The Stench of Honeysuckle

"I love the smell of honeysuckle," she said from the backseat. Honeysuckle. Always that smell in May. She had no way of knowing the mere thought of it made me want to scream until my throat bled out.
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I knew something wasn't right that day. I knew that you were thinking of leaving. I could tell in the way you spoke and how you rambled that this was different than the other times. I knew it. I felt it. I even said to someone else, "I think this is different. He sounds different."

I am sure in the scheme of things the last words I heard from you were meant to bring me some sort of comfort. Like it was a little blanket for me to hold onto as you broke my heart.  "Thank you. Thank you for being my friend. Not just now - but always." Those sweet words smell like honeysuckle to me. And that makes me want to scream until my throat bleeds out.

Although you decided it was over- I wasn't ready to give up and drove all the way to that house of yours. Not that you were there. You were already gone. So I sat in the driveway, next to the honeysuckle plant and worried. I slowly pulled back and decided I would look for you and change your mind.

Hours have the most amazing way of stretching themselves into long, thick heavy chains. That's exactly how it felt. Those chains that dragged on and held my breath in my damn throat. When I couldn't find you, I went back to that house of yours and I sat on the steps and rattled on and on to your roommate. I rattled on- I shook - and I worried. The hours grew more heavy links in the chain that held the breath in my damn throat.

When the policeman knocked on the door I thought him absurd. He was there looking for you. Well, if you were there we wouldn't have phoned the police, now would we? Certainly not. I dismissed him as one would a servant and went back to rattling on to the roommate.

After the police had gone and the roommate had most likely tuned me out I walked out to the driveway and smoked another cigarette. I smoked in your driveway and stood there in the dark with the burning light of the stick and the sickening, repugnant smell of those fucking honeysuckles. I thought about you out there in that driveway while I was alone with the fucking honeysuckles and my cigarette. I thought about how you always managed to be larger than life. The life in me choked me as I stood there with that sweet, horrible smell and the smoke from the cigarette. Images ran through my mind and memories flooded me like a broken damn and all I could smell were those damn honeysuckles. I dropped the cigarette to the ground and looked at it. Leaving it in the driveway was going to piss you off and I knew it. You were going to be pissed that I threw it in your driveway. I thought about how you pretended to hate smoking and yet smoked my very girly cigarettes every time we went out. You held it like a Marlboro Man screen test but it was just a skinny little Capri. How funny you always seemed smoking that feminine cigarette that way. I stomped the light out and left the remnants in your driveway just to piss you off.

The rest of this story I cannot bring myself to write yet. You know how it ends. I just cant put it into words. But this part of my sad history has been pushing out and I needed to let it see the light of day. The rest is still musty and molded in the dark parts of my soul. It's May again and she actually reminded me of honeysuckles last night. I hate that smell. I quit smoking. You're still gone. It's been thirteen years now and still I hate the smell of those God dammed honeysuckles.