SWEET CREATURE//steve harrington

SIX

VIVIAN'S HEAD FELT LIKE SOMEONE HAD TAKEN A SLEDGEHAMMER TO IT. She didn't have any idea why; she'd only taken a sip or two of her drink last night before it got slopped all over her. Maybe she'd smoked too late. Or stayed up too late in general. Or maybe she needed another cigarette. She fumbled in her skirt pocket for her pack and lighter. Her skirt was stiff and stained with light red. God dammit, Billy.

She cracked open her window and sat on the sill, half of her body outside, her feet resting on the slanted roof. The cold air sent goosebumps up her bare legs and made her shiver. She lit her cigarette and just held it there, her head throbbing. The tree next to her window had covered the roof with a layer of crunchy leaves. Shit, Vivian realized. It's November already.

Running a hand through her tangled, sticky, frazzled hair, Vivian put the cigarette to her lips and inhaled. Her head was still aching dully, but it ebbed. She always smoked more when it was colder.

She saw the school bus coming down the road as she blew out smoke into the morning chill. Harper ran down the sidewalk, red hair flopping on her forehead. Vivian whistled, and Harper whipped her head around, squinting. "Vivian!" H yelled, stomping her foot. "Are you really gonna be late to school giving yourself lung cancer?" Vivian flipped her off, grinning, and the bus pulled up to their driveway, squealing to a stop. Harper threw her head back laughing, and her red hair and purple windbreaker disappeared into the yellow school bus.

Vivian's headache faded away as she finished her cigarette, the sun rising higher in the sky, the morning growing colder and thinner by the second. Her feet tingled, and her toes began to lose feeling. Vivian snuffed out the glowing stub that was left in the ashtray on her window sill. Steve had actually made it in freshman ceramics.

"It looks like dogshit," Steve had laughed, pushing away his purple blob of a failed project. Vivian wheezed, picking it up and turning it over in her hands. "It's kinda crappy," she'd admitted. "But I like it. It has a real Grimace vibe." Steve held out his hands, surrendering it to her. "Then by all means, take it. Get it as far out of my line of sight as possible."

In reality, her windowsill hadn't been terribly far from his line of sight. Not when he had been up in her room every Saturday morning, studying for chemistry. Vivian pushed down the butt of her cigarette harshly, trying to squash the fluttery feeling rising up in her chest. They'd had good times. But that era of their lives was clearly over, and she wasn't one to painfully reminisce. Nevertheless, a needling voice in her mind brought forth the memory of last night.

There had been something there.

Vivian twisted into the ashtray harder, involuntarily. She gritted her teeth. There was something there, the inner voice repeated. You saw it yourself. Vivian tried to push the memory of their conversation out of her head. But she couldn't. She remembered how he'd looked at her. Like no time had passed. "I knew you'd follow me out here." And he'd thanked her. She couldn't shake away the sight of him smiling at her, like nothing else mattered, but the two of them, right then, right there. He always had a way of doing that, of making her forget. She wished she could forget right now.

Finally, she pushed the ashtray away from her and swung her legs back through the window, into her room. Feeling rushed back into her feet. She was already going to be late. And she wanted coffee.

꧁♡꧂

Vivian settled back against the worn fabric of the seat. The cab of her truck was stifling; she cracked the window, the thin air of the morning cutting through straight to her lungs. Unfolding the newspaper she'd picked up that morning, it was clear that the town was back to its mundane reports. However, on page two, she noticed a familiar furry face. Mews, Dustin's cat, was missing. She took a sip of coffee. Dee's words from earlier that week rang in her mind. This damned town is cursed.