“Can I help you?” I asked with an attitude.
He didn’t react to my tone. He just stared down at me.
His eyes were unnaturally blue. Contacts, maybe.
“Funny,” the man said. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
“I’m fine,” I argued. “Thanks for your concern though.”
“Didn’t say I was concerned.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
What do you even say to that?
He tapped the pack against his palm and then pulled a cigarette out. He slipped it between his lips and lit the end.
I watched as he inhaled. The way his jaw clenched after each drag didn’t escape me, as if he were holding something back with every breath.
He looked like the perfect American boy—dark black hair, sharp jawline, strong cheekbones, and a straight nose that looked like it had dodged every punch thrown his way, even though the faint scars told me otherwise. Clean enough to pass for respectable, but with just enough edge to make you wonder how many rules he’d bent, if not outright broken. Someone you’d trust instinctively then regret it later.
Men who looked like him usually didn’t stray this far from their high-rise offices or rooftop bars on the better side of town. They stayed tucked away in their clean, shiny world, where women willingly lined up just to have their hearts broken.
“Does that always work for you?” he asked, taking another long drag.
His thumb brushed the filter absentmindedly, as if he were more interested in it than me. But I could tell he was waiting. For what, I didn’t know. Maybe to see how long I could hold out before I cracked.
I stayed quiet. Let him squirm if he wanted an answer so badly.
Then, without asking, he moved to sit down on the small step next to me. His large thigh brushed against mine.
My immediate instinct was to tell him to move, to push him off, but then he leaned closer—not enough to crowd me, but just enough to offer me the cigarette that was between his lips a second ago.
Sharing a cigarette with a stranger was a bad decision, but I’d made so many of those already.
I took it. I brought the cigarette to my lips and took a deep breath of smoke. It tasted harsh, just like I wanted. It was the relief I’d been craving all morning.
“Does what always work for me?” I finally asked.
I knew I was giving him what he wanted, but still, I couldn’t help it. He’d given me what I wanted after all.
“Acting like a damsel in distress,” he clarified.
He didn’t care if he was insulting me. If anything, he was judging me.
“It worked on you,” I said, raising an eyebrow, gesturing to the cigarette he’d just handed me. “Unless this is your idea of charity.”
“No.” He didn’t smile. “Charity is for people who don’t get themselves into messes like this.”
And there it was: the judgment I’d seen before, as clear as day. Not the kind that came with pity though. No—this was different somehow, as if he were holding up a mirror for me to look at myself.
He wasn’t telling me to get my shit together like others did. If anything, he was making it clear he didn’t care and had no intention of swooping in to save me. He was the one handing me the literal key to my addiction.
“So it does work then. You’ve answered your own question.”
He took the cigarette back, his finger brushing mine for a brief second. His hands were warm, stable, while mine were cold and shaky. I wondered if he noticed. Probably.
“You’re lucky,” he said with an exhale. “Not many people are.”
