it’s the 70’s in some old town somewhere near New Orleans, nothing interesting in a radius of at least 200 miles around you, rural, dusty and forgotten, you hate it, have been watching every day of your life since you earned consciousness how the monotony of the place drained people’s souls.

no colors, no smiling faces. just another library with the yellow books and swollen wood floors, another church with a decaying roof and peeling walls, another little convenience store with the smell of mold and terrible white lights.

at least now you had Ian, even if you had met him just last winter, in the bookshop he worked at. and you already felt like he was a part of you, a small escape to the hellhole you two called home, what a waste, he and you thought, a lifetime in here, and just now i meet you?

the hot wind hits his face as he rolls the driver’s seat window down, the dark brown and bleached orange strands of his mop of hair flying back and out of his face—but so does the ashes of his cigarette, flying into his eye, he had not considered that when you said you were hot a second ago.

“awh—shit!”

he shouted-laughed, spitting the cigarette out the window and hurrying to wipe the smoked tabaco out of his lashes, a big toothy smile on his face, showing sharp and crooked canines, just when you thought he couldn’t get any prettier.

“—you got that? fucking delete it, asshole!”

he barked at you, with no real venom behind his words, slapping the camcorder out of your hands, cutting the video you were recording instantly, the last frame it caught being the image of your wide, most joyous smile as it fell to the cup holder in the middle of you two.

you hadn’t felt this alive in a long time, or probably never had, but now Ian had that effect, now you got to hate this place with someone else.