she stared as if into a mirror - expecting the same but discovering something new.
her instincts told her to hold the expression. she could not. she scanned across
the room... A CIGARETTE.
"where is my goddamn lighter? i can never find it when i need it. oh hell i
shouldn't be smoking anyway."
evasiveness always came that easily for her. her issues were sitting in stacks,
somewhere. they never really entered her mind. this time would be no different.
"i wish it didn't have to be like this." she put down the cigarette.
"it's just, oh, i don't know. it's just not right, you know."
it was then that i noticed how ugly she was. not her face. not her hair. not
her figure. those aren't what distinguished her from the rest. it was her posture
that was ugly. her attitude. and her words were always--always--ugly. suddenly i
didn't feel horrible for what i had done, for what i had said. i left the room,
along with my guilt, in that room, somewhere between her jumbled belongings and
her jumbled words. as it turns out, she and i were exactly the same person.