How To Stop Smoking

No longer a necessary component of my face

Chapter Three

Olympia

I typed out the number that Rob had written on my hand into my phone, a battered old Nokia that I barely ever used. It felt strange to call him Rob,I mean obviously that's his name but he used to just be the year thirteen that I didn't know, and now he's Rob.

I texted the number he gave me, after ten minutes of debating what to say I sent a simple, 'Hi, this is Olympia.' He didn't reply straight away, he probably had much bette things to do. But that didn't stop me from worrying.

Should I have but 'hello' or 'hey'? Suddenly 'hi' seemed to be the complete wrong thing to send. Maybe I should have put my last name too, but then again how many Olympias does he know?

I tried to distract myself with an episode of Criminal Minds but I couldn't stop looking over at my phone, wondering why it hadn't vibrated yet. What if he gave me the wrong number? That would be so embarrassing.

It was getting to the end of the episode, Prentiss and Morgan were sneaking into some warehouse, looking for the bad guy when my phone vibrated on the desk.

1 New Message: Rob

I tried to ignore the happy sensation that grew within me at the words, while opening the message to read.

'Hey'

That was it, that's all he had to say? Do I reply to that or not? I don't want to seem over eager but I also don't want to seem like I'm ignoring him.

I decided that we should organise our 'sessions' as the help booklet called them, so I replied with a 'When are you free for us to get started?'

Pressing send was then followed by more time of worrying, cut short this time by a quick reply.

'How's tomorrow?'

'Tomorrow it is, what time?'

'I'll come pick you up at 12'

I didn't bother asking how he knew where I lived, my sisters used to throw notorious parties in their teenage years, and he seemed like the kind of guy who would have been invited to one.

I was always there, in my room watching a film with headphones on, eating pizza. I had strict instructions not to leave the room unless I needed the toilet. At least I got a pizza out of it though.

'That's fine'

He didn't reply after that, there wasn't really much else to say. Except now I had a new problem, what do I wear?

***

I had woken up late, by late I mean 11:45. I had 15 minutes before the hottest boy, in my opinion, at school was picking me up. I pulled on some jeans and a Pink Floyd t-shirt, then some socks and my vans. I went to the bathroom and did my usual make up routine, foundation, powder, blusher, eyeliner, mascara.

On the best days this takes less than ten minutes, but today my eyeliner would not play ball.  One side was perfect. The other side was a smudged black mess.

Concluding that eyeliner was no longer a necessary component of my face, I wiped it all off and just put some mascara on.  It would have to do, it's 11:57 and I've had no breakfast.

A hungry Olympia is a grumpy Olympia.

As soon as I got downstairs there was a knock on the door, oh god he's early.

I opened it up to see Rob smiling at me.

"Hey."

"Hey." I replied, well this was turning out to be a fascinating conversation.