I flicked the lighter on and then off again. It had my face on it and an impersonator's signature across the bottom where I was sure a warning of some sort should have been. I stared at it for a couple seconds, wondering when I had ever signed a contract allowing my face to be stuck on a fire arm.

But that's how it always was for me. Seeing merchandise advertised just about everywhere with my face or my "signature" plastered on it and wondering why I allowed that to happen. In the beginning it was about the art. The adrenaline that surged through my body after every show and interview. As the time went buy, it became to be about the money. Fame and fortune was all that mattered in the later years. I guess that's what I get for taking up residency in the Pop World.

On and off. I wondered if Ashley was finished packing yet.

The porch light came on and illuminated the snowy ground much more than the dinky lighter in my left hand ever could. The snow had begun to melt the day before and the remaining patches had soaked up everything from dirt to oil to dog shit. It was no longer the pretty kind of winter wonderland where you don't want to walk in it for fear of ruining the beauty, but the kind where you want to drive a tractor trailer through your front yard for hopes of making it disappear faster. I thought about getting up and dragging my feet around the yard a little bit but then decided against it. If I did, the grass wouldn't grow evenly next month.

No one really understood why I bought this house. It wasn't as if i needed another. I announced it at a dinner party my mother decided to hold in celebration of our new tour and album as if it was a huge event. Everyone at the party had bought a new house within the past two years. I'm sure no one really cared, but I did it anyway. Everyone looked up for a few seconds and said "that's nice" or "good idea" or something along those lines and then went back to eating. I wasn't surprised.

On and off. I wondered if Ashley was ever going to come out of the house.

The front door opened, but I didn't bother to look up. I knew she wouldn't look at me, so why watch her walk away? I heard her suitcase being dragged down the steps I was sitting on. She had obviously stuffed everything she could into one bag and caused it to be too heavy to lift. If I was a gentleman, I would've carried it for her. But then again if I was a gentleman, she wouldn't be leaving. Carrying her bag was out of the question. I turned my head so I wouldn't have to look at her feet, decked out in designer brand shoes I had bought her the week before in Paris. Paris was where the fighting had started. City of Love, my ass.

I heard her open the door to her Acura and pop the trunk, then continue to load her belongings into it. She mumbled something about the rest of her things but I wasn't paying too much attention. Arrogance had gotten the best of me and I mumbled a "whatever" out of the side of my mouth. I didn't have to look up to tell she had rolled her eyes before slamming the door and starting the engine. The car just sat there, rumbling and vibrating.

On and off. I wondered if Ashley was going to drive away.

I decided to be brave and look up, only to see her looking out the rear window, backing the car up. The driveway was paved near the house, so I could set up a basketball net and maybe paint a foul line or something on the black top, but I never got around to it. After a few feet, the pavement turned to stone and continued that way to the road maybe two hundred feet away. It was a private road and no one ever came down it besides me and Ashley. Just me now. I didn't have too many visitors. The rocks crackled under the weight of the tires as the automobile rolled to the street.

I reached for the pack of cigarettes between my feet and slid one out of the box. I spun it between my thumb and forefinger, and could all ready feel the tar coating my lungs and the cancer eating away at the areoles. I held it between my lips and flicked the lighter on. The first breathe slightly burnt my throat as I inhaled, but the relief I got from it was amazing. The last time I had smoked a cigarette was four years before when my mother caught me and my girlfriend puffing away in a hotel room. Needless to say the addiction to nicotine had been forced to fade away over a period of five minutes by my overbearing mother.

I inhaled again and began to feel like a hypocrite. Ashley had always been a smoker and I had always attempted to make her quit. If I died it was one thing. If someone I loved died, it was another. I crushed the semi-smoked cigarette on the pavement below my feet and threw the remaining half in the garden to my left. I picked up the lighter.

On and off. I wondered if Ashley was going to come back.