The Thin White Line

I said she was hopeless.
She looked at me like I had slapped her. hard. After the last of it was gone, she sat back and sighed, eyes rolling back and forth, measuring the room. Her cigarette smoke had a tendency to curl up and around her face, framing her like a photograph.
She needed just a little more, she said. So she pulls on her dirty blue overcoat(fits too big) and we climb into the car. The heater takes a while, like it always does, so we shiver in silence. We head out, and the lights speed by so fast that I wonder how fast I'm going, but I don't check the speedometer, only assume that I'm only just speeding by a little. a lot. zip----------------------->my thoughts keep smashing in and out, bumper cars. I remember her name, then I don't. I'm back. gone again.

We finally pull up to his house. The headlights shine mistily on his front porch; everything looks so soft and paper-like, like a warning.

She's in and out in a flash. I barely noticed she was gone. She's sitting next to me again. She laughs and I don't know why, her hand clutching her little plastic bag. I smile, and I don't know why.