“I love you, you know,” she whispered, her soft voice amplified in the dark, bouncing off buildings and the cool, bumpy sidewalk against which she lay. She had closed her eyes to the harsh glare of the streetlight above her, long eyelashes against a pale cheek, light hair framing her delicate face and stopping at her delicate shoulders, where her not-so-delicate wardrobe began. As he puffed on a cigarette beside her, she could hear his breathing, and imagined the smoke curling up the light, an inebriated, translucent moth, frozen in the chill of this night, before she continued. “I have for a while now, actually.”

He resisted the urge to cough, refusing to act as if she surprised him with this announcement. Instead, he carefully reached for the curb of the sidewalk, hiding his actions—as if she could see him, as if her imagination could fabricate anything about him beyond his olive-tint skin and sturdy frame, his dark hair and dress, his cigarette and soda. He braced himself against the force of her words, against the gale wind that suddenly drove them apart.

Relaxing, slumping, he smiled sadly, chuckled. He turned these sad eyes to her tired ones, admired her reclining form, draped across neon fliers that were now obsolete anachronisms, the beer bottle—one of many—that she had let fall into the gutter.

Months ago, he had traded in his traditional concert beers for cigarettes and caffeine, and she quietly compensated for the alcohol he declined to imbibe. Now, she was the only one sleeping during their customary post-concert sidewalk naptime.

“I guessed,” he replied, nuances of sarcasm affecting his voice. His lips were spewing smoke as he spoke, and the moth hovered under the light again—but this time a real wind whistled and blew it off course. She could hear his cigarette fall faintly into the gutter; hear his sneaker crushing it, grinding it into the street. “You missed your chance, though.”

She moved into a sitting position, head spinning, with the waltz of their cadence of speech influencing her physically. Her eyes fluttered open, only to squint at the acrid smoke that persistently erupted from his mouth.

“I guessed,” she echoed, remorsefully. She laid a dainty hand upon his face, turned it towards her own, and kissed him. The hand fell to his shoulder, and she pushed herself into a standing position. She looked down at him one last time, narrowly avoiding an earthquake as she did so. She looked back up, towards the darkened street.

She left.

He pulled out another cigarette.