"See?" » Zarry ✔

19: "Found you."

Yaser came into the main lobby of the mechanic shop with a happy sigh and went up to the counter where Zayn was standing.

"Alright. I've just finished the Valders' SUV. Give them a call and let them know it's ready. Then pull it out of the garage and into one of the pickup spaces."

"Yes, sir. I'll do that."

But right away, he noticed Zayn seemed to be anxious and irritable and it worried him. So instead of going back into the shop, he stood there and watched Zayn so he could observe his behavior.

His son picked up the phone and referred to a call log next to him to dial the Valder family. About thirty seconds later, Zayn had reached the customers and was telling them their vehicle had been serviced and completed. When he finished the call, he hung up the phone and looked at his father.

"You have the key?"

"I do."

"May I have it?"

"Yes. But first... What's wrong?"

Zayn furrowed his brow. "What?"

"You seem anxious about something."

Zayn took a moment to answer so he didn't say anything he didn't want his father to know just yet. "Nothing, dad. I think I'm just tired. A little low on energy."

"That's all?"

"Mhm."

Yaser was skeptical but he didn't want his son to think his concern had turned into an interrogation. So he chose to end his questions there. "Then here are the keys. I'll be inside the shop if you need me."

"I'll do that. By the way, I'm going on my lunch break in a minute too."

"Sure."

When his father held the keys out to him, Zayn took them from him and quietly went into the garage so he could pull it into a parking space for pickup. Yaser always knew when there was something on his son's mind. But he also knew Zayn was old enough to tell him when something was bothering him if he felt he needed to. So he let it go and he checked the list of customers to see who was next in line to be serviced.

Meanwhile, once Zayn had parked the car, he returned the keys, then came back outside where he hurriedly dug in his pocket and took out a package of nicotine gum. He still didn't want his parents to know he was trying to quit smoking so he quickly put a piece in his mouth and shoved the package back in his pocket. Standing against the brick wall at the side of the building, he chewed the gum for a very short while, then rested it in his cheek.

When he was reading up on how to use nicotine gum, the article stressed that chewing and then holding it in the cheek was important. Then he was supposed to keep repeating those steps of chewing and holding for about thirty minutes and spit it out. Sure, it may have been a lot but he was determined to do anything it took to stop smoking. So he didn't complain about the taste even though he was not a fan of it at all.

As he stood there, he tried thinking of other things to get the cravings to go away. Maybe if he could convince himself that cigarettes tasted awful, then it would work. But he found it hard to trick the mind into thinking that because all he could taste was the cigarette he couldn't have and nothing about its flavor repulsed him.

And that was what Zayn didn't understand. Even if he wasn't a heavy smoker, just smoking one or two cigarettes a day was enough to keep him addicted. Nicotine was so strong and so powerful that the withdrawals he had when he denied himself it caused him to give up trying to quit the first time. He hated being addicted to those cigarettes and the way they tasted. Especially when there were so many times when he really only smoked once a day.