The Journal of Rice Granger 12-4-14
I started smoking in high school because I was trying to impress a girl. The girl only lasted a year, but the smoking… well, that’s lasted ten more already, and it’s still going strong. It’s the only long-term relationship I’ve been able to lay claim to. There’s a lesson in there for all you kids, so pay attention to it.
The woman I’m with now, she’s a smoker too. I think this is part of why everything is going so well between us. We fight and argue, but when it’s all over, we share a cigarette and call a truce. Peaceful existence through nicotine. At least there’s one thing smoking is good for, right?
I met Lauren at a bar, which is funny since neither one of us drinks. I was with some of my friends, she was with some of hers, and we got together over a couple of games of pool, which is also funny, because neither one of us plays pool either. We both do smoke though, and when we went outside for a cigarette, we never went back into the bar.
That was two years ago.
Right now, I’m typing this from the passenger seat of Lauren’s car. We’re parked at the beach, trying to cram as much time together as we can right now. I’ve got a week until I’m going back on shift, and then I’m not getting off the boat for another week after that, and as much of a cliche as it sounds, it’s hard to go that long without seeing her. We don’t use the L word though. Don’t want to put a curse on a good thing.
Lauren is out of the car, taking pictures a hundred yards away. She’s got her camera wrapped in a plastic shopping bag (“to keep the sand out of it,” she told me), and she’s facing the sunset. I know it would be romantic to go out and watch the sun go down with her, but we go for romance as much as we go for the L word.
She’s the perfect woman.
It’s really too bad that she’s going to have to die.
But what Anastasia wants, Anastasia gets.