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Tory doesn’t smoke. She never liked it.
The bitter tang in her lungs, the acrid smell that clings to skin and clothes, the way it reminds her of every burned-out moment in her life. Her mom’s stained fingers clutching a cigarette like it was life support. The ashtray overflowing on the coffee table, a shrine to stress and exhaustion.
No, Tory doesn’t smoke. She’s spent too long breathing in the residue of other people’s wreckage to ever crave that kind of fire.
But Robby does.
It doesn’t surprise her, not really. There’s something about the way he carries himself, like a cigarette pressed between two fingers, burning slow, steady, until it’s nothing but ash. He smokes like he doesn’t care if it kills him, like he’s daring it to try.
The first time she sees him do it, they’re outside the dojo, sitting on the curb after a grueling practice. The sky is a bruised purple, and the air is heavy with summer heat. He pulls a cigarette from his pocket, lights it with a flick of his wrist, and exhales a thin stream of smoke into the fading light.
She watches him, silent, her arms draped over her knees. The cigarette glows between his fingers, the ember bright against the shadows gathering around them.
“You don’t seem like the type,” she says finally, her voice cutting through the stillness.
He glances at her, smirking faintly. “What type’s that?”
“The cliché kind,” she replies, waving a hand at the cigarette. “Bad boy with a chip on his shoulder, smoking his problems away.”
Robby huffs a laugh, the sound low and rough. “Guess I’m full of surprises.”
He offers the cigarette to her, holding it out like a challenge. She stares at it, the curl of smoke rising between them like a question.
She doesn’t take it.
“I don’t smoke,” she says, her voice firm but not unkind.
“I know,” he replies, pulling it back to his lips. He takes another drag, the ember flaring bright, and for a moment, she’s struck by how raw he looks, his face half-lit, his jaw tense, his eyes distant.
She wonders if he smokes to keep his hands busy, to distract himself from the weight he carries. She knows that weight too well, the way it digs into your shoulders, pressing you down until you can’t stand upright.
“You shouldn’t either,” she says after a moment, her tone softer now.
Robby exhales, the smoke curling around his face like a veil. “Yeah, probably not.”
They sit there in silence, the night creeping in around them. She watches the cigarette burn down to the filter, watches the way he flicks it onto the pavement and grinds it out with the heel of his shoe.
“Why do you do it?” she asks finally.
He shrugs, his gaze fixed on the ground. “It’s not about the cigarette. It’s the pause. The quiet.”
She thinks about that, about the kind of quiet he’s chasing. It’s the same kind she craves, the same kind she never seems to find.
“I get that,” she says, and she means it.
Robby looks at her then, really looks at her, and there’s something unspoken in his eyes. Something raw and jagged, like the edge of a broken bottle.
“Do you?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
She nods. “Yeah. I do.”
The space between them feels heavier now, charged with something neither of them can name. She doesn’t reach for him, and he doesn’t reach for her, but somehow, they’re closer than they’ve ever been.
When he pulls out another cigarette, she doesn’t tell him to stop. Instead, she sits with him as he lights it, as the ember glows against the dark.
She doesn’t smoke. She never liked it.
But maybe she understands it now; the burn, the pause, the quiet.
Maybe she understands him.