He leaned against the cold brick wall and slid down, the rough edges catching his shirt and dragging it up until he just shrugged it off. When his rump hit the floor, he pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and opened it, his chilled hand fumbling around for the last one as he grabs the pack of matches in his other pocket.
"Last one," he whispers to himself, making a mental note to get more later tonight. With a sigh he puts it between his lips and strikes a match, curling his free hand protectively over the end as he pulls the match closer and inhales deeply, drawing in the flame and igniting the tobacco within. He lets the breath out slowly, reveling in the taste and smoke drifting from his mouth, his eyes closed in silent, almost pained bliss.
He knew he would have to shower out here and wash off all the smell of smoke and death from himself if he didn't want to upset her though. She hated smoking, thought it was vile and disgusting, a terrible habit pursued only by the worst kind of people. She had made him promise to quit and never do it again, and like a fool, he had said he would. He even tried and managed it for a while too, almost a three years.
Then had come college, and the stress of finals week every semester. He would break down, go through drinking binges and days where he couldn't sleep no matter what he did. Finally he just bit the bullet and bought a pack, sat down outside the dorm and began smoking them, one my one, half the pack in an hour...and he felt instantly better, the stress leaving him with each cloud of smoke.
Of course, then the shame had hit him; shame at breaking his promise, shame at his going through half the pack in an hour, shame at what he would say when she asked how he was next they spoke, at how he would lie and say he was alright, that he wasn't going to fail any classes and he had taken up boxing to destress himself (the gym never had punching bags, clearly a blatant lie if she ever came down to see the school), and that he couldn't wait to see her, the only true statement, because he missed her so badly and wanted to be with her, the second true statement.
He had tried to quit once he got home, thrown out all his packs of Broncos and Malboros and Camels, broken his lighters open and cut all his matches. It had almost worked. Until his dad got sick. Real sick.