Free Pink Smog by Francesca Lia Block

and thick adobe walls. We turned onto a small side street. There was a little deserted park with a swing set and climbing equipment. The patch of sand and green was surrounded by a wall of bamboo overgrown with morning glories, bougainvillea, and oleander, all intertwined to create a new plant of purple bells, red leafy blossoms, and hot-pink-and-white flowers. A white angel’s trumpet with its poisonous, upside-down lily cups grew nearby. Winter jumped onto one of the swings and gestured for me to join him. His long legs looked like they could touch the sky.
    I scowled at him for a while but it didn’t seem to be working so I went over and sat on the swing, dragging my skates in circles in the sand.
    â€œIt’s better if you actually swing,” Winter said, smiling at me sideways. “That’s why they call it a swing?”
    â€œI don’t feel like it.”
    He slowed down and twisted the chain swing so that he was facing me.
    â€œAre you sending me those notes?” I asked.
    â€œWhat notes?” He blinked innocently, fluttering his eyelashes the way an actor would do in a movie, but it felt genuine.
    â€œFairest of them all? Fee Fi Fo Fum?”
    â€œNursery rhymes?”
    â€œYes. Did you send them?”
    He shook his head. “It’s been a long time since I heard any nursery rhymes. Why?”
    I decided to let that one go. I had a more important question. “How do you know Charlie?”
    â€œHe was my mom’s director. I guess they were friends.”
    â€œFriends? Yeah right.”
    â€œBelieve me, Weetzie, whatever the situation is, you’re the one he cares about the most.”
    â€œCares? He left me! He hasn’t even called.”
    â€œHe thinks about you all the time.”
    â€œHow do you know?” I got up and moved away from him. My heart was doing its slamming thing. I saw red. You know how they say you see red when you’re angry? That was really what it was like. The world looked red for a second like when you press your hands over your eyelids and tilt your face up toward the sun.
    Winter looked down at his hands and bit nervously at one cuticle. “He’s tried to call you,” he said. “But she always answers. Or the machine.”
    I slumped on the bench and put my head down. “Why is this happening?”
    Winter untwisted the chain of his swing and spun away from me, rubbing his eyes with a fist. “My dad left, too,” he said.
    When he stopped spinning I saw that his eyes were red. “I never really got to know him at all. He was always doing his own thing and working so hard. All I got from him is this fucked-up last name.”
    â€œI’m sorry.” It was the first time I had stopped thinking about myself that afternoon.
    â€œBut then I realized that the whole thing is bullshit—this parent-child thing. Some people are lucky to have it but a lot of them don’t. You just have to make your own family, your own life. Whatever. Even when you’re a kid and it feels too hard. That’s the only way. You have to figure out how to take care of yourself before anything else will work out.”
    I nodded and watched him squinting into the tangle of foliage around us.
    â€œThis is beautiful,” he said. “Here. That’s another thing you’ve got to do. You’ve got to see the beauty whenever you can and take what you can get. Otherwise you just get old.”
    â€œLike Charlie,” I said. “He got old. And my mom, too.”
    Winter tossed his hair out of his eyes and leaned back in the swing, stretching his arms up behind him and cracking his knuckles. “They all do. But not me. I’ll never get old.” There wasn’t teenage invincible, live-forever bravado in his voice—he sounded a little melancholy, almost.
    The day seemed to get darker and cooler all at once. A blackbird cawed ominously in a tree overhead and I wanted to leave. I had