It’s been about six months since the evening I crouched behind the recycling bins like a guilty teenager and Leo walked around the corner at exactly the wrong moment.
If you missed that proud parenting highlight, it’s here:
https://www.lapelstick.com/i-smoked-behind-the-recycling-bins-and-leo-saw-me/
He saw everything.
The cigarette.
The awkward attempt to hide it.
The full grown father pretending he was just… standing there next to a recycling bin at night for no obvious reason.
At the time I expected consequences.
Teenagers love consequences when they’re not the ones facing them. I assumed Leo would deploy the moment at some future date. Probably in front of Sara. Possibly at dinner. Maximum embarrassment potential.
But he didn’t.
Six months have gone by and the subject has never come up again.
Which is strange because teenagers remember absolutely everything when it’s useful to them. Leo can recall the exact time I promised to take him to a football match two years ago and didn’t. He can quote conversations I’ve completely forgotten.
But the smoking thing has vanished.
Or at least he’s decided it has.
The odd thing is that quitting smoking isn’t one clean moment. People imagine some heroic final cigarette where you stare meaningfully into the middle distance and say something dramatic about turning a corner.
That’s not how it works.
It’s much quieter.
For weeks afterwards I kept expecting the urge to come back at full force. Ibiza evenings are basically designed to encourage bad habits. Someone opens a bottle of wine, the air’s warm, the street’s noisy with people talking, and suddenly your brain remembers that cigarettes used to exist.
The first month was mostly negotiation with myself.
Not tonight.
Maybe next week.
Just one wouldn’t count.
The second month was easier.
By the third month something strange happened. I stopped thinking about it most days. The mental space that used to contain cigarettes just… emptied out.
That’s the bit people don’t mention.
Quitting doesn’t always feel heroic. Sometimes it just feels slightly boring.
You realise hours have gone by without thinking about smoking and the moment passes without ceremony.
Leo and I were standing on the balcony again a few nights ago. He spends a lot of time out there lately, looking out towards the sea and occasionally saying things that sound like half a thought he hasn’t finished yet.
Cars passing.
Scooters whining down the road.
The usual Ibiza evening noise.
After a while he said, “You stopped, didn’t you?”
Not accusing. Just observing.
I said yes.
He nodded, like he’d already worked that out months ago.
And that was the entire conversation.
Which means the only person who ever really made a big deal out of the whole recycling bin incident was me!