My Unbreakable Heart: The Beginning of the End

[image error]"Does anyone have a cigarette?" I asked, standing outside an Irish Pub in my California hometown. I was on summer break from my college studies in New York at Sarah Lawrence. Full of life, ideas and the sure knowledge that I was indestructible.

I wasn't proud of my recently acquired smoking habit. But in the theatre-land of New York, you couldn't beat 'em so you might as well join 'em. It felt unnatural to drink without a cigarette now, on the rare occasion that I drank at all.

"I don't have an extra, but you can share this one with me." The man who spoke was handsome with dark hair and eyes to match. I felt a stirring in my body and reached to accept the cigarette, inhaling deeply.

Such an innocuous beginning. I wasn't meant to be there that night. I didn't like bars. Or drinking for that matter. I was there at the insistence of a friend. He was there to honor the death of a friend. It was only meant to be a fling before I jetted back to my hard-earned life in New York.

I often wonder who I would have become had things been different. Had my friend and I gone out the night before as planned. Had I not given in to my craving for a cigarette. Had I worked harder to find the extra funds to cover my increased tuition that Fall.

I wonder what different roads were open to me. How a one-night-stand turned into an almost 10 year nightmare.

This is how.

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