• He smiled at me, took a drag off his cigarette and laughed. “I really do love you,” he said. “I may not say it all the time, but I do.”

    “Whatever,” I muttered, knowing that he was lying, but too tired to call it out. I played idly with my fork, imagining how I could turn it into a deadly weapon right there, stab him with it...somehow, and just run. I stabbed my cold apple pie instead, wincing as I chewed the chemical-flavored filling.

    He smirked and put out his cigarette on the table, ignoring the ash tray near it. “I do. I love your red hair, and your green eyes,” he leaned forward to whisper in my ear, so the other people in the diner couldn’t hear, “and the way you cry after a nightmare...”

    I pulled away abruptly, as if he’d slapped me. He knew, he knew my nightmares were completely horrid. How could he bring that up? What a way to ruin my apple pie.

    “I want to go back to the car.”

    He gestured grandly towards the door. “Wait for me while I pay the bill, Alice.”

    I told myself I wouldn’t, that I’d get in the car and drive away, far away and leave him here at this hole-in-the-wall diner.

    I waited for him in the car.

    “My name’s not Alice, you know,” I said, once we got on the highway.

    He stayed silent, watching the road carefully, the way he always did.

    “It’s Lily. I told you that. You didn’t listen. You never do.”

    “I do. I just like Alice better. You should get your name changed. You can do that. In a court. It’s legal and everything. You could show your parents the papers and they would have to call you Alice.”

    “I want to stay Lily.” I looked out the window, biting my lip, thinking about all the Alices in the world. I didn’t want to steal one’s name.

    He didn’t respond, again.
    __

    Eventually we were at a hotel, and he was smoking again, and smiling.

    I was sitting on the bed. “Do we have to share it?”

    “You could sleep on the floor, if you want.”

    “You could.”

    “Yes, I could,” he stated, the smile on his face, but no amusement in his voice.

    I shared the bed with him. I was cold, but I stayed strictly on my side.
    __

    It was dark, and it was cold. Something smelled like cold apple pie.

    Something else hurt.

    “I want to catch fireflies.” But they burned my hand when I touched them.

    The jar is glass, and I am in it, and I can’t breathe because the kid didn’t poke holes in the lid and I’m dying and--

    Something hurts.
    __

    We were in the car again.

    He broke the silence. “I can make them go away, you know.”

    “Make what go away?”

    “The nightmares,” he said casually.

    “No you can’t,” I muttered.

    “I can. I’m the nightmares.”

    I didn’t know what he meant. So I didn’t say anything else.
    __

    “Where are we going?” I asked, watching the trees outside the window. Thinking about last night’s nightmare.

    He didn’t say anything for a long while. I thought he hadn’t heard me, and was about to ask again, when he said, “nowhere.”

    “Ah.” I bit my lip. “Can I have a cigarette?”

    He handed me one, and lit it for me, and I rolled down the window a little.

    I inhaled deeply, thinking about tobacco and nicotine and death, then exhaled the smoke, thinking about him and the car.

    “What’s your name again?” I asked.

    “I never told you.”

    “Oh.” I took another drag off the cigarette. “Will you tell me now?”

    “It’s Mark.”

    “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

    “Yes.”

    Tobacco and nicotine and death. Fireflies and pain and cold apple pie. I smiled. “I’m Alice, and I love you. Let’s go to Nowhere.”