He won’t hate you he’s always loved you, even though he has tried hard to forget about you. “You can begin to mitigate some of the guilt you’ve felt since, what, 10th grade. His voice was hoarse, she noted, an early sign of his body’s betrayal. Technically, he was her boss, everyone’s boss, but it was complicated. “I didn’t know you were keeping a running tally,” she said, without turning to look at him. “You gonna make it to 6:00 without having another one?” “It’s a little early for the fourth cigarette,” said the man, as he stepped out of his office. The past would soon be in the present and she wasn’t sure how that would affect the future. For five minutes, she stood there, thinking and smoking and pushing hair out of her face. White, pillow-like clouds drifted lazily overhead and blotted out the sun from time to time. The wind picked up and blew wavy brown hair into her eyes. She walked over to the edge of the terrace and took in the familiar view. So why was it so damn hard to quit? She knew why. She ate healthy and made it a point to run at least two miles a day and lift weights at least 3 days a week. She rarely drank and had only experimented with recreational drugs twice in her entire life. It was the only vice that had woven itself into the fabric of her life, other than Pinterest. The stress of life had her sneaking smokes from her mom’s stash beginning during her freshman year of high school and she hadn’t been able to stop. Try as she might, she couldn’t blow her problems away on a cloud of smoke.

She took a deep drag and exhaled forcefully. She pulled a half-empty pack of Marlboros from the front pocket of her navy slacks and lit her fourth and final cigarette of the day. She was one of eight lucky employees to have this perk, as two corner offices could access each terrace. Top executives and corporate lawyer types needed space to blow off steam or step away from the computer screen and think from time to time. The Sky Park, it was affectionately known as, though seventy feet off the ground didn’t quite qualify as lofty. Each corner of the square, five-story building had this benefit. The woman stepped out of her top floor corner office, and outside, onto the spacious, park-like terrace, with its green space and padded park benches.

Break It by Ben Muse