I Went To College and All I Got Was This Nicotine Addiction

November.

It’s the night before I break up with my boyfriend. We three troubadours meet up at the worn red bench outside our dorm hall and traipse at dusk, donned in blazers several sizes too big, wrinkled slacks, and big smiles. The haunting bass of my favorite song plays from my phone’s speaker, the lead singer crooning along to the bittersweet melody. 

Heavy humid night. Corner of Park and Main.

Cast that first glance: your smile, my veins

At maximum capacity, blood pumping so fast.

My girl, if looks gave heart attacks.

We talk about everything and nothing. What we’re going to do over the summer. The systematic inequality perpetuated by our government. A silly inside joke. The meaning of life. My soon - to - be ex, who, they admit, neither of them really like anyway. 

One of the trio produces the sweet ichor of a new chapter in life from his pocket: a pack of cigarettes. 

I’ll break up with you if you smoke, my ex would warn teasingly, though he was wholly serious.

Fumbling, I light it, and inhale my salvation. It tastes like freedom. Not from my ex - it was never just about him - but from the world. From the constraints of the University we’d come from. From the expectations to look, to speak, to feel appropriately. From the 9-5, white-picket-fence that is the “ideal” future, the “American Dream.” I exhale my first puff of musky smoke, and the flame within me burns brighter. 

My American Dream is right here, in the taste of nicotine and acrid city air, of sharing smoke - scented clothes and humming melodies, of planning a cross-country road trip in an old van and sipping diner coffee at midnight. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

December. 

I sit on the red metal bench, camera in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I inhale as if it’s my lifeblood, like the death-stick between my lips will provide me warmth on this icy Pennsylvania day. It doesn’t, obviously. The strumming of his guitar, the sweet sound of her voice being carried away by the buffeting wind, helps, at least puts a slight smile on my face. Smiling, observing, I’m acutely aware of my existence. The puff of smoke exiting my lips. The whirring of the lens as it locks onto her face. My laugh, tumbling as easily out of my mouth as the smoke, the click of the shutter as it captures the moment. The photo is forever but I’m very, painfully aware that this moment isn’t-and, I didn’t know it at the time, but it was our last smoke together, ending our shared nicotine addiction. It’s the kind of moment I’ll think about when it’s midnight and I want to fuck off and drop out of college. It’s the kind of moment I’ll think about when I’m 30 and reminiscing about the good old days, and it’s the kind of moment that makes me grateful I’m alive in the first place. I’ll think of how it feels like we’re in our own little bubble. 18. Untouchable. Invincible. The people walking towards their dorm see us, but not really because we’re contained in a universe of our own making. The three musketeers. A pack of traveling troubadours. Stupid teenagers that have nothing better to do than smoke and sing and play guitar. Whatever we are. She lights his cigarette, which he stuck in between his guitar strings. I take another photo, capturing the intimate gesture. Her one hand striking the lighter, the other covering the cigarette from the harsh wind as she continues to carry on the tune. They’re in their own world, and I’m here to capture it. Focus. Whirr. Click. 

February.

Cool autumn air and mild winter breezes is replaced with frigid cold as I sit upon the red bench, the metal speckled with melting snowflakes. I put my hood up and make a poor attempt to light my cigarette, with the flame combating against the unforgiving winds. I remember all three of us sitting on this bench, shielding each other’s smokes from the wind, humming our favorite tunes. There’s an eerie absence of such music now, as is the camera I used to snap their photos. There’s no point in it capturing photos now. I’ll always come back to the old ones, stirring up ghosts of memories. Ghosts of laughter and the kind of carefree joy I’d never experienced before. 

A trio passes by, giving me only a glance before walking down the street. I wonder if they’re the same as we were: the three musketeers, a performing troupe, a trinity of dreamers. Do they, too, find solace in discussing hopes and dreams, laughter and joy and the knowledge that no matter what happens, they’re all in this together? That nothing is strong enough to break them? A ghost of a smile makes its way to my lips, thinking of the fantasies we constructed and the words we weaved to make it so. We were so unerringly certain of ourselves, so bravely naïve. Now, I’m the only one left at the University. The only one left to tell the tales of the three wanderers that lived in their own universe. 

I don’t regret it; I think as I rummage in my bag for a lighter. I don’t regret the planning of dreams that fell through and the futures we hoped to intertwine. At the time, I was a depressed college student who didn’t know who she was, and that's exactly what I needed. I think maybe the others were like that too, addicted to finally belonging. And now, mere months later, we’ve all left the nest, with only pictures and artifacts to remember each other by. 

I light a smoke. It’s an awful habit, and we all knew it, produced by buying a single pack for a Halloween costume and promising to quit afterwards, amidst giggles and glimmering eyes that spoke otherwise. Several packs later, we admit our bluffs. It was fun, though. Rebelling. Sharing smokes and stories. Feeling on top of the world. That’s the thing with addiction; its midnight adventures and teenage defiance and sweet relief until it’s not. Until it’s just me, alone, with a Camel Crush dangling from my lips and a habit I can’t shake.