The heavy metal door of the venue clicked open, cutting through the quiet alley where she sat perched on a wooden bench. She instinctively ran a hand through her hair, looking up with a look of caught-red-handed surprise as the light from the doorway spilled out onto her denim jacket. Standing there, frozen in utter shock, was one of her coworkers from the office.
"Wait... you smoke?" the coworker asked, eyes darting from her face down to the lit cigarette resting between her fingers.
To the rest of the world, she was still the sweet, put-together colleague who drank green tea and never missed a deadline. She hadn't been smoking for very long at all, but the habit had taken root fast, turning from a weekend whim into a full-blown daily craving. Most people in her life still had absolutely no clue she had gotten herself completely hooked.
She let out a soft, slightly embarrassed laugh, waving the thin trail of smoke away. "Yeah, I know. Surprise," she said, gesturing for them to keep it down.
Leaning back against the wall, she decided to just be honest. She explained how it had started, just a casual, late-night drag from a friend a couple of months back during a stressful week. She didn't expect much from it, but the progression had been terrifyingly seamless.
"Look, I know it's awful for me," she admitted, looking down at the glowing orange ember before taking another slow, practiced inhale. "I know all the facts, I know how bad it is. But honestly? I love it anyway. There’s this incredible, heavy buzz the second it hits my lungs, and it just completely resets my brain. The whole feeling of it is intoxicating."
Her coworker watched her, the initial shock slowly fading into a fascinated curiosity. The girl on the bench just smiled, entirely unapologetic now that her secret was out in the open. She took one last deep drag, accepting that she was a smoker now.
gummygunk
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