Chapter 8: A Habit Best Kept Between Breaths

There are habits one acquires out of weakness.

And there are habits one acquires out of… curiosity.

Mine, I would argue, began as the latter.

School was never loud for me.

Not in the way it was for others.

The noise—the gossip, the laughter, the constant need to be seen—

It blurred into something distant. Irrelevant.

What interested me was not the noise.

But the breaks in it.

Behind the gymnasium.

Near the far fence.

A small, unofficial gathering place.

That is where I first noticed it.

The ritual.

Students who, moments before, were desperate for attention…

Suddenly quiet.

Contained.

Measured.

Smoke curled into the air in slow, deliberate patterns.

No performance. No forced personality.

Just… stillness.

It fascinated me.

“You don’t belong here,” one of them said when I approached.

He wasn’t wrong.

“I’m aware,” I replied.

“Then why are you here?”

I looked at the cigarette between his fingers.

Thin. Controlled. Intentional.

“To understand,” I said.

He laughed.

Of course he did.

They always do.

Right before they stop.

The first time was… unremarkable.

Unpleasant, even.

Harsh. Inelegant.

A failed imitation of something I had observed.

But that was never the point.

The second time, I adjusted.

The third, refined.

By the fourth—

It became… useful.

Not the substance.

The structure.

A reason to step away.

A pause that required no explanation.

A boundary others instinctively respected.

“Give me a moment.”

No one questioned it.

It was not addiction.

Not then.

It was control.

At home, nothing changed.

Of course it didn’t.

My mother noticed everything.

My father, even more so.

There was no room for error.

So I made none.

Clothes were separated.

Washed immediately.

Hair treated with oils—lavender, primarily.

Hands scrubbed thoroughly.

Breath neutralized.

Not once did I slip.

Not once did they suspect.

Secrecy is not difficult.

Not when one understands systems.

It continued like that for years.

A quiet habit.

Contained.

Perfectly managed.

Until university.

Independence is often misunderstood.

People assume it means freedom from rules.

It does not.

It means choosing which rules are worth keeping.

I kept most of mine.

Refined others.

And this one—

I allowed it to remain.

Not out of necessity.

But because, by then…

It had become something else.

A constant.

Across the room, Beckett sat quietly, hands folded neatly, mask in place as always.

He had been listening.

Of course he had.

“…You never got caught,” he said softly.

“No.”

“Not once?”

“Not once.”

A pause.

“…And now?” he asked.

I reached for the cigarette resting neatly beside me.

Lit it with practiced ease.

Inhaled—slow, measured.

Exhaled—controlled.

“Now,” I said, “there is nothing to hide.”

He watched the motion carefully.

Not with judgment.

Never that.

“…You rely on it,” he said.

I considered the phrasing.

Tilted my head slightly.

“I prefer the term… integrated,” I replied.

A faint smile beneath his mask.

“…Of course you do.”

I stepped closer.

Close enough for the faint scent—lavender, softened by smoke—to settle between us.

“It is not weakness,” I said quietly.

“It is consistency.”

He didn’t argue.

He never does when he understands.

“…It suits you,” he added instead.

That—

That was correct.

I reached up, adjusting his mask slightly, my fingers lingering just a moment longer than necessary.

“And you,” I said, voice softening, “remain far too easy to read.”

He stiffened slightly.

A predictable response.

“…Only for you,” he said.

I smiled faintly.

“As it should be.”

Outside, the world continued—full of excess, lack of control, poorly managed habits and louder consequences.

Inside—

Everything remained measured.

Intentional.

Contained.

Even indulgence, when done properly, becomes structure.

And structure—

Is perfection.