Remembering (One Direction boyxboy)

Chapter 14

As the old man stared across the old pub, he felt misery stir in the pits of his stomach. The place reeked of broken dreams; cigarettes and alcohol and the stench of not washing for a week. When accompanied by the hunched backs of punters, drinking their troubles away as more and more wrinkles and frown lines appeared on their faces, and stains on their rotten, moth ridden clothing, it gave the place a sombre mood.

Next to him, another broken soul sat down on the bar stall and in a miserable tone barked at the barmaid to fetch him a beer. It was not until the punter had received his drink and turned to look briefly to his right that the old man noticed how different the man was from the rest of the old cretins residing in the pub. For this man could not be more than 19, maybe 20 years of age, and therefore had many reasons why he should not be in a dingy old tavern.

And it was because of this the old man did something he hadn’t done in a long time.

He spoke to him.

“What’s a young lad like yourself doing in a shit hole like this?” he asked.

The young boy appeared to jump out of his skin in fright, holding his hand above his heart and looking surprised at the old man.

“Jesus, mate, you scared me.” The blonde boy chuckled, and the old man caught a flash of happiness in the vividly blue eyes before they sunk back to being dull and lifeless.

The old man smiled. “Sorry. But you didn’t answer my question; there’s a whole world out there, boy, why aren’t you living in it?”

Shrugging, Blondie turned to his drink and took a sip before mumbling almost incomprehensibly “Shit happens.”

“Sort it out then.” Was the simple response.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“How so?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time. If you didn’t realise, if i had somewhere to be I’d be there right now, rather than drinking my life away.”

Blondie frowned, gazing intensely at his drink once again.  He sighed, and stared off dramatically into the distance.

“A couple of years ago i tried to do something but it didn’t work out. Today, someone tried to talk to me about it but i flipped and got angry. I thought they were taking the piss.”

“And how do you know they weren’t?”

“I remember them. I remember the lot of them. I don’t know how i forgot, but i remember everything we went through together because they were my friends and i wish i hadn’t turned them away.”

“You seem pretty upset about nothing to be honest. If they were really your friends they would just come back.”

“Nah, mate, nah, its love. Does dumb things to your head.”

“One of them your girlfriend or something?”

“Something. He wasn’t... we weren’t...  we weren’t together, but we were good as.”

The old man felt shook his head. He felt dumb for assuming the boy was straight. But he also felt angry; if Blondie really loved this by like he claimed, wouldn’t he have made more effort to go find him? To win him back? When he voiced this, the boy put his head in his hands and began to sob quietly.

“I don’t think he wants me anymore. I don’t think any of them particularly care about me anymore.”

Before he could reply, a woman approached the two men, a devious smile on her face.