Smoke
Disclaimer: I have no connection to the OC, I believe FOX and College Hill and Josh Schwartz have all of that. I'm obviously no professional OC writer, which now exist, and write the ish that is "The Outsider"...ugh. Sorry for the random diss in the disclaimer.
A/N 1: I know a lot of people thought it was a standalone, and I'll admit, it sounded like one and I do write and awful lot of them, but I've decided to make this a chapter fic. I'm not thinking it'll go on for too long.
Around early-July is when the cleaning woman finds a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in Anna's room. Anna's upset, and thinks she hid them better then that, but apparently the cleaning woman wanted to straighten up the unnoticabely stratigically placed clutter next to her desk by her window.
The cleaning woman tells Anna's aunt and uncle, and they call her parents. Anna figures they'll think she's hanging out with the wrong crowd, maybe they'll even take her to meetings or something. She knows they hate smoking. She does too.
A few of her friends even noticed the smell, and one saw her buying a lighter at CVS once. They've tried to confront her together, but Anna claimed it's because her smoking cousin gave her some old clothes, and that she bought the lighter for her cousin. They wanted to believe her, so they did.
Anna assures her parents, aunt, and uncle she'll stop, but they don't believe her. They give her nicotine patches and chewing gum, and she throws it away. She just chews mint gum around them and pretends it's nicotine gum. She wants to stay addicted. She sneaks cigarettes whenever they're out, and then immediatly washes her clothes after.
She feels like if she says goodbye to smoking, she's saying goodbye to Ryan forever. Sometimes, she has trouble breathing, and she knows her lungs can't take it. She's not stupid, she remembers the smoking video her class watched in the eighth grade. She's becoming more and more afraid with every inhale of smoke. It's nobody's fault but her own. She shouldn't have started this habit in the first place. She wants so badly not to care about Ryan and to just have that kiss as another Newport memory, but it's more then that. He still intrigues her, even though he's all the way across the country.
Anna comes to the conclusion that until she sees, feels, touches, kisses, talks to Ryan again, she'll be hooked. And she decides she's going to California for a little while. She tells her parents she wants to visit her friends, and tells Seth and Summer she'll be coming July eighteenth and staying until August fifth.
She says goodbye to her friends and parents at the airport and they all drive off. Anna smokes her final cigarette, throws her lighter in the trash can, puts a piece of nicotine gum in her mouth, and walks into the airport. She hopes Ryan has stopped smoking, and this time he'll taste differently. She tries to make a plan as she sits on the plane, but can't, so she reads a magazine instead. She's wondering how he's changed and if he's seeing anyone. Her thoughts are interuppted when the plane lands.
She smiles broadly when she sees Seth and Summer waiting at the gate, their expressions matching hers. The smile changes from genuine to false when she sees that Ryan isn't there.
A/N 2: Huh? What? Seth's there? Yeah, it'll be explained next chapter, I'm not pretending he never left or anything. You'll see...