My other option would be to accept my best friend Dahlia’s offer to crash at her apartment in Capitol Hill. She knows how much I hate staying at my parents’ apartment. It’s harder to escape their grief in that cramped apartment than our two-story house in Duvall. I have an open invitation to stay with Dahlia, for anytime I need to get away from my parents for a while.
But Dahlia is working her retail job until late tonight. And she’s only lived in this apartment for a few months. It would feel weird showing up alone at her new home and letting myself in without her.
I wish my other best friend, Anissa, wasn’t visiting her family in Ohio. She’d pick me up in a heartbeat. And we could stay at her house, and her mom would offer to make my favorite foods.
Not that I can eat right now. I haven’t had much of an appetite for almost two years.
“I’m staying at Dahlia’s for a day or two,” I say to my mom. “I’m turning my phone off… just for tonight. But you can text me tomorrow if you need me for… um… anything.”
I leave the implication of funeral arrangements hanging in the air.
She sniffs loudly, and her voice is thick with emotion now. “Okay, sweetie. I love you so much. You know that, right?”
I clench my jaw against a surge of emotion. “Yeah, Mom, I’ll talk to you later. Love you. Bye.”
I end the call before she can say anything else that might make the tears stinging my sinuses leak out into reality. When I look up from my phone, I realize the bartender is standing there with a drink in his hand.
“You okay?” he asks, his dark eyebrows furrowed with concern.
You okay? Two words are all it takes for my tears to spill.
“Fuck,” I whisper as I frantically wipe at my face with the sleeves of my coral hoodie.
“Yo, can I get a Natty, or what?” the other patron asks the bartender again.
“In a minute,” the gorgeous man holding my cocktail says as he sets it down next to my empty martini glass. “Here.” He grabs a few napkins from behind the bar and holds them out to me. “The drink will help. I promise.”
“You promise?” I say, my voice strangled by the painful mass in my throat.
He smiles warmly. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Something about the way he delivers these words feels heavier than light banter between strangers. It feels more like a promise sealed in blood. Or in this case, tears.
I stuff the spent napkins in the pocket of my hoodie as I stare at the deep-magenta drink in front of me. It sort of resembles blood, with some fizzy bubbles of carbonation lining the inside of the glass. I bring the tumbler to my lips and take a sip. The liquid is cold, sparkling, and tart with a hint of berry sweetness, though I don’t recognize the fruit I’m tasting.
“What is it?” I ask as I get a whiff of an unrecognizable floral note.
“It doesn’t have a name yet,” he says as he pours a pint of Natural Light from the tap and slides it to the guy a few barstools down.
“What’s in it?”
I don’t really care what’s in the drink. I’m just hoping to draw out the conversation, because I suddenly don’t want to be alone anymore.
He glances at a couple businessmen who’ve just sat down at the other end of the bar. “Hold that thought.”
I try not to watch him too intensely as he takes the new customers’ orders and prepares their drinks. I’ve barely spoken a few sentences to this guy, and I already find myself drawn to him, needing his company.
I shouldn’t be talking to beautiful, charismatic men when I’m in such a vulnerable state. But there’s nothing wrong with needing someone, especially after the day I’ve had. Well, more like the two years I’ve had.
The bartender returns with a warm smile, and I’m relieved to not be alone. But I also feel the stirrings of something else, something I haven’t felt around a guy in a while: nervous. I reach up to wipe the corners of my lips, wondering if I’ve been sloppy with my red cocktail.
“How are you doing?”
“Honestly, not very good.”
He stares at me for a few seconds. “I was talking about the drink.”
My face flushes with heat. “Oh, I should have known that.”
“It’s fine.” He watches me as I nervously tuck my long, caramel-brown hair behind my ear. “Do you… want to talk about it?”
I look directly into his eyes. “Are you one of those therapist bartenders?”
“Nope, but I can make an exception.”
I want to ask if he’s making an exception for me or if he’s just feeling generous today.
“Tomorrow’s my twenty-second birthday and… my sister died today.” I force the words past the painful lump in my throat. “She was nineteen.”
He stands up straighter, looking somewhat uncomfortable now. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
I shrug and take another sip of the drink he made for me.
“What’s in this?” I ask, reminding him of the unanswered question from earlier, while also seizing on the opportunity to change the subject.
He looks relieved to talk about something else. “Mulled strawberries, elderflower honey, Prosecco, and a few drops of elderberry syrup, mostly for color.”
My stomach twists at the mention of elderflower honey.
He seems to notice my discomfort. “Not your thing?”
“No, it’s just the honey. My sister… she wanted to save the bees.” I chuckle as tears well up in my eyes again. “This is so ridiculous.”
“Your emotions aren’t ridiculous.”
His expression is fierce with the need for me to believe him.
“I know my emotions are valid, but what kind of person cries to a bartender about their problems? It is a little ridiculous. This whole fucking day feels so… surreal.”
Without a second thought, I gulp down the rest of the cocktail. The concern I saw in his face when I guzzled my second dirty martini a few minutes ago is back. That’s three drinks in less than an hour.
Three strikes, I’m out.
“Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back,” he says, then he disappears through a swinging door marked for employees only.
I hastily retrieve the used napkins from my hoodie and wipe my face and nose. He’s back before I’ve finished tucking them into my pocket. But he doesn’t come straight to me.
He fulfills a few more drink orders and closes out a few bar tabs as an attractive woman in her late twenties or early thirties arrives behind the bar. Without so much as a glance in my direction, she takes the empty glasses in front of me and places them in a sink.
I don’t know if it’s the alcohol I’ve consumed that’s making it difficult to understand what’s going on or if I’m just out of practice in social situations. I’ve spent most of the last two years in hospital rooms or locked in my bedroom. Dahlia has likened my social acuity to a house-cat, fluctuating between indifferent and demanding.
I shake my head to clear the numbness that creeps over my senses, but this only makes me dizzy. It’s nearly three p.m., and I’ve consumed nothing but three strong cocktails.
I blink at the bartender as he approaches me. Did he put something in my drink? Or am I really this much of a lightweight? Damn. I can’t even remember the last time I drank a beer, much less hard liquor.