Where there's smoke.. by JaNae Boswell (ebook reader ink txt) 📖

Why her hair held a hint of grey, I will never know? She was just too young, too fresh, and above all too damn beautiful to have the hints of silvering grey strands that danced between all those red waves. But it was like watching the waves from the ocean roll in with the reflection of the blazing sunset bouncing off of them. Her name was Tiffany and she was breathtakingly gorgeous. She didn’t have the type of beauty like other girls her age, they were all boring, ditzy and slutty; Tiffany was so much more.
She was tall, about 5’9 and slender in the sense as she could be a model if she really wanted to. Her skin was a creamy pale like whipped frozen butter; it looked absolutely delicate and velvety. Her eyes were stunningly blue. They were a sparkling but dull blue, almost silver like her hair and held hint of azure. She had an oval face with a speck of few light red freckles that played on her narrow nose. Her cheeks were naturally blushed and her long eye lashes accentuated her striking depths.
I watched her from afar knowing that I would never have a chance with her; she didn’t even see me. Tiffany was a considered a cherry, a group of the hottest girls in high school and the most popular. They were all cheerleaders and the first of the girls in high school to lose their virginities, hence the name cherries. The cherry girls were popular, cheerleaders, members of the student council, prom royal sluts the whole shebang. I still didn’t understand why Tiffany was part of that group. Those girls were nothing like Tiffany, she was so much more; she just didn’t know it.
She wasn’t bitchy like the other girls. She was far from conceited. Though she did fuck anything with a dick it wasn’t for the reasons the other girls did. They did it for popularity, to win prom votes or just to be sluts I suppose. Tiffany did it because she wanted to feel beautiful. She wasn’t like the other girls, no, Tiffany was sweet, funny and caring, absolutely perfect. She was total opposite of those other cock gobbling, egocentric, air heads. Sure she had her fun with different guys but that didn’t mean she was a whore like the other girls. She had her reasons for what she did.
In a way she was blind, yes that beautiful creature with those breathtaking eyes was blind, oblivious to her own beauty.
She lived right next door to me and I would watch her through my window, she was truly exquisite. In the morning she would stop and stare in the mirror before she left for school. It wasn’t a self-absorbing, conceited stare but more of an unaware of her beauty gaze. Sometimes when she would look at herself, her head would turn in confusion. Other times she would look so deeply at herself, it was as if she was trying to see into her soul or figure out who she was.
I knew a lot about her even though we had never talked. Her father was a drunk that he beat her mother when she was younger until her mother finally left her at the age of 8. Maybe that’s why she slept around to feel beautiful because growing up she never heard the words, “You’re gorgeous.” I would have told her she was beautiful every day if given the chance, but I never was.
I knew that her middle name was Grey which was also her favorite color. She loved the smell of smoke and always lit up a match, blew it out then smelled it in her room. Also that she lost her virginity freshman year at the age of 14. We were both 18 now and seniors; I had lived next to her my entire life but still she didn’t know me. She knew I stared at her though because she caught me a several times.
There were times when her friends would tease her saying “Look Tiffany, scary Jerry is staring at you again.” Then they would all cackle like the witches they were.
She would sometimes say “Don’t call him that you guys,” or “Girls seriously, grow up.” Then she would look at me but the look never held anything more than what I took as pity. Yeah, she pitied me as most people did, even though none of them knew me.
I was a loser, an outcast, a weirdo, actually what I really was, was invisible. She was liked by everyone, loved by some; and no one could blame her. Tiffany was thoughtful, charming, stylish and funny. Guys wanted to fuck her and girls wanted to be her, she was without a doubt perfect.
Today I was staring at her from my locker. She was wearing a grey dress that was tight on her skinny frame but flowing from her slim waist down. When she walked she moved gracefully, like smoke. Yes, that’s exactly what she looked like, smoke; swirling and dancing elegantly. Weaving and twirling down the hall, she giggled and laughed with her friends. She was impossible not to watch and as graceful as a butterfly. Tiffany was flirty, blowing kisses to guys as she smiled and flipped her hair. Then she seen me and I hadn’t mean for her to but she did and I couldn’t look away from her gaze.
Her eyes were soft and tender as she laughed walking toward me. Still smiling and talking to her friends she glanced away now and then but always back to my gawking eyes. I can imagine how I was staring at her, eyes wide with bewildering amazement, like a dandelion staring up at the sun. I thought she was just going to walk right past me like usual. It was as though I was invisible because to her I was; hell I was to everyone.
Then she did, she walked right past me like she normally did, not saying anything to me. I just turned back to my locker. I was getting ready to grab my coat and head home because I was done for the school day, when I heard it. It was the most beautiful voice in my existence, like a chime or a music note from my favorite song.
“Why do you always stare at me?” the voice said making me jump and my pulse speed up.
I looked into my locker mirror and that’s when I seen her. She was all picturesque and smoky in the reflection. Hair was like a reddish grey ocean, the waves spilling around her angelic face and gentle curious eyes. I had to blink for a second and shake my head to make sure the moment was real; it wasn’t until I turned around that I knew it was. Yes, she was real, all that beauty and she was still real. I must have looked scared out of my mind because I felt sweat building up on my head which was dizzy as I stared at her.
“Well, why were you staring at me?” she said calmly shrugging her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” I said so quietly I barely heard it myself.
“What?” she said as curiosity fell on her red eyebrows.
“I’m sorry,” I paused and cleared my throat “it’s just you looked like,” I paused again stuttering nervously “well,” I stopped looking down at the ground.
“I looked like what?” she said bowing her head a little trying to bring my eyes from the floor to her.
“It’s just your dress and when you walk. You look positively graceful. You looked like smoke rising like from a lit Marlboro cigarette or something,” I said quietly.
“You smoke?” she said with a raised eyebrow while mine were turned down in utter confusion. Out of that whole sentence that’s the only thing she picked up on, wow I guess modesty was her second language.
“Uh, no I don’t,” I said shaking my head slightly with my eye brows still turned down.
“Oh, pity I was going to ask to if you had a pack of matches,” she said looking up vaguely to the right thinking hard about something.
“I like fire, it’s so beautiful and yet if it touches your skin it can hurt you, burn you beyond repair,” she said staring blankly at the floor.
“So you like fire because it can hurt you, but it’s beautiful?” I said sounding puzzled.
“Yeah, I guess so,” she said with a little laugh looking away again with tears glistening in her eyes.
By now the bell had rung for the last period and students were rushing for class. There was a moment when she was looking away that I wasn’t hearing anything, not even the bell. I was just standing there staring at her and all that beauty wrapped up in nothing but an unassuming nature of how breathtaking she is. The tears gleaming in her eyes only added to her exquisiteness.
“Well I’d better get to class,” she said as a tear rolled down her cheek.
“Yeah,” I said staring at her standing there. She was breathtaking as that tear slowly rolled down her cheek to the crease of her mouth. Just as she started to turn away I that this was my only chance to tell her how I felt. I just couldn’t bring myself is to do it. Impulsively I said her name before she walked away. She stopped and turned around slowly revealing her eyes which we swelled with tears.
“Yeah?” she said in a voice that barely came out louder than a whisper.
I froze not knowing what to say, my palms were sweaty and my breath was stuck in my throat. I did the only thing that suddenly came to my mind in that moment. I turned reaching into my locker and grabbed a lighter I had kept in my backpack. I turned looking down at the lighter in my hand; it was Grey. Sometimes irony was too ironic. By some struck of fate or chance, it was grey and that alone stole a small laugh from my voice.
I looked up at Tiffany with all that beauty and humility shining in those silvery depths and tossed her the lighter. Quickly and barely she caught it with both hands. She looked down at the little grey lighter in her hands then did a small laugh and quick smile. She looked up at me and I could see the smokiness in her eyes from the fire in her heart.
“Have it,” I said gazing in her sorrowful eyes.
“Thanks,” she said. With that she turned and danced down the hall