When stars die

They had driven out to the end of a dirt road and were sitting in the back of her pickup truck, Sean with his head in her lap smoking a cigarette, Jenny running her hands idly through his too-long hair and looking up at the stars.
“I almost jumped out of Danny’s car on the highway today,” Sean said, taking a long drag off his cigarette.
“Why?” Jenny asked.
Sean shrugged. “Because.”
Jenny stared at the vast openness of the night sky, the stars shining brightly out here on the end of a dirt road, away from the city, the highway, the people, and the noise. A star flared brightly for a moment before seeming to fall. “Look Sean, a star is dying.”
Sean looked up, blowing smoke into the air in front of Jenny’s face. “We’re all dying,” he said.
Jenny nodded, still running her fingers through Sean’s soft silky hair. “You need a hair cut,” she commented. Sean nodded, not saying anything, just smoking. Jenny took the cigarette out of his mouth, taking a long drag off it before putting it back. She blew her smoke out at the same time as he did, the clouds mingling and making their vision hazy.
“I really almost did. I thought about it. I wanted to.”
“You could have died.”
“No. I’d just end up in the hospital for a long time.”
“I’d visit you.”
“Just bring me flowers, don’t ask questions. I’ll be too drugged up to answer questions.”
“I’d bring you flowers. I’d find you a garland of jasmine flowers and wrap it around your neck so even in your drugged stupor you’d think of me.”
Sean half-smiled, putting the cigarette out on the bottom of the truck bed. “You would,” he said in an accusing tone, a tone that made it seem like Jenny would force him to remember her, even in his dreams.
Jenny looked at him. “If I didn’t, you might forget.”
“You? Never. Not if I wanted to. Not if I tried.”
It was Jenny’s turn to half-smile. “I’d never let you anyway. I’ll haunt you forever, even after I die. Like that star died. You know how long ago that star died? Maybe thousands of years. And we are just now seeing it. Just now. I wonder how long it would take people to see that I died.”
“I’d see it immediately,” Sean said, sitting up to sit beside her and wrapping an arm around her. Jenny cuddled into him and sighed.
“I’m dying right now, you know. Can you see it?”
“I’m dying too. Can you?”
Jenny nodded against his chest and Sean kissed the top of her head.
“Hold me while I die,” she said and Sean pulled her closer.