Swept Away

THE SUN WAS BEGGINNING TO SINK below the horizon line of the city, taking the warm rays it had been emitting all day with it. The tall buildings that shimmered under the sun like beautiful abstracted sculptures were taking back their dark, industrial, cold, heartless forms. People began to slowly disappear, and the streetlights clicked on, creating small spotlights along the streets that gave the sidewalk a stage like effect.

Curious eyes scanning over the view from my window, my thin fingers found their way over to the spot next to me on my windowsill and snatched the rectangular box from the ledge. After hitting it against my palm a few times, my thumb flipped the top open and swiftly pulled out a cigarette and the lighter that was tucked into the side. Placing the roll of paper between my lips, I cupped the edge, sparked the lighter, and lit the end, inhaling as my eyes fluttered shut and a cool night breeze sent my long amber waves behind my shoulders.

If it weren’t for these moments, inhaling the cool breeze and the toxic smoke, there was a good chance I wouldn’t have made it to the wonderful age of twenty. Tragedy had always had a way of following me, no matter whom I lived with, or where I lived. Day after day, I felt like a constant bad luck charm, a reminder of the bad things in the world.

I was the black cat who sat on the cracks in the sidewalk under a ladder, as my tail knocked over countless salt shakers into mirrors, having them shattered to the ground in a mosaic of bad luck and depression.

To put it simply, I was a mess, and everyone I had ever come into contact with knew it. I was quarantined from society, and after years of being alone, I had grown to love it. I didn’t need friends. I didn’t need parties or phone calls. I needed an education, my camera, my laptop, and endless amount of paperback books.

“Harper put that damned thing out, now!” A fist pounding on the outer side of my door caused the peace that had washed over me to lift. Words sinking in, I leaned further out of my window, tapping the ashes away into the wind, watching the little glowing embers turn to small pieces of charred paper before the disappeared among the dark skies and tall buildings surrounding me.

My father hated that I smoked. He said it reminded him of my mother, the smell, the way my perfume mixed with the strong scent of nicotine and tar. The first few months after he informed me of the real reason he hated it so much, I tried to stop. A week later, I was digging through the couch cushions for change so I could run to the nearest convenience store and beg them for a pack of Spirits before my thumbs dug into my eye sockets to get the pound out of my head, and the yearn for the inhalation of smoke out of my mind.

Now, he lost the drive he had when I was younger to get me to stop. Maybe he understood that I needed this, or maybe he just gave up, kind of like how he gave up on my mother.

I pressed the cigarette into the small black ash tray perched on the ledge by my window and watched the small streams of smoke come off of it and disappear into the now dark sky. A few more cool breezes bet against my skin, but they didn’t have the same calming effect as the others. Nothing was the same if I didn’t have a cigarette between my lips.

A small sigh escaped my lips as I pulled my thin body back into my room and moved the long strands of hair from one shoulder to another in order to see the lock on the window. Once it was secure, I pulled the sleeves of my large black sweater down to my knuckles and pressed my feet against the cherry hardwood floors of my room.

“You have class in a half hour, Harp.” My father’s voice entered my head again, causing my eyes to flutter shut. “You want me to give you a lift or-“

“I’m going to use my legs.” I called to him, my voice raspy from the large amount of smoke I had just held in and the lack of water I had been drinking today. Swallowing hard, my body swiftly moved across the floor allowing me to pick up my hunter green book bag and sling it over my right shoulder. “I’m going to head over now, it’s the first day so my class shouldn’t be that long.”

I swung the door open to reveal the older man standing on the other side. His body was wrapped in a white tee shirt and a pair of sweatpants. His arms were muscular and well kept, his chest was strong and commanding, and his chin was sharp and freckled with small patches of dark brown and grey hairs that made up a well-trimmed beard. As my eyes reached his nose, that was a splitting image of my own, I stopped and dropped my eyes back down to my shoes.

“Be careful.” He whispered as he turned on his heels and headed back to the huge kitchen, pulling the fridge open and then slamming it shut. As I stood there, my eyes still on my shoes, I heard the familiar pop and fizz of a bottle cap being yanked from a fresh bottle of beer. Just like every other night – my eyes rolled instinctively.

Without another word, I left the large apartment and headed down the hallway towards the elevator. Once I reached it, I found my thin fingers drumming against the smooth, black, jean fabric of my pants. It was a habit of mine that only came out when I was nervous about something, and having my first class of the semester in a half hour was exactly the kind of thing that set it off.

Anything that involved being around more then fifteen people sent my nerves on edge, but the fact that this class was my first of the semester, had nothing to do with either of my majors, and was being taught by a brand new adjunct professor, made my anxiety and nerves that much worse.

It would be a damn miracle if I made the twenty-minute walk to class without throwing myself in front of a bus or smoking the rest of the cigarettes in my pack.



I came to a halt in front of the Schermerhorn building, my head tilting back as my wide eyes inspected the house-like architectural features that were displayed on the front of the brick building. The green-colored roves and brick faced buildings were one of the main reasons that I had decided to come to Columbia in the first place. I had always loved architecture, and the new modern – minimalist designs of large buildings did nothing for me. It made me not want to even bother going into the building.

Tilting my head back down, listening as a few vertebrate popped in protest of the awkward position I had locked my neck into, my hands started to shake, signaling that it was time for another cigarette.

Keeping my eyes on the ground, my right hand wrapped around my book bag and unzipped the pocket on the side and pulled out the little rectangle carton that I could have sworn was completely full two days ago. Now, as I popped the top open and pulled the paper tub and my lighter out, I counted five. I had five more cigarettes left.

Those wouldn’t even last me until tomorrow night.

Sighing heavily, I placed the piece of paper between my lips and went through the same routine of lighting the poisonous stick as I did earlier. Once the end started to glow, I walked over to the ramp that lead to the door, and leaned against it, crossing my arms against my chest as my cigarette hung from my bright pink lips.

“You have an extra?” The deep voice caught me off guard, and sent my tranquility crashing around me, shattering against the sidewalk like a mirror dropped form the top story of the Empire state building.

It had been so long since I had spoken with people, so long since someone had actually come up to me and asked me something. My heavy line of black eyeliner swooped into a point at the end and my dark choice of clothing usually gave off a very unwelcoming vibe to people, or so my father had told me, and resulted in almost no one ever speaking to me.

I liked it that way anyway; the quieter, the better.

“Oh… Uhm, sure.” I sputtered, my eyes tracing over the contours of everything around me as my hands clumsily opened the carton and pulled a cigarette from the few remaining. “I have a light too.” I breathed as I placed my own cigarette back between my lips and pulled the lighter out, holding the two items out toward the man I had yet to look at.

Once he took them and the smooth skin of his fingertips grazing my skin, I felt my anxiety kick up to another level. As my heart took on an unhealthy fast beat, and sweat started to pour down from my hairline, making my neck and hands clammy, my eyes rose to meet his.

It was a mistake.

As soon as I looked up to him, the beautiful blue orbs that took refuge in his sockets locked onto mine, paralyzing me. I stood there under the mans gaze, my lips tightly pressed together, holding the burning cylinder of paper firmly between my lips as I shakily inhaled and tried to make sense of how this man had even got to the point of being within one hundred feet of me.

A smile formed on his lips as he pulled the cigarette from his lips and blew out a cloud of smoke in the opposite direction from me. His sharp features and defined chin were giving me heart palpitations as the blue-ish light emanating from the moon covered us, giving his face a dramatic shadowing that only made him seem more like a dream and less real.

Just as I was about to write off that my lack of sleep and human interaction had led me to hallucinate this man, he spoke. “You shouldn’t be smoking.” He deadpanned, his fingers taking the burning paper and placing it back between his plump lips that were curled into a small smile. As he leaned against the railing next to me, I inhaled sharply, letting his cologne mix with the cigarette smoke, creating the most addictive scent I had ever got wind of.

After the man’s comment, we finished out cigarettes in silence. Our eyes focused on the way the trees swayed in the wind, and how the brick buildings faced each other, creating a beautiful type maze of Ivy League education. “Thank you for that.” He whispered, his hand holding out my blue bic lighter toward me. “I’m teaching my first class tonight, and I needed something to calm me down.” He continued, running a hand through his short brunette hair. Critically watching his movements, my mind took note of his well-defined muscles that were visible under his button up shirt that clung nicely to his torso.

“Thank you.” I whispered shoving my lighter back into the pocket in my book bag along with the carton of cigarettes. “I need to get to class.” I mumbled, my heart racing as the bright blue orbs in his skull locked onto my own.

“What class, if I may be so bold to ask?” A smirk formed on his lips that pierced right through my heart, simultaneously drying out my throat and swelling my tongue, rendering me speechless for at least thirty seconds.

After my short period of utter silence, I let out a small cough and sucked in a small breath, feeling the cold air burn my throat. “Psych of Aggression”, I whispered, blood rushing to my cheeks as I watched the man’s smile grow. It was so big that his lips were about to stretch off of his face.

“I’m professor Collins, and you?” He stuck his hand out toward me, and after a moment of studying it, I uncrossed my arms and placed my hand in his, feeling his warm skin rub against mine as we firmly shook hands and then released.

“Harper Snow.”

“Well Ms. Snow, I believe we have a class to attend.” His voice said smoothly as he headed toward the large front door and pulled it open. Following behind him, I walked through the door and loosely followed him all the way down the hall to a classroom off on the left side of the hallway.

Standing there behind him, my eyes tracing over every inch of him, every crease and fold in his clothes, and every string of fabric that clung to his obviously muscular body, I wished that these cigarettes would kill me. I wished that I had tripped in front of that bus or over the ledge of my window and ended my life prior to this night.

Once he opened the door, and sent me a dazzling smile, I dropped my eyes to the tiled floors and felt my shoulders slump forward.

I would need about three hundred more packs of cigarettes and a long string of cool fall nights if I wanted to make it through this semester with my sanity and my life.