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That was Sam’s very last email. Those were his three big, bold words.
As soon as I saw the time stamp on the email, I almost choked on my own breath. Sam sent those words on January First, ten minutes past midnight. I could recall exactly what I was doing when that email hit my mailbox. I was busy dashing down the hospital’s every flight of stairs, desperate to get far away and escape the possibility of giving in to my heart’s desire to run back to his room and take back that final goodbye I had just whispered to him.
The squeaking of the nearby stool shifting interrupted my daydream.
“So,” Ben sat beside me, sipping a cold beer. “Tell me about him, kid.”
“What?”
“Tell me of the man who broke your heart and sent you running back here. It’s always heartache that makes us ponder the hardest on life.”
“Broke my heart?” I scoffed and laughed, sounding like a manic. A drunk maniac. “Iwas the bad guy who broke his. Shattered it and stomped on it over and over again. Running back here and feeling this shitty is my penance.”
“I saw you nursing that tequila bottle. In the years you spent here in this pub, how many people did we see drowning their sorrows with alcohol? Countless. How many of them left here feeling better? None. They left here worse. So why did you?”
I hunched up my shoulders. “I don’t know. Why didtheydo it?”
“Because most of them came here alone and had no one to talk to. You? You have me. So talk to me.”
I rubbed my hands together and bowed my head, suddenly feeling like a teen about to be chastised. “Sam was my boss… and I kissed him.”
And I told Ben everything. From that first kiss to Sam’s declaration of love. Ben listened to everything. He never judged or scolded me with a glare or a shake of his head.
When I finished my recount, Ben set down his empty beer bottle. “So, what would this man order if he came into my bar?”
“Scotch. Single malt. Why do you ask? He’s definitely never going to just show up in here.” Despite what my head had imagined two hours ago.
“Well, a man’s favourite drink says a lot about the kind of person he is.”
“And what kind is he?”
“The finest. Just the kind of man your father would want for you.”
Yes, my dad would have definitely loved Sam. He liked scotch and played poker too – and very badly just like Sam. “If there’s one thing I can blame my father for, it’s my high expectation from men. He raised the bar so high.”
“Your father sure was one hell of a good man.” Ben pulled out his metal cigarette case. He offered it at me. “Want to vent some more? Talk about everything else going on in that little head of yours?”
“It’s just that…” I accepted the cigarette from Ben. “I thought I had a good life. I really did. I was so happy with life. Until suddenly, I wasn’t. Until I started questioning everything. Now I’m lost in all those looming questions and I’m scared of seeking their answer.”
Ben flicked the lighter and burnt the tip of the cigarette clamped between my lips. I took a drag. Ough-ough. Crap, I haven’t smoked in years. Still, I smoked the whole cigarette. And as the nicotine worked to calm me down, I went on to tell Ben all the events up till how I lost my most recent job.
“Are you sure you’ve been chasing the right things?” Ben dropped the question on me. A very valid question.
“I loved my job. I was good at it.”
“But was that what you’ve wanted? Creative Director. Is that what you’ve dreamed you’d be?”
My head shook negatively before I could even be fully cognizant of the answer my brain came up with without delay or second thoughts.
“Let me show you something. Wait here.” Ben slid off the stool slowly, rubbed his tired knees for a second before trudging to the back room.
He reappeared seconds later. In an instant, I recognized what he had brought back in his hands. “That’s your old drawing pad. The one you kept here to doodle on when we had a slow night. Nobody touched that since you left.”
I browsed through the pages filled with rough sketches of the people who would be sitting in the pub. How I loved to capture those tiny moments. People laughing and joking around. People high-fiving near the pool table. People sitting alone with a white-knuckled fist of anger.
“Would you have pursued the same road if your dad hadn’t died so young?”
“Probably not. As small as my life had been back then, it was enough. It was full of happiness.” And then it hit me. The light bulb over my head switched on brightly. “That’s what I want. I want that same happiness.” And just as fast as the light came on, it went off in a split second. “But oh, I’m so much farther from that. I don’t feel any happiness at all.” My jaw began to quiver with the sadness overshadowing me. I hugged that old drawing pad to my chest, embracing the past and my older, innocent self.
