He pulled a cigarette from the pack, drew it to his lips, crushing it slightly in his careless grasp, set fire to the end of it and took a deep, long breath of nicotine-filled smoke. He just stared out into the night sky. Our conversations sometimes stop like this. I hated him a little for this, too. Not for killing the conversation, though. No, the talk was mindless chatter to me. No. I hated him for his ability to withdraw from this world. Just looking at him, I could tell he was somewhere very far away. I wondered if the cancer was kicking in yet or not.

"Do you think we'll ever get there?" he asked.
"We're not actually going anywhere," I replied.
"No, out there. Far out there, into the light. Do you think that'll ever happen for us." He said it more as a statement than a question.
"I don't know," I exhaled, slightly bemused by this sudden change of thought.

He didn't reply after that. I just sat there on the porch while he stood with his cigarette burning slowly in his hand. He should have been an astronaut. Of all the people I knew, he could probably do it. There was something in him that just let him keep going, even when everything was going to shit. It was another ten minutes of looking out into the stars before he spoke again. During that time, I wondered how many of those lights were snuffed out already. I wondered why I was so morbid all the time. I guess I'm just a product of the grisly times in which we live.

"You know, I never spoke to her after that."

I didn't reply. There was really nothing I could say to him. After everything that had happened, it just didn't seem right.

"It's the stars. They remind me of her, somehow. Maybe that's where everything that you've lost goes when it's gone. Out into the stars..."

I stood up, pulling a cigarette from the pack. I clumsily lit the end of it and breathed in my own brand of cancer. The stars were brilliant that night.

"Ya. Maybe," I answered.

She said, "no, it doesn't matter." But, something in her voice convinced me not to believe her. Or perhaps, it was the fire in her eyes, that will to defy, that so captivates me and forces me into these capitulating circumstances. I would have argued if not for my own arcane desire. How can you question the love of another without opening old wounds? No good would come from continuing this line of questioning and I would certainly not achieve my own goals. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if there really was an end to all of this. Could it be possible to relinquish the past to the deepest recesses of the heart, or would it remain always entwined in the fabric of her being? Perhaps, I wasn't the one to ask being that I had my fair share of scars. I said, "okay," and led her to the queen-sized bed. I loved her intensity, though I knew I could never trust her wild heart. Her skin felt like velvet on mine, and I kissed her with passion, hoping to wash away the stains of my own doubts and misgivings. Hoping she could forget the ominous past that threatened to steal this moment away from me.