Fake Cigarettes and “What did you do to Lani?”

The Couch

"Cigarettes are gross and my parents are going to throw away the couch," Candace said. Cushions like stomach rolls and folds of memories that eat cell phones when left unattended. Trying to pick anything out of that couch is like digging between your butt cheeks for the string of your uncomfortable Victoria's Secret thong. This THE couch. A couch that has given me sanctuary since the 7th grade, where I would Facebook message my first boyfriend, stabbing at the keyboard "H-A-H-A." Whatever he said was not funny, and I was frustrated by his unfunniness and unsolicited devotion to me, but Candace and I thought it would be fun to get boyfriends. Candace was texting her boyfriend; she liked hers way more than I liked mine. Eventually this couch grew, being fed secrets, tears, rants, conspiracy theories, gossip, fights, drunken nights of heavy sleep and violent hangovers; it was all there. The suede of the fabric mapping where our bodies lay, and the duration of time that has passed. I have never felt this way about a couch; I don't know if anyone else has either. I know most people have old couches and are like, "Wow, look at this vomit stain" or "This is where I lost my virginity." This is way different, I assure you. Candace always sat on the lounge part and I always placed myself in the corner. It is time for this couch to move on, to say your goodbyes and thank it. Thank you for taking care of me and bonding me with a lifelong friend who delicately balances fake cigarettes between her lips. When I say delicately, I'm being nice. It looks like it is fighting with her upper and bottom lip, escaping the exhaust of her words but only because fake cigarettes are unprepared for her vigor. Real cigarettes are gross and you will not tell me what you did to Lani. Only the couch will know what happened to Lani.