It was risky, but she was going to have to do it. She chained the cigarettes all the way to the next store that she knew sold cigarettes, luckily only two blocks away.
Although only two blocks, and maybe only five minutes at most, Faith smoked two whole cigarettes the way there. She kept the second one she had smoked with her till she got right to the entrance of the store. She knew it was impolite, that stores now wanted you to not smoke within twenty or thirty feet of the entrance, but this was an emergency, and she needed to minimize her time without cigarettes as much as possible. To extradite the process, Faith took her credit card out, while she still had a cigarette with her, and decided she would buy two cartons of cigarettes. Having a plan, she prepared to enter the store.
She inhaled the remainder of the smoke as deeply as she could and closed her eyes, trying to get it to reach every pore of her body, to tar her lungs as strongly as they could, just so she would have the time to buy more. Satisfied, but fearful, she exhaled, threw the cigarette towards the ground, stomped on it, then ran into the store.
A second exhale escaped her lips as she walked up to the counter and started to feel the extreme nicotine withdraws that had been plaguing her the whole day. The woman who was the counter looked at her annoyed.
"There is no smoking in here." The woman said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Faith knew this, of course she did, and she did not have time to be chastised by the cashier. Faith handed her credit card to the cashier and told her what she wanted.
"Two cartons of L&M Reds please." Faith said, pushing the card towards the cashier.
The cashier rolled her eyes, then turned around and grabbed two cartons, she was prepared to ring up Faith, when she got a sly grin on her face. "May I see your ID please?"
"What?" Faith asked for a moment, then growled. Faith covered her mouth and started to mutter to herself while pulling out ID from her pocketbook. "For fucks sake." Faith found it and pushed it into the woman's chest.
The woman looked at her with anger, then slowly stared at the ID, then back at Faith. "This seems correct." The cashier rang up the items, and Faith, ran off, the receipt still in the register. Faith ran out of the store, and barely a foot out, lit up a cigarette. She inhaled deeply and sighed, content. She then turned around into the store and looked at the woman who had given her so many issues. Faith opened the door, leaving the cigarette hanging outside, and screamed inside the store. "What is your name?"
The woman looked at Faith, annoyed, and answered back, "Beth Dudley, and I doubt you can tell my manager about this and get me in trouble."
That wasn't what Faith had in mind at all. When the app went back up, Faith would show Beth how hard it was to go without smoking.
Faith got back into her car and stared down at her phone, to see if the app was working yet.