She sucked the remaining stub of nicotine until her cheeks felt like they would disappear down her throat. She needed every last molecule of this dhurrie because this was going to be her last suck ever. She’d tried the whole giving up thing before, always a red cross, epic fail, you suck to follow in its footsteps. But this time was going to be different. This time was already different.

She hadn’t always been so ill disciplined, it was something about her experience of college that had triggered the smoking and led her to this moment 24 years on. 24 years of tried and failed, didn’t try so couldn’t fail, tried and failed, tried and failed and now here she is.

It’s the whole tried and failed thing she was curious about and that would be different this time. She wasn’t trying to give up, she was giving up this time. And if for some reason, tomorrow she found herself lighting up again, it wouldn’t be because she had failed, it would be because she had chosen to start smoking. She would have given up and chosen to start again, she hadn’t tried and failed.