I don’t think it’s really fair to call this last bit of my story from yesterday a “part 2”. I was near the end already. Here it is anyway…
“Jie jie! Jie jie!” It was my little brother. He was searching for me, his eyes scanning the backyard. They hadn’t looked up to the our tree platform yet.
Cynthia and I hurriedly scrambled down the ladder, leaving behind the evidence of our bad behavior. We went to distract my brother before he could start snooping around.
“Hey Jeffrey!” Cynthia said to him sweetly, putting her arm around his shoulders and trying to steer him away.
“What are you doing?” Jeffrey asked us, trying to look behind us to see where we had come from.
“Nothing! Let’s go inside.” I said, not so sweetly and that was that.
It’s rather baffling to me that I started smoking for real after that first failed attempt, but I did. And if anyone doubts the addictive nature of cigarettes, let me say this. Even though I only smoked for maybe a year and not very much, there are times, like yesterday, when I’ll read a passage in a book, or see a scene in a movie, where a character is smoking, and I’ll crave a cigarette so badly. I’ll want to hold one between my fingers and take a big long drag and fill my lungs up with that horrible smoke. Luckily, the craving passes pretty quickly. I’ll remember tasting like an ashtray and I’ll go on hating the smell of cigarette smoke again. Of course, right now I could really use one.
You gotta smoke?
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