She sat on the window sill with her foot propped up on the radiator. She exhaled, and the smoke came billowing out of her pursed lips. There was no style or grace to it; she couldn’t be bothered with little things like that.

“I’m going to quit.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“And I’ll say it again, so get off my back.”

I didn’t care about her. Not enough to make her stop. She was just some girl I slept with from time to time. She exhaled again.

“Baby steps, ya know?”
“I know…baby steps.”

Jill sat on her hundred-dollar futon and clicked on her Goodwill vintage lamp. She took a pair of blue plastic-handled scissors in one hand and her lover’s favorite pair of jeans in the other. Her slender fingers slipped into the scissors and the metal legs parted. She hugged their open apex to the left leg cuff.

The scissors quivered, cradled in her tiny hand. The twin blades flashed by the light of the lamp. Jill breathed in, hard, and closed her eyes. She opened them, and her young features softened. Jill tightened her grip and the scissors held steady.

*SLICE*