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Noelle sat with her knees tucked to her chest, shoes scuffing nervously against the roof tiles while the town stretched quiet and glittering below.
Dess leaned back on her palms, a cigarette balanced loosely between her fingers. The ember glowed in the dark, bright and steady.
“You’re staring,” Dess said without looking at her.
“I’m not,” Noelle answered too quickly.
Dess snorted. Smoke curled from her mouth, drifting sideways in the wind before dissolving into the night. It smelled sharp and bitter and strange. Noelle wrinkled her nose.
“You hate it that much?” Dess asked, amused.
“Smells bad,” Noelle said, because she didn’t want to admit that it made her chest feel tight in a way she didn’t understand.
Dess glanced at her then, eyes catching the light. There was something pleased in her expression, like she’d been waiting for that answer.
“Then try it,” she said, holding the cigarette out between two fingers. “Maybe it’ll grow on you.”
Noelle blinked. “I don’t— I’ve never—”
“Exactly.” Dess wiggled it closer. “C’mon. Don’t be a baby.”
The word landed harder than it should have.
“I’m not a baby,” Noelle murmured.
Dess smiled, slow and sharp. “Then prove it.”
The cigarette hovered between them, close enough that Noelle could see the thin paper curling, the ember pulsing faintly when the wind shifted.
”W-What if mom finds out? Or—”
”She won't.”
Noelle hesitated, but eventually gave in and took the cigarette with small, shaking hands.
She lifted it to her mouth the way she’d seen Dess do a hundred times before. Tried to mimic the angle, the casual tilt of her wrist, in an attempt to look like she knew what she was doing.
She inhaled. The smoke hit her throat like sandpaper. She choked instantly, doubling over with a startled cough that burned all the way down into her lungs. Her eyes watered. The world tilted.
Dess laughed.
“Oh my god,” Dess said between giggles. “You’re terrible at it.”
Noelle flushed hot with embarrassment. “I am not—”
“You are.” Dess reached out, plucking the cigarette from her fingers before she could drop it. “You look like you’re dying.”
“I’m fine,” Noelle insisted weakly.
Dess leaned closer.
She exhaled slowly this time, deliberate—a thin stream of smoke directed straight into Noelle’s face.
Noelle sputtered again, waving a hand uselessly in front of her nose. Dess’s laughter warmed the space between them.
“You’re so dramatic,” Dess teased.
Noelle blinked away tears, chest still aching from the inhale, but Dess was smiling at her. Looking at her like she was funny. Like she was special for even trying.
The tightness in Noelle’s chest shifted into something warmer.
“Here,” Dess said again, softer this time.
She guided the cigarette back to Noelle’s hand, adjusting her fingers herself. Her touch lingered.
“Slower this time. Don't hold it in.”
Noelle nodded, obedient as always.
She tried again. It still burned, still tasted awful, but this time she forced herself not to cough.
Dess watched her closely. “See? Good girl,” she murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to Noelle's cheek. “Told you you could do it.”
The praise bloomed in Noelle's chest, bright and dizzying.
The cigarette burned lower between them as they sat shoulder to shoulder, the night quiet and secret around them.
When it was nearly gone, Dess took it back without asking. Noelle watched the ember shrink, fascinated.
“Hold still,” Dess said lightly, an unsettling smile on her face.
Noelle did as she was told, like always.
Dess shifted closer.
The ember glowed between them, small and bright and waiting. For a split second, Noelle wondered what she was supposed to do—what the right answer was. There always was one.
The heat came before she understood it. A sharp, sudden sting against the side of her neck.
Noelle yelped, instinct kicking in as her shoulders jerked and her hand flew up too late. Her eyes burned instantly, tears springing up from shock more than anything else.
“Hey,” Dess said, almost laughing. “I said hold still.”
“It hurts,” Noelle gasped, breath hitching. The night felt colder all at once.
Dess tilted her head, studying her reaction with open curiosity.
“It’s just a little mark,” she said dismissively. “Don’t be dramatic.” She reached up then, fingers brushing along the sensitive skin where the sting lingered. Her touch was gentle now.
“You make a cute ashtray,” Dess added, voice light, like that was a completely normal thing to say.
The word should have felt ugly. Instead, Noelle’s heart fluttered, and her face flushed pink.
Dess’s thumb lingered there, warm against the tender spot.
The pain was still there—sharp, throbbing—but it had already started to blur into something else. Something that made her chest feel tight and hot at the same time.
---
The mark was still red when she looked at it in the bathroom mirror later.
She tugged her collar up instinctively, heart thudding as she imagined someone noticing, or asking questions she wouldn’t know how to answer.
The next morning, she wore a scarf.
It was too warm for one. Her mother glanced at it over breakfast, eyes lingering a beat too long, but didn’t say anything.
Noelle found herself touching the mark when no one was looking, running her fingers over the welt, imagining it was Dess doing so instead.
That night, she lay awake staring at the ceiling, replaying everything in careful detail.
Noelle, once more, pressed her fingers lightly against the place on her neck where the fur would take weeks to grow back.
By the time she finally fell asleep, she almost wished she could feel it again.
---
The lighter sparked on the third try.
Noelle cupped her hands around the flame, shielding it from the wind like it might flinch and disappear if she didn’t. When the tip of the cigarette finally caught, she inhaled too sharply and immediately regretted it.
The smoke burned. Bitter. Acrid. It scraped down her throat and settled ugly in her chest, heavy and wrong. Her eyes watered, and she had to turn her face away, coughing quietly into her sleeve.
She hated this. Hated the taste and how it clung to her tongue and coated the back of her mouth. She hated how her clothes would smell afterward, how she’d scrub her hands raw later and still catch traces of it on her skin. The way it made her head feel light and hollow, like something important had been scooped out of her.
She took another drag anyway. She couldn't resist the scent.
It was wrong in every other way, but the scent—the sharp, stale curl of smoke in the air—was all she had left.
Memories hit her all at once, uninvited and overwhelming. Dess, leaning against the porch railing late at night, a cigarette dangling lazily between her fingers, ember glowing bright in the dark. She'd laugh when Noelle wrinkled her nose and complained, deliberately exhaling smoke in her direction just to watch her cough and sputter.
Even when Dess pressed the cigarette into her hand, even when she’d coaxed and teased and insisted, Noelle hated every second of it. The taste. The ache that brewed in her chest. The way Dess watched her too closely while she tried, eyes sharp and pleased.
But when Dess kissed her afterward, smoke tainting her tongue, she'd forget how to think.
It lingered; on her lips, her breath, her clothes. Noelle remembered that most of all—the way the taste of cigarettes mixed with something familiar, dangerous, hers. The way it made her stomach twist painfully with want and confusion she hadn’t had words for.
Now, sitting alone on a cold bench in the graveyard, she exhaled slowly, watching the smoke unravel into the night air.
The cemetery was quiet. The headstones loomed in a neat row, pale shapes barely visible in the dark.
She didn’t look at them for long.
It felt wrong to be here. Like she was trespassing on someone else’s grief. Dess wasn’t buried here; she wasn’t buried anywhere. There was no stone with her name carved into it, no engravings to trace with trembling fingers, no proof that she had ever existed at all.
And yet Noelle had still come to sulk in her own sorrow, to linger on memories she felt guilty for missing, and to pathetically trick herself into thinking Dess was right next to her. If she closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of the smoke for long enough, she could feel her there, just for a second. It wasn't enough, but it was something.
Her mother dealt with her grief much differently.
Noelle pictured her at the town hall, hunched over paperwork beneath harsh fluorescent lights, glasses slipping down her nose as she worked herself past exhaustion.
Carol didn’t come home until late anymore. When she did, she looked hollowed out, movements precise and automatic, like if she stopped moving for even a second she might fall apart completely.
Work was safer. It gave her something to fix, something that followed rules. Mourning didn’t. So Carol buried herself in meetings and endless responsibilities, and Noelle learned not to ask when she’d be home.
The loneliness hurt. But she didn't have to worry about getting caught, at least.
This—Noelle’s way—was quieter. Smaller. She took another drag, slower this time, forcing herself to breathe through the burn. Her lungs protested, but she ignored them. The smoke filled her, made her chest tight and aching. The pain felt deserved.
She stared out across the graves, eyes unfocused.
She missed Dess.
The thought came unbidden, blunt and aching in its simplicity. She missed her even knowing everything she’d done. The certainty of her presence, even when it had been suffocating.
She flicked ash onto the grass, watching it scatter and disappear.
The cigarette was already burning down faster than she expected. She wondered if that was symbolic of something, then decided she didn’t have the energy to care.
She sat there, breathing smoke into the dark, feeling the weight of absence press down on her shoulders—and then she heard footsteps.
Noelle froze.
For half a second, she genuinely forgot how to breathe. The cigarette trembled between her fingers, ember flaring brighter as her grip tightened. Her first instinct was to hide it, stupid and panicked, like she could shove the smoke back into her lungs and pretend none of this was happening.
The footsteps stopped.
Susie’s gasp was loud, sharp with surprise—and Noelle screamed, embarrassingly high pitched. She jolted to her feet so fast the cigarette nearly slipped from her hand, heart slamming against her ribs as she spun around, eyes wide and glassy. The lighter clattered off the bench and hit the ground with a dull click.
“S-Susie—?!” Noelle choked, scrambling back a step.
Susie stood a few feet away, equally frozen, eyes blown wide. Her shoulders were hunched, jacket hanging loose, hair a mess like she’d been running her hands through it too many times.
The two of them stared at each other. Smoke curled between them, undeniable and sharp.
“...Holy shit,” Susie finally said. Noelle’s stomach dropped.
She looked down at the cigarette like it had betrayed her. The thin white stick felt obscene in her hand now, glowing evidence of something she wasn’t supposed to be. Her entire carefully maintained image—good student, good daughter, good girl—went up in smoke right there in the graveyard.
“I-this isn’t—” she started, then stopped, because she didn’t know how to finish her own sentence.
Susie blinked once. Twice.
“Dude,” She gestured vaguely, eyes flicking to the cigarette, then back to Noelle’s face. “Are you smoking?”
Noelle winced.
“Yes,” she said, barely audible. Then, because panic made her honest in the worst way, she added, “I hate it.”
That seemed to throw Susie off even more.
She stared at Noelle like she was seeing her for the first time—not the polished, composed classmate who always had the right answer, not the pretty, timid girl who'd share her school supplies with Susie everyday, not the mayor’s daughter who smiled politely and kept her head down.
Just a girl standing in a cemetery at night, hands shaking, eyes rimmed red.
“…Huh,” Susie said, eloquently.
The silence stretched, thick and awkward. Noelle could feel it pressing in on her ears. She thought about apologizing. Thought about lying. Thought about running.
Instead, she lifted the cigarette back to her lips and took another drag, just to prove she could.
She immediately coughed again, turning away, shoulders curling inward as she tried to keep it quiet. Her eyes watered this time, tears prickling painfully as her chest burned.
“Wow,” Susie muttered. “You really do suck at that.”
Noelle let out a small, startled sound that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t cracked halfway through. She wiped at her eyes quickly, embarrassed all over again.
“I told you,” she said. “I don’t like it.”
Susie hesitated, then stepped closer. Not too close—still careful—but near enough that Noelle could see the confusion softening into something more thoughtful.
“…Give me one."
Noelle stared at her. "You—what?”
Susie shrugged, shoving her hands into her pockets. “What, you'll share your pencils in class but not your cigs?"
“That’s not—” Noelle paused, averting eye contact. “…I don’t have another.”
Susie nodded toward the pack of Newports that lay on the bench, half-hidden in shadow. They must have fallen out of Noelle's pocket.
“Oh,” Noelle flushed. Again. She followed Susie’s gaze, then looked away. “...I wasn’t planning on anyone seeing that.”
Susie shot her an unimpressed glare.
They stood there for another beat before Noelle, reluctantly, picked up the pack and held it out. Susie took one with surprising care, rolling it between her fingers. Noelle wordlessly handed her the lighter.
Susie flicked it a few times before it caught. When she inhaled, it looked practiced—easy in a way that made Noelle’s chest ache with familiarity.
They sat back down on the bench, a careful distance between the two. For a while, neither of them spoke.
Smoke drifted upward, dissolving into the night. The graveyard watched, indifferent and patient, as two girls sat in the dark and shared something they weren’t ready to explain.
Noelle couldn’t help but stare at Susie. The wind had blown her bangs slightly astray, allowing golden eyes to catch the moonlight like molten amber. The cigarette looked small in contrast to her large, scaly hands, and Noelle wondered how they'd feel against her skin.
"...You're staring."
Noelle flinched, rapidly turning to the side, her face flushing bright pink. She fiddled with the edge of her sleeve, suddenly aware of how exposed she felt in the open air, the cigarette still burning between her fingers.
Her throat felt tight, her words clumsy. She couldn’t explain why she’d been staring, why the sight of Susie sitting there, calm and grounded, made her chest twist in a way that had nothing to do with the smoke.
”S-Sorry, I just—”
”Why are you here anyway?”
The question hung in the cold night air, pressing down on her like a weight. Noelle chewed on the inside of her cheek, exhaling slowly so it didn’t come out as a cough. ”I just... wanted fresh air.”
Susie tilted her head, one eyebrow raised. The orange glow of her cigarette reflected in her eyes, and Noelle couldn’t stop herself from noticing how steady Susie’s hands were. ”You're not gonna get much of that by inhaling smoke. Where the hell did you get these anyway? Steal 'em from your mom? Didn't think you had it in you.”
Noelle’s stomach twisted. She glanced down at the pack of Newports on the bench, feeling the weight of being caught and exposed all at once. ”I found them in my sisters room.”
”You have a sister?”
The words came softly, curious but cautious. Noelle’s fingers tightened around her cigarette, the paper crinkling under her grip. ”Had a sister.”
Susie's eyes widened briefly, and she awkwardly scratched at the back of her head, gaze dropping to the grass beneath her shoes. The quiet made Noelle acutely aware of the distant hum of the streetlights, the occasional rustle of leaves stirred by a soft wind.
”Oh.”
”My turn. Why are you here?” Noelle asked, trying to sound casual, but her voice came out quieter than intended. She shifted on the bench, tugging her knees up to her chest.
Susie shrugged, leaning back slightly against the bench. ”...I sleep here. You kinda took my spot.”
Noelle blinked, caught off guard. The words were simple, almost mundane—but her stomach twisted. “You… sleep here?” she asked, her voice rising a notch despite herself. The thought of Susie curling up on this cold, hard bench at night made her chest tighten in worry. “Like... at night? Alone?”
Susie just shrugged again, tilting her head as if it were no big deal. “Yeah. Not like anyone’s around.”
Noelle’s eyes widened, and her fingers tightened instinctively around the cigarette. She wanted to say something—anything—but the words died in her throat. “Isn’t that dangerous? I mean... it’s freezing, and this place... it’s—” She gestured vaguely at the gravestones and the darkened cemetery around them.
Susie laughed softly, a little breathless. “It’s fine. I’ve been doing it a while. Nothing’s happened.”
Noelle felt a mix of awe and concern. She wanted to tell Susie to go home, to take care of herself, to not spend the night in a graveyard—but the certainty in Susie's voice left her thinking that home for her might somehow be worse than this cold, tiny bench. She tugged her knees closer, letting the cigarette dangle between her fingers.
”I'm sorry. For stealing your spot.”
Susie shrugged. “Not a big deal. I get it. You just... needed a place.”
Noelle’s throat went dry. Susie inhaled, exhaling a thin trail of smoke that caught in the moonlight, and Noelle felt strangely exposed. Like Susie could see everything she was trying to hide: the loneliness, the memories, the ache in her chest that no one else knew about.
Noelle glanced up, meeting Susie’s gaze for just a moment. There was something in the way the shadows played across her face, the faint glow in her eyes—it was familiar, safe even, and it made Noelle’s chest tighten all over again.
The wind picked up slightly, stirring the leaves, and Noelle felt it brush her hair across her face. She moved it back with a hand she realized was shaking just a little.
After a few more quiet moments, she tossed her finished cigarette to the ground, gently pressing it into the dirt with her shoe.
She thought about how Dess would stomp hers out harshly, violently, and suddenly felt sick.
She thought about the way that Dess would sometimes press the end of her cigarettes into Noelle's skin, leaving welts and burns in places where her fur still wouldn't grow back anymore.
“You want the rest of mine?” Susie asked, holding out her cigarette casually, as if offering it weren’t a big deal.
Noelle blinked, momentarily stunned. Then she shook her head. “No, that's okay. I shouldn’t be doing this anyway."
“Scared you'll get in trouble?” Susie prompted gently, tilting her head.
Noelle shrugged, lips pressed together. "It's not about rules, really... or consequences. I just don't like the way that it feels."
"Then why do it in the first place?"
"...I don't know. I really don't."
Susie raised a brow, but didn’t press further. She just sat there, watching Noelle with quiet patience, letting the smoke curl between them and the night fold around the bench.
Susie continued watching her for a long moment, then sighed and stood.
“You’re gonna freeze out here,” she muttered, flicking her cigarette down to the grass. She crushed it beneath her heel without ceremony.
Noelle watched with intense focus, her chest tightening. For half a second, she was filled with disappointment.
It surprised her enough that she almost missed it. A small, ugly flicker in her stomach. The absence of something she shouldn’t want. Susie didn’t even look at her when she did it.
Noelle stared at the darkened grass where the ember had been. Her neck tingled faintly, phantom heat blooming beneath fur that still hadn’t fully grown back.
The night air felt colder without the smoke in it.
“You coming or what?” Susie asked, already turning toward the path.
Noelle blinked.
“...Yeah.”
She stood slowly, brushing dirt from her skirt. As she followed, she pressed her fingers lightly to the side of her neck.
It didn’t hurt.
She wasn’t sure why that made her stomach twist.