Chapter Text
He had never touched a cigarette before. He had seen his father smoking before his mother’s grave and had caught a couple of his classmates smoking in the bathroom, but he had never done it.
And yet, that night on his threshold, he had a cigarette dangling from his lips. An orange glow flickered on his face when he lit it. He inhaled deeply, and an acrid flavor filled his mouth. In and out, in and out. It was easy.
She would tell him off. She would tell him that he was an idiot for smoking. But she wasn’t there, hadn’t been for a long time, and he told himself that he couldn’t care less.
The sun was rising when he dropped the last of the cigarettes’ butts and he crushed it viciously against the pavement with the tip of his shoe.
He went back inside.
In the morning, he had to continue playing house.