Day 28 of 100

“He will never know.”

I was at my uncle’s house playing with my cousin. I was 11. Or maybe 10.

My uncle was pretty successful in real estate and his house was really nice. The other nice thing he had was a collection of alcohol bottles. I loved the labels and hated that I was never allowed to taste the bronze oily liquid inside the bottle.

Next to the bottles of alcohol was a couple of packs of cigarettes. I thought smoking was so cool. Everyone seemed so happy when they smoked. Laughing and drinking and talking the way adults did when they stopped caring that there were children in the house.

“Let’s take one.” I whispered to my cousin.

“No.” He was younger than me but always way better at being good than me.

“Cool.” I hissed as I grabbed a bottle and a pack of cigarettes.

We ran outside to the bushes in the complex. For those that grew up in Northern California, specifically the Silicon Valley, these apartment complexes were everywhere. They were like small compounds of houses with little distinction littered around walkways and bushes.

Back to the bushes.

I grabbed a cigarette out of the pack. “You don’t have a lighter,” my cousin stated. “I’m not an idiot!” I announced as I pulled a lighter out of my pocket.

I looked at the cigarette. Really looked at it. I had never seen one up close. I looked at the end with the tobacco sticking out and the side with the filter and decided, which was not the first of my brilliant ideas, to light the filter and drag through the tobacco.

Holy shit that tasted horrible. Coughing I drop kicked the cigarette into a bush, rushed over and stamped on it.

Next came the bottle of booze. I cracked it open to the consternation of my cousin and took a swig. It burned and warmed my chest, like love felt when you saw her for the first time. I was enthralled. I quickly took another swig until my cousin grabbed it out of my hand and closed the screw top.

“He is going to know!”

“Fine. Let’s put it back.”

But I knew that wasn’t the last time I would visit that bottle.