The Boy With The Cigarette

Short story about a girl's weird new habit.

The first time I saw him, I had been aimlessly gazing outside the window in the back seat of the red four-by-four.
As the car came to a stop on the red light, I noticed how gloomy the sky was. It looked as if it would rain, but the way the sun continued to peek from behind the clouds suggested it would simply be a cloudy day.
He was standing in front of a metal blue door, which stood right beside a large blue gate.
He wore one of the standard uniforms of the French schools in the neighborhood: a white shirt with navy pants, but I could not recognize which school he belonged to. His skin was a light-caramel, creamy white, hinting at a more Middle Eastern or Northern African than a European descent. He had brown curly hair, and seemed to stand at 5’12 from where I sat. He was neither skinny, nor fat. Not lanky or fit. Just an average build, but there was something about the way he held himself that captivated my attention.
He wore the most contemplative look as he lifted the cigarette to his lips and inhaled. He closed his eyes as he exhaled a stream of smoke, and seemed to be weighed down by the burdens of life.
As the car lurched forward, my eyes flew to the digital clock attached to the stereo. 7:15 a.m. I got one last glimpse of the boy with the cigarette as the car drove onto the bridge.
From that moment on, my eyes would always find him and his cigarette every morning at 7:15 as I headed to school.

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I had overslept. The time on my phone read as 7:05 a.m. I would be late to school, but more importantly, I would not be able to see the boy with the cigarette today.
I rushed out of bed, ran to my brother’s room to wake him up, then to my mother’s. I swiftly went through the motions of my morning routine and ran downstairs to help my mother prepare breakfast.
My brother was not in his usual dash to grab all his books for today which meant he was still sleeping. I almost jumped all the stairs as I opened the door to my brother’s room and ripped the bed sheet off of him.
“Get up! Now! We’re so late!” I yelled as I began to shake his arm and face while still keeping a certain distance from him, just in case he decided to be aggressive today.
“Okay! I’ll get up if you stop shaking me!” he yelled as he pulled the cover over his face.
I shook my head, removed my hand, and stood still in front of him. “Well? Get up.” I said in a most deadpan voice.
He slowly removed the cover and made his way into the bathroom.
I returned downstairs, picked my lunchbox from the kitchen counter, told my mother I was leaving, and ran to the car.
7:25 a.m. I estimated we would both would enter our first classes more than ten minutes late. I shook my head as my brother took his time to walk to the car ten minutes later.

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I could almost scream at how frustrated I was in that very moment. The clock read 7:50 a.m. Class would be starting in ten minutes and we were still 35 minutes away from school.
The car stopped at the red light, and I faced a solitary blue metal door with its neighboring blue gate.
Seeing the boy every morning had become something of a ritual, and in my boredom with life, his presence dictated how my day would turn out. Today would be a pretty bad day.
My eyes flicked to the traffic light and found it still an irritatingly tacky red.
I turned to look at the blue door, when the most unexpected event occurred.
It opened and out came the boy with the cigarette. Of course, he had not yet lighted his cigarette, but I’m sure he would at any moment. The forecast of my day had changed in a short moment, and I was suddenly very glad I had overslept.
Then the day regained its bitter ending as a girl came out of the same door as my boy with his cigarette, wrapped her arm around his, and leaned her head on his shoulder.

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2:30 p.m. School was over, and I had been quiet the entire day. My friend approached me as I walked toward the school gate. She slung her arm on my shoulder and said, “All right. What’s bothering you? You’ve been out of it all day.”
All I could say was, “Sister or girlfriend? Ugh!”
However confused my friend might have been, she kept her arm on my shoulder and said, “Okay. Today is one of your weird days.” And we continued to walk.