Fire

     "Are you gonna pass that, or what?" He asked in that smart-ass tone of his.
      "Sorry," she said. Then she took another long toke before handing it over. She knew that would piss him off. Lately, she got more pleasure from making him annoyed than she got from having sex with him. He took his turn and then tried to pass it back to her, but she was done.
      She was done in so many ways. The clarity of thought that settled over her as the marijuana closed down the anxious parts of her mind was giving her the courage to tell him she was finished with this. Even when she was high though, she couldn't look into those sky blue eyes of his and be brave. Something about them, the coldness of their color, or maybe even the coldness that radiated through them from inside him was intimidating to her, so she wrapped her arms around herself and said, "It's cold out here."
      They were sitting in the back yard by a little fire they had built together. The frigid winter air swirled around them, chilling their backs while the fire roasted their cheeks. The dog whimpered at a squirrel before he gave a heavy sigh and settled down at her feet in front of the fire. Even the dog seemed to know that something besides the smoke from their fire was making it hard to breathe.
      It seemed like a long time passed before anyone spoke again, but then, the weed sort of messes with a person's perception of time, so it could have only been a moment. She kept sitting there looking for words to say but nothing came to her. What do you say when everything has already been said?
      "I'm thinking about going to Montana for the summer," he said.
      "Montana? What's in Montana?"
      "A ranch. I think I'm going to go out there and work for the summer."
      "Oh."
      They both kept staring into the fire, as if the other weren't even there but she wanted to check out his expression.  She felt like he was looking for some sort of reaction from her but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
      "That would be a great thing for you, Babe," she said, enthusiastically.
      "You mean you don't care if I go away for two months?"
      "I didn't say that. But if you want to go, you should go."
      "So it doesn't bother you?"
      "I guess I'm not happy about not seeing you for two months, but I mean, what can I say? If you want to go you're going to go so I might as well be supportive."
      She picked up a stick and poked at the fire. Who was he anyway, to bring up something like that just to get a rise out of her? She knew this was another one of his wicked tricks. One of his hoops that he held up to see if she would jump through it. Not this time.
      "I'm going to go watch some TV," he announced abruptly as he tossed the the roach into the fire. "You comin' in?"
      "I'll be in in a bit. I want to sit by the fire a little longer. The dog can stay with me."
      She sat there for a long time, watching the fire morph from one shade of orange to the next, her eyes burning from the smoke so badly that she couldn't tell if she was crying or not. "Sooner or later they all disappoint you," she said to the dog. He looked up at her as if he understood.
         Over head the stars dotted the night sky the way her freckles had dotted her face when she was a girl. A person can feel so small, she thought, when they look up and see how vast the sky really is. She wondered if she really mattered to anyone at all--she knew she didn't matter to him. She wondered why it was, that even though she had so many people in her life, she couldn't help but feel horrible about herself because this ONE person didn't see her worth.
      As the fire died down the air wrapped around her, getting colder and colder, until finally even the dog was shivering. She stirred the embers one last time and called the dog to follow her in. Her man met her at the back door, crooked grin applied to his lips, and stepped aside as she walked in. It was that evil grin he couldn't hide when he was getting pleasure from her pain. She came so close to telling him to just leave. To leave and never come back. But he half-heartedly hugged her and she made the mistake of looking up into his cold blue eyes as she pulled away. The decision was made, but the words would have to come another day.