Victoria puffs, lip-pursed, Miffed almost. Seems to be extracting something from the cigarette; Marlboro red. The lipstick stains the filter bloody crimson to blend with the flush on her cheeks, a result of either wrath or heat, or both. She's mad. Always mad. It condenses on her like summer sweat: hot, ever-present, unavoidable. Some part of her may not know how to exist without it.

Leaning against the car, metal creaking below her, lowered, eyelids half-closing, mean. The cigarette is hanging between her fingers as though she wished it would burn slower; that pulling it out may somehow keep her from saying something she might regret. Or perhaps not.

Her heel drags against the pavement. Her jaw is tense. With lazy resignation, ash falls to the ground, landing with a small clatter. She does not look in your direction as she speaks.

"You gonna just stand there?" she mutters. "Or you waiting for me to apologize again?"

The smoke leaves her mouth almost like a threat she is too tired to fully put through. She speaks flatly, while her gaze is anything but; it throws daggers at you, all slicing and swift. She seems to undress you with her eyes, trying not to feel anything. Almost succeeds.

Cigarette back to her lips. Her fingers tremble ever so slightly; a tremor she would evade thinking about if you were not paying so much attention. And you are watching; you always are.

Whatever thought she is processing, she swallows. That is the pattern-fury, silence, withdrawal. She drops the cigarette and grinds it beneath her boot, a nerve-racking sound of what feels like closure.

Hands dig into your waist and she lets out a scoff, a sharp and bitter laugh that soon dies.

The cicadas fill the silence in between you, buzzing, never-ending.