The cigarette was a Camel Crush I'd been saving for that exact moment. I bent it in half over the sink, watched the tobacco fall into the drain, and told myself this time it meant something.
Frankie, the line cook two stations down, caught me doing it. He just shook his head. 'You'll be back in an hour, kid,' he said. 'Check your dog's water.'
I didn't check it for three more hours. By then the bowl was bone dry and Puppy was sitting right next to it, not barking, just waiting. That look hit harder than any lecture.
It was tax season and I was twenty-two and the envelopes from H&R Block were stacked on the coffee table like evidence. I didn't have the money for the cigarettes or the penalty.
I kept that crushed cigarette in my apron pocket for a week. Not to smoke it. To prove something to myself. Every time I grabbed the salt or the tongs, my fingers touched it.
On Sunday I found one of my little sister's hair ties in the doorjamb. She was the middle of five, like me, and she always left things behind. I put it on my wrist.
That night I sat on the porch and held the hair tie with one hand and the crushed cigarette with the other. I wasn't quitting because I was strong yet. I was quitting because I was tired of seeing what Puppy saw when he waited.