When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder.

The smoke you exhale does not spiral or cloud or trail away above our heads like a fading gray steam engine on the horizon's edge; it's nothing beautiful like Bilbo's perfect rings floating toward the Shire or sexy like the thin wisps still caressing Sandy's lips as she pouts at grease-slicked Danny. Instead, it permeates the space between us and hangs sluggishly before dissipating. With each exhale the scene repeats. Like a man smelling a woman's perfume, I inhale deeply to feel close to you.

 I am ashamed of myself.

 "For such a sweet, intelligent woman you are full of shit."
 ...Words replay in my head.
 "Honesty is a virtue, Ashley." .

..You laugh, snippets of conversation run together into a surprisingly cohesive map of me.

"You tell me you can't trust anyone, but you're the untrustworthy one.
Your ego...
Did you mean anything you said?
That's what people with CONTRITION do.
Cause and effect.
Why do you pretend to be innocent and naive?
I'll make this easy on you.
 This is not about me. It's about you.
Passion is not fleeting.
You just move on to the better model. I do that with things...not people.
I know a liar when I see one."

 Fifteen-year-old me ran into the night, rain and tears and bare feet slapping the pavement as my mother screamed out the door, "You're a liar! You're being a little bitch!"

I fell asleep resting my head on a cold toilet seat. At that moment I remembered a quote from Catcher in the Rye: “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” It's amazing how disillusioned innocence can make a person.
"Trust, Shuff", you said. I would not.

 You throw the remains of cigarette into a cooking pot littered with ashes and butts, pull your knees down from your chest and look at me. You've won. Everything you've said is correct. Do you win a prize? Do you feel smug knowing that you've caught a liar, a heartless shell of a girl, a flake, a phony? When I like something, I love it. This is what I meant by passionate. It is not fleeting; it is exhausting, depressing, maddening. I feel too much, I run away, I feel too much, I run away.
Believe me or not, I care (but you probably won't believe that either, so what does it matter?)