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The bartender wasted no time in pouring the alcohol into a glass and handing it to him.
Without another word to me, the stranger walked away, back to wherever he came from.
I felt the vodka kicking in a little bit more as I heard his steps getting further and further away. I let out a soft sigh as a tiny smile appeared on my face. I can now properly drown my emotions in the rest of the alcohol sitting in front of me.
In my slightly drunken stupor, I drank the rest of the shots. Just as I swallowed the vodka, I heard footsteps getting closer to me again. Lucky for me they didn't try to talk to me this time but I also noticed that it was a different person this time. I wanted to see what they looked like so I tilted my chin towards them a bit so I could look at them discreetly.
Unfortunately, it was the blonde man that I had been trying my hardest to tune-out and avoid. I turned my head fully towards him, I wasn't even focusing on what he was saying to the bartender, I was just watching him sit there.
As I was watching him, my mind began to replay memories of us together. They were so many happy memories and I smiled to myself as my favorite one began to play.
Sunset was upon us, I was leaning against a tree near the edge of the skate park watching him skate. The others that were here, left a bit ago. He was the only one in the skate park. He stood at the top of the halfpipe looking down at it, his blonde hair subtly shining in the dimming sunlight creating a dull halo around his head. He looked like an angel, my angel. He looked over at me with a grin just before plummeting with his skateboard underneath him. I watched the other side of the halfpipe throw him into the sky, just before he dived in again. Mere seconds passed before I saw him rise above the other side. He landed, dropped his skateboard and began to run towards me with the brightest smile I've ever seen. It seemed to stretch on for miles.
"Did you do it?" I questioned with a soft smile as I stood,
He merely nods before engulfing me in a hug. I quickly wrapped my arms around him. I was so proud of him. He's been trying to do that trick almost all day. Suddenly, he picked me up and started swinging me around. I started screaming but the screams soon turned into fits of laughter. Together we started laughing hysterically. We fell onto the grass, still laughing, looking at the darkening sky above us.
Thinking about it, at that moment I was probably the happiest I'd been in a long time.
I had always hoped that life would always be happy and life would always be with him but I guess life doesn't always work out the way you want it to.
I was abruptly dropped back into the real world. I slowly realized what I was doing, I was drunkenly admiring him like a piece of artwork and somehow I was perfectly fine with that. There wasn't a single bad thought in my mind. The dark thoughts that had made their home in my head finally stopped whispering. It was as if him being there in the barstool next to me erased them all. For the first time in what felt like forever, I had peace of mind. I had no destructive thoughts, I was simply admiring the man next to me.
Never in my life has someone entranced me as he did sitting in that barstool. He seemed so wonderful and carefree at that very moment, nothing like how stressed and worried I had seen him days before. Was it the alcohol that momentarily gave him peace of mind? Who knows.
He finally noticed me staring at him not-so-discreetly anymore and looked back at me with cold, hard eyes that somehow made my heart clench.
I'm not quite sure what happened at that moment but it seemed as if he recognized me and with that recognition came his wonderful, soft blue eyes once again. It looked like the ocean was just poured into his eyes. You cannot imagine how many times I've dreamt of diving into his ocean eyes and never coming back. At one point in my life, I thought of his eyes as the only escape from the torture I endured. His soft eyes only returned for a moment before they were replaced with eyes of worry and pity. I hated eyes like those. I always got them and I never liked them.
Suddenly, I heard my mother's voice in my head telling me to not give anyone a reason to feel sorry for me. So for the first time in a very long time, I listened to my mother and tore my gaze away from his beautiful, sorrow-filled eyes and pulled myself out of my chair. My legs wobbled so I put my hands on the back of the barstool trying desperately to regain my balance. I wasn't very lucky as I fell almost instantly. I clenched my eyes tight expecting the hard impact of the ground but it never came.
It was obvious that he quickly made the connection between the empty shot glasses and my wobbly legs and grabbed me by my waist before I hit the ground. I hadn't even made it a step away from my seat so he simply sat me back into the barstool as if I was a toddler in a high chair.
"Camillia, how many shots did you have?" He asked me, with what I thought was a twinge of disappointment in his voice.
"Eight," I said proudly in my drunken daze.
He closed his eyes and sighed deeply before looking at me again, "Let's get you home shall we?"
***
I was sitting next to my blonde angel in the Uber back to my apartment. My hands were limp in my lap once again. I was numb to my surroundings as my thoughts silently smothered me. I was torn from my thoughts as I felt silent tears roll down my face. All I could think about was that my streak of strength was now ruined. I'm such a sad human being. More silent tears began to fall. I was shaking and sniffling now, trying desperately to be as quiet as possible. I didn't want anyone to know that I was this weak. I was rapidly wiping my tears away with the sleeve of my jacket. I didn't want to burden him with my stupid tears besides I deserve this.
Abruptly, I felt warm arms wrap around me and I felt a kiss pressed to my temple. My thoughts silenced and my tears began to slow, while the silent sobs racking my body slowly turned into soft, even breaths as my head laid against his shoulder. As I began to relax more and more, I let the exhaustion reach me and my eyes fluttered closed.
