." Her ride had bailed, so she was waiting for the bus. I offered her a ride, and she looked me up and down, deemed me as harmless, and said, "Why the hell not?"

To be honest, I was almost insulted how quickly she decided I was neutral. But as I was following her directions I noticed how thin she was. How tired she looked. The way she was shaking slightly, and how her hands trembled in her lap. She was only wearing a jean jacket, and didn't have a purse with her. Her shirt was an old volley-ball team jersey that was almost too small, and her jeans obviously hadn't been washed in a little while. She caught me glancing over at her and asked, "what?" in a defensive voice. "When was the last time you ate?" I asked at casually as I could. Her eyes scanned back and forth as she searched through her mind. Her answer, "Two days ago," almost made me hit the breaks involuntarily, but I kept my cool and suggested, "You feel like stopping for a bite? I'm kinda hungry, myself, and there's a pretty decent diner coming up." She studied me for a second from behind her art-student glasses, then nodded cautiously, "yeah, sure."

I pulled into the parking lot. It was one of those old places that's just a trailer with a kitchen attatched to the back. We went inside and sat down in the old vinyl booths. The waitress handed us menus and went back to talking to the cook, and I watched her scan the list, calculating the costs and comparing them to whatever cash she had in her pockets. I mentioned to her over my menu, "Oh, don't worry about the price, I'm buying." She gave me a quick look, then nodded warily. "All right."

We gave our orders when the waitress came back around, then sat in silence for a couple seconds, studying each other across the table. Her hands fidgeted, then she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of Newports and lit up. Tapping the ash into the tray, she looked at me and squinted her eyes. "What?" I asked her. She gazed at me for a little bit longer, then sat back with her hands on the table top and blinked. "What do you want?" I just half smirked and cocked my head to the side. "Look at yourself. You're tiny. Skinny. You're shakey and you obviously aren't taking care of yourself very well. Am I that much of a dick for wanting to feed you?" Anger flashed in her eyes, and she snapped ash into the glass tray as she told me, "I'm not a fucking charity case." I laughed at her.

"How old are you, seventeen?" I asked her. "Nineteen." She rapped out. "You?"

"Twenty seven. And no, I'm not out score. Consider this my good day for the deed and shut up and eat. Our food's here." She glared at me again and said, "Fine. Since you're paying, I'll have an order of fries, another hamburger, and a hot chocolate, too." The waitress jotted it down and went back to place the order. I just smiled and ate my meal, watching her tear into the food in front of her. She ended up eating more as the night went on, and eventually she calmed down enough to talk to me.

She was living on a couch in a friend's cousin's apartment, didn't have a job or a car, and the only reason why she was going to college at all was because her parents thought she was "doing something with her life." She hated them. She wasn't sure if she hated me. She'd come out of rehab for cocaine last year, and hadn't had a real place to stay in god knows how long. She cursed beautifully and despised "the fuckers that put in that god-damned Tom Petty song" in the jukebox at the end of aisle because it had been her ex-boyfriend-and-dealer's favorite.

By the time we left it was three in the morning, so I offered her my couch and breakfast in the morning. She agreed, and I drove us home and showed her around a bit. She crashed out and was dead to the world before I'd left the room, and as I got into bed I couldn't help but wonder what the hell I was doing. Here was this young, mixed-up girl I'd just met tonight on a fluke of instinct, and she was sleeping in my living room. I'd just met her, had only known her maybe six hours, tops, and already thoughts were drifting through my head about how I could get around my landlord and let her stay here. I don't know if it was pity, or some other fucked up idea about saving a life or some shit like that, but for some reason I wanted to... well, I wanted to save her.

The trouble was, I wasn't sure how kindly she'd take getting saved. She was young, but she was independant. Her pride was strong, her fate was unsure, her life was random, her eyes were blue, her voice was harsh, her addiction was strong, her personality was magnetic, her looks were attractive, her face was tragic, and her story was echoing in my head.

Her name was Daisy.

In the end, I just ended up calling her my crazy.