Chapter 49

Jeremy and Eric were both smokers. At that time, she thought that smoking was just a thing men did as a rite of growth and passage. She thought Matthew was different, he never smoked. She had lived with him for two years and he never caught a whiff of it. Naturally, he knew she hated the smell of smoke. He held the cigarette like an avid smoker would. Matthew looked down at her with the same expression, but his eyes were full of irony. "Yes, I do smoke." She didn't speak, but she also acquiesced to what he said. "Don't be surprised, I've been smoking for ten years." His tone was a little weak, and the corners of his mouth were raised steadily. Simona stood there, feeling inexplicably uncomfortable. Ten years of smoking? But she never found out, what does this mean? "Simona, for you, I never smoked a cigarette, even when it started to hurt." Matthew turned his gaze and it fell on the firework between his fingers in a blur. He started smoking at the age of eightee