#nel1

It was becoming harder and harder to reach the level of numb he craved when he drank. He hated going out, but staying in made it harder to hide from his own mind, so tonight had found him... wherever here was. He tossed a look over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of the sign on the building, but he didn’t see one. He turned back, shrugging further into his jacket against the sharp chill of the night air and slipping a cigarette into the corner of his mouth.

He’d been rude to the woman inside that had just been trying to be friendly, strike up conversation for the sake of her job. He didn’t feel bad about it, had tipped her handsomely for the trouble, but he wondered if he’d ever stop responding to kindness with anger, with defensiveness, as though kindness were simply a mask for something nefarious just beneath the surface. 

He flicked the wheel on his lighter and watched it spark and then die out. Again and again and again. With a frustrated groan, he clenched the lighter in his fist and considered throwing it as far and as hard as he could, wondering if the sound of it meeting its end would bring him even a crumb of satisfaction. He turned it over in his palm, still considering, when he heard the sound of light footsteps. Turning to face them, he held his worthless lighter up in front of his face, and opened his mouth to ask if they had a light, when his eyes landed on the woman from inside. He sighed to himself, figured she’d have no reason to want to help him, and turned back, trying once again to flick the lighter to life. And watched again as it sparked and died. “Mother fucker,” he seethed quietly to himself. He barked out a single, harsh laugh at his shitty luck, knowing he was about to give her the perfect opportunity to tell him to go fuck himself, and slid his attention back to the woman. “You wouldn’t happen to have a lighter that works, would you?”