The first time I smoked a cigarette it was with a boy that I knew I didn’t love, his eyes held darkness inside of them and they told me more than his lips could ever say. It was in the middle of winter and we were outside, I mimicked his shallow breaths and the tangled sound of his inhale letting out the hot air of my breath, pretending that I was brave enough to take a drag of his forbidden fruit.

“You’re so cute.” His words taunted me, I didn’t want to be cute around him, I wanted to be cultured and fearless. I wanted him to see the sexiness that I thought lurked underneath my seventeen-year-old skin. He, however, looked through me, instead of sexiness he saw me for what I truly was, a scared child peeking around the hollow shafts of my ribcage.

He didn’t think thought I was brave enough, he never said so. But his eyes, those damn eyes, told me what I had already suspected. He tilted one eyebrow upwards and his lips rippled across the torture device that he held firmly between his lips, a smile playing at his cheeks.

I held out my hand to him, “Give me one.” I had one major flaw, I was always so eager to prove myself to people. I’d jump from a cliff if someone said that they didn’t think that I could do it.

“Do you think you can handle it?” His voice was as smoke filled as his lungs. He pulled his American Spirit pack from the front pocket of his shirt, treating me as if I was a child, tempting me with a large chocolate chip cookie.

I take it from his loosened grip, and everything that I’ve ever heard about smoking is suddenly so prevalent in my mind, and I’m drowning in flashing warnings. My grandfathers both passed away from cancer, I had seen the commercials with the people who speak through stomas, and I had heard the horror stories of second hand smoke. Yet here I stood, cigarette between my fingers feeling like an old time Hollywood star, the epitome of sex appeal.

He dug in his jean’s pocket, pulling his lighter from his tight ripped pants. “Do you want me to light it for you?” Always the gentleman, even when presenting me with an express line for my death. 

“I think I can manage just fine.” I took the lighter, and held the filter between my teeth. I do as I’m told, light and inhale.

We sat, backs against the chain link fence that bordered the tennis court, our coats pulled up around our necks blocking out the bitter truth that the cold winds blew in. The truth being that this was the last night we would spend together that winter.

Looking back now, I think that we both knew that the end was coming. He looked at me and it made me feel like I was the last beautiful thing that he would ever see.

Together we chained smoked half of his pack. I apologized profusely. He insisted that it wasn’t a hard thing to do, as he blew perfect smoke rings he said, “I’ve smoked a pack a day for the past three years.” He was only nineteen.

“At least let me pay for another pack?”

My right and his left hand were tangled together in his coat pocket, he rubbed his thumb over the top of my hand and said, “No, I couldn’t let a lady pay for a bad habit. Here,” He pulled the cartridge once again from his front shirt pocket and tossed it into my lap, “You take the rest of these, hold on to them for safekeeping. Just don’t light any of them up without me there.”

He winked at me. And I think in that moment I knew that I could never fully love him. He was so eager to let me kill myself, encouraging a habit that wasn’t only bad for me but for those surrounding me. He was fun, but fun doesn’t hold your hair for you when you are too sick to go out that night, fun doesn’t help you study for an important test, and fun sure as hell won’t pump your gas for you when it’s 10 degrees outside and you don’t want to get out of the warm car.

That night I got home, and headed straight to the shower. I scrubbed off not only the stench of smoke but also the last bit of love that I ever thought I had for him. I hid the pack in my desk drawer, underneath old writings and lost memories.  A piece of me, however, wonders why I don’t just throw them in the trash it wonders why I’m keeping it. The same piece of me is curious to why I haven’t left him yet. I think I was just tired of being lonely.