As Corey sucked on cigarettes, Ashley imagined that each stick was a memory or a certain feeling in their relationship.  There was ecstasy, here was the first time she met his parents, and he picked another from the pack – their first date.  He took a lighter and set the movie theater on fire.  Corey inhaled the nervous feelings from the entire day and blew them out – gone.  There were all of the people that saw them, disintegrated into ash, coming to rest on his black pants.  Each puff set more ablaze, each exhale turned their lives into gray remnants of love.  He smoked that first date until all that was left was the filter and an ember.  She watched it illuminate in the night, it would be too painful to keep in his pocket, so he had two options.  He could watch it burn out and die, or throw it out the window and hope by some strange twist of fate that the debris would eventually revitalize itself and create a whole piece once again.  Corey flicked the butt and the dying ember from his truck; she watched as it danced through the sky and eventually disappeared.

The speed at which he drove increased, the 35 mile an hour speed limit signs passed by furiously as he took his truck to the limits.  His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, matching the memories he went through at an alarming pace, replacing one with another in his mouth.  Ashley placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “You’re going awfully fast.”  He looked at her a moment before turning his head back to the road and driving the gas pedal further into the floor.  

“Yeah,” Ashley bit her lip and looked out of her window, things blurred by.

“I know what that means.”  She urged him to speak.  He did not look at her this time; instead he kept his eyes on the road and went faster.  He always drove hard and fast whenever he was sad, angry or anxious.  Her hand slipped from his shoulder and back into her lap.  The bearings of the truck were shaking, as were her own.  She could feel the cold air on her face, but it wasn’t from the open windows, it was from his resentment and anger at her decision, breaks were never easy, and he was making her pay the price.