I wish we were strangers in all the excitement we'd fall in love

They stopped at a gas station somewhere near the border of the city after an hour and half silence drive. The girl, bored-looking, dressed in shorts and loose red shirt, leaned against a yellow Camaro which just satisfied itself with full-tank gas. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she stared without excitement at the landscape of lonely asphalt road and wilting grassland.

The guy just exited the convenience store with plastic bags in both of his hands. His white t-shirt stuck on well-toned torso. Strands of honey hair plastered on his temple and forehead. His eyes, small and tired, stared at the girl and the car.

Without a word, he threw the groceries into the backseat. He wiped beads of sweat on his jaws and neck, then approached the passenger seat. The girl stomped her black pumps on the ground, let out a heavy sigh, then climbed into the driver seat.

He turned the radio on as she pulled the car from the gas station. A politicians' scandal news. Click. A talk on vegan and global warming. Click. A song.

He drew his hand back, letting a strange guitar sound filled the car. What is this song? It was nice, a distraction from the silence and gasoline stench wafting in the space between them.

She rolled the window down and stretched her left hand out, as if wanting to trap summer breeze in the palm of her hand, as if wanting to hold on something unreal. Her ginger hair flailing around her head, a few strands of them caressing her jaws. An unlit cigarette was slipped between her brick-colored lips.

When did she pick his habit of smoking up? He had stopped not long ago, had enough of the taste of tar in his lungs when his mother died from cancer. A pang of guilt entered his chest. He'd made her used to his kiss full of smoke, of nights of staying in his nicotine-filled room. The first time she smoked, she held the white stick awkwardly between her fingers. She coughed when she tried to inhale, but a fast learner she was. 

She said it was liberating. It helped her calmed down from the breakdown when she needed to submit her papers or when her professor said her work was garbage. It saved her from the thought of dying, and in the middle of that whirlpool, she found him and his cigarettes along with her freedom. 

When he saw her with white smoke flooded out from the gap of her lips, he thought she was a goddess, so wild and raw, and she was made right for him. 

He brought both of his knees up to his chest and placed his cheek on the top of them, curled up like a kitten. His eyes traced the smooth profile of the girl in red. Her small and pretty nose, the savage curves of hugging the nicotine stick, rosy tint on her cheeks. The face he fell in love with. The face he grew to use to.

She placed her elbow on the open window frame, hand supporting her tilted head. One of her hand on the steering wheel, her eyes focused on the road ahead. There was still no sign of her to start the conversation. was shut tight. Her cigarette remained white.

There was no word spoken between them ever since he picked her in front of her apartment. The look in her eyes when she saw him lingered in the back of his mind. Sparks had gone from those brown irises, and he didn't know when did all of that start. Was it that party at Johnny's place? Was it when she stormed out of his flat the other time? Did it occur even earlier than those events?

He didn't ask. She didn't answer.

"We'll take turns driving," she'd said when she fastened her seat belt.

"Okay."

"We'll stop at the convenience store before leaving the town."

"Okay."

"Okay."

It wasn't that they ran out of topic to converse. They had mi