Beer, Spaghetti, and Pharmaceuticals ||COMPLETED||

Forty Five

Zzzzzzzz, it's 4:18am and I need to work in 5 hours. No time to edit, sorry for the typos, BUT HERE'S A CHAPTER FINALLY!!!! 

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"I can't believe I'm a smoker."

Alice said to herself as she watched the white paper and tobacco burn away in the crisp late August weather. The chilly, nippy air tickled the back of her neck and she shivered into her autumn coat, cursing her country's climate for putting an end to the hot summer sun so early.

You wouldn't be cold if you weren't smoking.

She rolled her eyes at her own conscious and silenced it by pulling the cigarette to her lips, embracing the soothing effect it had over her body, and leaned over the railing of the office's smoking patio, watching the tiny cars speed through intersections.

The designated smoking area wasn't a place Alice would visit often before. Typically if she was smoking it would be with Blaise, blowing smoke through their office's window. Now that she had resigned herself as a full-fledged smoker, she figured she couldn't get away with that trick anymore and made herself familiar with the quaint area. She had grown quite fond of it; always empty and filled with nice benches and flower pots, she wondered if it would have the same relaxing effect even without the cigarettes.

But she wasn't that motivated to find out.

As soon as she ended things with Isaac the month before, the familiar happy, fun, and comfortable atmosphere quickly turned as cold as the air outside.

Every wall, table, and watercooler stung her with aching nostalgia; the new scenery was a refreshing change. Those five-minute breaks were becoming the only thing that kept her focused enough to power through the day, distracting herself with as much work as possible. So long as she had a task in front of her, she could distract herself from the painful memories that fed off her optimism. Anytime she felt like she was finally adjusting to Isaac not being in her life, she would turn to her left and see a poster that Isaac once stood by when he tried to teach her how to roll her tongue. Or she would turn to her right and see the whiteboard Isaac would frantically scribble over when he would get a new idea, her and Blaise watching him cockeyed as the incoherent mess of thoughts always transformed into something remarkable.

She crushed the cigarette into the ashtray and closed her eyes, taking short, unsteady breaths through her nose.

Stop thinking about him, Alice. This is where you don't think about him.

When she noticed a black streak of mascara on her thumb, her heart jumped, realizing she had unknowingly let out a tear or two.

"Get ahold of yourself," she said to herself sternly, waving her hands to dry her eyes. She puffed out her cheeks to exhale a long, quivering breath as she shook her arms, as if loosening up her muscles.

That environment was getting toxic.

But when she paused long enough to really think about it, she realized it wasn't heartache or misery that threw her emotions into a blender.

It was anger.

She was so mad at him.

Deep breath, Alice.

She wasn't mad at him for talking to Fiona. She wasn't mad at him for refusing to come clean with their secret.

She was mad at him because that emotionally stunted moron had barely looked at her all month.

Obviously, she shouldn't have been surprised. She didn't know what she expected, though. Everything happened so fast.

Quickly looking at the clock on her phone, she decided she had time for another quick smoke and her trembling fingers found the package in her pocket.