She walked with her shoulders hunched, like she was protecting a tender bruise. Her voice came out small, hesitant, her eyes too wide anticipating the worst. At the back of lectures she hid beneath an oversized cardigan, fingernails bitten to the quick, a silhouette easily missed.

On her eighth birthday, she stood unnoticed, with a plate of cake, while cousins and friends played, laughed, chased balloons. Years later, the children laughed when the teacher said sit down if you can’t answer. In college, her lab partner forgot her name, called her the girl at the back.

Then a boy in the quad smirked, You’re like a shadow. The words hit her chest, lodged like a thorn. 

One night, in the hostel corridor, she found a crumpled pack of cigarettes on the windowsill. She slipped one out and took it home like contraband. She struck a match and raised the flame. The smoke clawed at her throat, her eyes watered, but she held steady. In the dark glass of the window, she saw her own reflection wreathed in silver haze. She wasn’t invisible anymore. She was lit, framed, undeniable. The room smelled sharp and raw, but it wrapped around her like a secret. She pressed her fingers against the glass, leaving smudges beside her ghostly face. The cigarette glowed down to ash, fragile and brief. Yet in that fleeting ember, she felt infinite.

She had tried on new selves like costumes. Cropped hair, jangling beads, loud, clothes that screamed out. Each attempt slid off leaving her thinner, smaller, the same little blur she’d always been. Until the night she lit the cigarette, and then for the first time, the mask fit.

It took three days, and she learned the rhythm, inhale, hold, let go. The smoke became a veil. She was Audrey Hepburn in her mirror, Sophia Loren with kohl-lined eyes, wispy hair. False nails replaced bitten ones. She started to redefine herself. She read the papers now, to keep abreast of world news. At night she joined theatre crowds, flushed with belonging even though she went alone. She bought holders in every color, shed weight, wore clothes that fit. She was all sparkle and pull. A presence that would draw people in. Perhaps she’d write a book one day? Join a theatre group?  She smiled, took another drag, and inhaled herself larger. She walked through the city at night, imagined stares following her. She wrote witty quips in a notebook, pretending they were lines dropped at cocktail parties. She dreamt herself substantial, popular.

The fatigue started long before the fever came. The cough wracked her frame until her ribs hurt. Antibiotics ended in nausea and heartburn, but the cough still tore at her. The TB spread like a flame through her body. Night sweats, lack of energy, appetite gone. The weight loss was dramatic, until to breathe was to exert.

The doctor was blunt: A year of treatment, tough side effects. And cigarettes, even one, a death wish.

She threw a party.
Not a polite gathering. This was a spectacle. She dressed herself in a purple sheath with crimson nails. She lined the table with bottles, scattered cushions across the floor. She opened cupboards, pulled out her clothes and spread them across the room. Sleeves turned into outstretched arms, shoes into dancing feet, hems to swaying skirts, until she wasn’t alone. She had friends ready to celebrate, flowing in with their own fabulous mysteries. She saw them all. Even introduced them to each other. They came alive around her. Found her radiant, laughing, telling stories that shimmered with wit and venom.

At midnight she climbed onto a chair, lifted her glass, “Here’s to smoke, to fire, to living beautifully on borrowed breath.” They applauded.
She lit a match and held the flame to her stack of medical reports. Paper curled, blackened, scattered into glowing petals. 

The party spilled into dawn, leaving her tipsy and alone amid bottles, ash, and the charred husks of her diagnosis. 

She dozed off in her wicker chair. The cigarette touched the rug’s fringe and whispered itself into flame. Each crest of orange-purple incinerated the guests, one at a time.

 The heat painted her walls gold. She slept on. The fire rose, licking curtains, ceiling, hair. Smoke filled her lungs one last time. Sharp, searing, familiar. The doorframes exhaled, the room turned opaque. 

Outside, the night breathed a deep indigo hush. Inside, she became a brief, brilliant thing.