She noticed it when she reached for the pack before she'd decided to.
That was the tell. Not the smoking itself, which she had been aware of in the way you're aware of something you've started doing without properly deciding to start. She knew when it had begun: a cigarette taken from one of the men during a long outdoor wait three weeks ago, taken without thinking, accepted the way you accept a hand offered when you're crossing something unsteady. She had registered the beginning. What she hadn't registered was when the beginning became a habit, when the behavior moved from conscious to automatic, when the decision preceded the awareness rather than following it.
She was on the terrace before she had decided to go to the terrace. The pack was in her hand before she had thought about wanting it. She lit it and stood in the afternoon sun and looked at the city and thought: there it is.
