I wasin dire need of a cigarette. My body wasn’t asking, but rather demanding I fill my lungs with the sweet and toxic smoke of nicotine. I shouldn’t have stopped at the mini mart on the way to work, but I couldn’t resist. I needed the security blanket. My intent wasn’t really to smoke them… hell, who was I kidding? I damn well planned on smoking them. But fuck, out of all days, I would say I had a damn good excuse for cheating just this once. Knowing deep down I should simply ignore the craving and just relieve Maria so she could go home, I walked over to my friend, about to ask for another favor instead.
“I hate to ask you this,” I began in a low voice by her ear. “Can you give me a couple of minutes to go smoke before you leave?” I hated myself for caving to my addiction, but I knew if I didn’t get a smoke, I was going to snap at some poor unsuspecting customer.
Surprised, she looked up at me. “I thought you quit a few weeksago.”
“I did.” I shrugged, feeling the shame of my nasty habit.
With skepticism in her eyes, she asked, “Are you sure everything is all right? You really don’t seem yourself today.” Maria knew how hard I had worked on quitting smoking, so this was a dead giveaway all was not well in the Demi Wayne world.
“I just got some bad news last night. But I really don’t want to talk about it. At least not rightnow.”
“Demi…”
“Please, I can’t get into it here. I just need a little time to get my shit together. I’ll be fine. I promise.”
Was that a lie? I really wasn’t sure. I was still walking. I was still going about my day. I was still breathing. So, I must be fine. Wasn’tI?
She nodded. “Go ahead. I got this covered. Take as long as youneed.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I won’t belong.”
I rushed out the back door and headed to the rear parking lot as I reached into the pocket of my apron like a junkie with shaky hands. By placing the pack of cigarettes and lighter in my apron before starting my shift, I had definitely set myself up for failure, since it was like a beacon leading me to the light. But my destiny to fuck up my nicotine-free life happened the minute the phone rang last night.
Correction.
It all started the minute my mother decided to kill those five innocent men, casting me into a fucked up nightmare.
Swallowing back my nausea, I came up with a plan. I was going to stand there, smoke, and not allow my mind to go to the dark place it wanted to go. It was 1:50. My mother would be alive for only ten minutes longer. She had ten minutes left to breathe the air on this earth as I stood in a parking lot behind an old local diner in a small deadbeat town polluting my own air. Fuck! Taking a deep drag, I silently cursed for allowing myself to think those thoughts. The only way I would survive this day was to go numb. I needed to go fuckingnumb!
Should I have been there? Should I have rushed to her side? But for what? To watch her die? I hadn’t even visited her in jail once since the day we heard the words ‘guilty.’ I refused. For the first couple of years, I wouldn’t even speak to her, or open her letters. I hated the woman who gave birth to me. I would never forgive her for choosing a stupid cause over her own daughter.
