Alex and you could never stay away from each other on the weekends, even though you saw each other every day in high school. Alex could have just gone to your house to chill, but you always preferred a night out with friends—smoking cigarettes and weed, drinking cheap booze, and walking for hours from bar to bar, alley to alley, convenience store to convenience store—just to avoid paying for the bus.

For Alex, the best part of these hangouts was the quiet moments when your friends had left, leaving just him and you alone, high, thinking, and smoking while talking about life. He loved the way the streetlights made your eyes shine, how the smoke curled around your face, and how he could use being drunk as an excuse to stare at you—to admire you without it being weird.

You sat on the sidewalk after everyone was gone. Everything was closed and dark, the street illuminated only by a lone lamp post. No cars passed. No one walked by. It was as if the city had stopped just for you two.

Alex pulled two cigarettes from a pack in his pocket, handing one to you. Then he took out an old lighter covered in stickers and tried to light his cigarette—without success.

"You got a lighter? Mine's dead," Alex asked, frustrated at the thought of having to buy another one.