The Fall of One Matthias Bernard

3. - Puttin' on the Damage (Age 17) *1987*

Prom night smelled like cheap perfume, sweat, and polished floors. The gym had been transformed into a cavern of colored lights and synthetic ribbons, but the corners still carried the scent of old basketballs and dust. Even with the decorations, the gym didn’t fully leave its past behind, and I noticed that immediately—the layering of new and old, the way remnants of time clung stubbornly to surfaces.

Anna came to pick me up. She was wearing a dress that was just daring enough to make me nervous. Her hair fell in loose waves that caught the streetlights, and for a second, I thought about what she must have seen when she looked in the mirror that morning. My hands shook slightly when I opened the door, though I told myself it was excitement. I hated that my body betrayed me so easily.

The ride over was quiet at first. Radio music spilled across the dashboard, but nothing could compete with the sound of my own thoughts. Then, Puttin’ on the Ritz came on. Taco’s voice cut through the static like it belonged to some other era, impossibly charming and unplaceable. The swing of the song made my stomach tighten. There was something about that rhythm that felt deliberate, inevitable—like the first cigarette.

“Do you know this one?” Anna asked.

I shrugged. “Kind of.” Not really. I’d heard it a hundred times in passing, but right now it sounded like it was written just for us. For this foggy, urgent night, suspended between the past I carried and the future I had no claim to.

The gym was packed, the lights low enough that no one’s face felt fully real. The music thumped through the floor and up into my chest. I clutched Anna’s hand as we walked toward the edge of the crowd, and it felt strange to be so present, yet so removed. I didn’t dance much at first, just enough to let the music seep into my limbs. My body remembered steps it didn’t need to, muscle memory stitched tighter than any thought.

I thought about smoking. I always thought about smoking. Even here, even now, I could feel it waiting for me in my pocket, a small promise of focus, of calm. Behind the bleachers. Outside in the parking lot. Anywhere I could disappear for a few breaths. The first cigarette had been an experiment, but by now it was necessity—the ritual I clutched in silence while the world spun too fast around me.

Anna laughed when I stepped on her toe. I apologized, but my words felt hollow, mechanical. She didn’t seem to notice, or maybe she didn’t care. That small indifference made the moment feel more fragile, more alive.

We left the dance floor and wandered to a corner where the lights were dimmer, the shadows closer. I could see the fog rolling in from the streets, diffused by the parking lot lights outside. For a second, I imagined myself twenty years from now, old and gray, trying to conjure this night from memory. I felt panic, sharp and tight, in my chest. Would I remember Anna’s laugh? The smell of the gym? The way her hand had felt in mine? Or would this slip away, leaving only a hollow imprint?

I lit a cigarette in the lot. The flame flared, orange against the fog, and I felt a small, electric surge. Smoke curled up and disappeared into the night, taking with it a fraction of the tension I carried. The ritual comforted me even as it reminded me that I was dependent, already entangled with the habit in ways I didn’t fully understand.

Inside again, the music was louder. Someone shouted, and it ricocheted against walls and balloons and fluorescent light fixtures. I felt it reverberate in my chest and stomach, like a reminder that I didn’t belong entirely anywhere. I was here, but only partially. The rest of me was elsewhere—lost in smoke, or memory, or both.

We found a table at the edge of the gym. Anna leaned back in her chair, a perfect mixture of relaxed and poised. I kept watching her, memorizing the subtle movements—the tilt of her head, the way her eyes caught the light, the way her laughter softened the sharp edges of the room. I tried to carve the memory into me. Tried to hold it intact like a cigarette ember before it went out.

I thought about how fragile memory was. I knew that, even as I stood here with her, laughing at something trivial, the details were already eroding. Names of songs, the smell of flowers someone had draped across the bleachers, the sound of sneakers squeaking across the polished floor—all slipping. I could feel it happening in real time, and it terrified me.

A slow dance began. Anna and I joined it reluctantly. The rhythm moved us almost automatically. I felt her body against mine, sensed the warmth and weight and slight tremble that reminded me how much control she had over herself—and over me. I wanted to anchor this, press it into permanence, but the music kept moving, carrying moments away like leaves on a stream.

I thought about the cigarettes again. I could feel the craving settle into the base of my neck, behind my eyes. The ritual was familiar, predictable, comforting in a way that human connection could never match. Every inhale promised clarity. Every exhale dissolved tension, left me feeling both lighter and more hollow.

The night stretched. Conversations blurred together. I wasn’t sure who said what, who laughed first, or who bumped into whom. Faces smeared into one another, colors blending, voices warping. I clung to Anna as an anchor, though I knew it wasn’t enough to stop the disorientation.

Later, outside in the cool night air, she rested her head on my shoulder. I lit another cigarette. The flame caught the edges of her hair, and I watched it glow for just a second before inhaling. The smoke mixed with fog and exhaust, curling upward and away. I imagined that if I inhaled deeply enough, I could draw the memory into me, trap it there before it dissolved.

When we finally drove home, the streets were empty, wet from rain that smelled of iron and asphalt. I could feel the residue of habit clinging to me—the ember in my lungs, the faint taste at the back of my throat, the knowledge that I would repeat this again tomorrow. That was how the night ended: not with resolution, but with continuation. With survival. With the recognition that memory would fail me, but the ritual never would.

That night, lying in bed, the smoke still heavy in my hair, I realized something I hadn’t before. Prom wasn’t a celebration. It wasn’t a triumph or a memory meant to last. It was an exercise in endurance—a test of how long I could hold myself together before the world, or memory, or habit pulled me apart.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that the person who would remember or forget this night wasn’t entirely me. Not yet.