Warning: smoking

~

The afternoon sky was as blue as a forget-me-not as Lyra Rogers lounged around in the park with her friends and girlfriend after her morning shift at her job. The gang had taken a break from their rollar blading activities, and they had begun smoking some cigarettes while chatting about what was going on in their lives as of late.

". . . and then I went, 'dude, it's not her fault she didn't wanna give you a blowjob!'" ranted Winona, Lyra's partner.

"Yeah, the guy really needs to get his morals straightened out," agreed Nathan as he fiddled with their thick, shoulder-length black hair.

Lyra's limbs tensed as she stood on the concrete walkway with her hands planted on her hips. Her new girlfriend, Winona Green, had been ranting about how one of her younger brothers was whining about a camp friend who wouldn't agree to participate in oral sex with him.

"Hey," Lyra piped up, "if your brother ever needs a little lesson, just tell me and I'll punch 'im out for ya." She socked her fist into her open palm.

"Babe," Winona said with a look of sympathy, "I understand why you're upset (I am, too), but nobody gets to pick on my siblings but me: I'll tell you if it gets worse, don't worry."

Lyra nodded.

"How's your brother, Ly-Ly?" asked Crystal, Nathan's younger twin sister. She and Nathan were the youngest of the group of four: barely eighteen years old.

"Guess he's alright," Lyra responded. She took another drag of her cigarette. "Grumpy, as always, but not terrible."

"You're saying that as if 'grumpy' is good," Nathan quipped, grinning slightly, and they took a puff himself.

"You're one to talk." Crystal shot back. "You basically turn into Toby when we get home, and our abusive dad went out to get the milk years ago."

Nathan made a face as if to say, 'you have a point.'

Winona pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans to check the time, and her face fell slightly.

"I gotta go," she sighed, tucking some of her auburn hair behind her ear. "My visit with Troy is schedueled in two hours."

"Tell him for us he's a bitch," said Crystal, waving away the smoke from their cigarettes.

Winona chuckled. One of her other younger brothers, Troy, was in prison for aggravated assault, and Winona went to visit him on a weekly basis. The drive to the nearest prison, where Troy was held, took an hour and fifteen minutes at minimum.

"I already do that every time I see him," Winona replied with amusement.

"See ya later, princess," Lyra said, and she approached her girlfriend to give her a quick kiss, holding the back of her neck as she did so. "Drive safe."

Winona said her goodbyes, picked up her rollar blades, and left, her car rumbling off into the distance.

"Why don't we go get something to eat?" Crystal suggested. "Sonic fries are on me."

"Sweet," Lyra answered. It was good timing, too, because her stomach was starting to rumble and she didn't want to return home yet.

"Fuck that, McDonald's is better," Nathan argued.

"Shut up, dumbass," Lyra snapped. "D'you have any idea what they put in that stuff? Besides, half their food tastes like horse shit."

Nathan rolled their eyes.

"You'll eat anything, won't you, bro?" Crystal sighed.

"Yeah, I'm a goat!" Nathan joked, and he stuck their fingers to his head to imitate goat antlers. Their two-color eyes, one green and one blue, shone in the sunlight.

"Eddie Munson lookin' ass," Lyra quipped, grinning.

Being outvoted, the three gathered their rollar blades, and Nathan followed the women back to the old car belonging to Lyra's father. Lyra's nose wrinkled at the combined smells of booze and cigarettes as she buckled her seatbelt, but she was more than used to it.

"I dunno how you can stand the smell," Crystal grumbled as she slid into the backseat.

"Shouldn't you be used to it?" Lyra asked. "I drive you fuckin' everywhere these days."

Crystal simply shrugged. It was true: Nathan and Crystal's mother worked full time, so Lyra drove them to school and back and to their respective music lessons. This was because everything was too far away from the twins' home. Of course, Lyra was paid for it, so she never passed up a chance to borrow either of her parent's cars for a bit.

With that, the three young adults drove off to Sonic, where they got a medium-sized carton of French fries each, courtesy of Crystal. But as Lyra was driving the twins back home, her face grew ashen as something crossed her mind.

"What's up?" Nathan asked, munching on a fry. Lyra had stopped for a red light.

"Can we stop at the cemetery?" Lyra asked her friends. Her tone had turned rather solemn.

Nathan craned his neck to look at his sister, and the two exchanged glances. After a moment, Crystal looked back at Lyra. Both the twins' faces were now wrought with sympathy.

"Sure thing, hon," Crystal answered.

Lyra took a deep breath as the light turned green, and she pressed her sneaker down on the pedal again. A few minutes later, the three had arrived at Hillcrest Cemetery, and Lyra parked in the parking spot nearest to the entrance.

"You wanna visit him?" Nathan guessed.

Lyra didn't answer, instead staying silent as she gazed out at the rows upon rows of tombstones just beyond the black iron gates. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel.

"You really think he's still out there?" Crystal asked, breaking the silence.

Lyra's jaw clenched.

"There's no way that kid would let the fucking elements get to him." she said at last, her voice barely above a mutter. "He's too stubborn. Besides, if he survived over twenty stab wounds, he can survive anything."

Silence fell as Nathan and Crystal thought over what Lyra said. A year before, Lyra's best friend had gone missing and had been presumed dead. But she hadn't gone to his funeral, convinced that he was still alive. Nathan and Crystal hadn't known the boy well, but they had heard stories about him and had crossed paths with him at the local high school a few times before he disappeared. He had only been a few months older than them.

At last, Lyra took another deep breath.

"Let's get you home," she said, and she backed out of the parking space, leaving the cemetery behind. As she drove down the road in the direction of Nathan and Crystal's abode, she handed Nathan her remaining fries.

"You can have 'em," she said. "I've lost my appetite."