The Choices We Make

Some part of me had been convinced that alcohol would allow me to forget what I had just seen, but the image of my boyfriend with some other girl in our bed was burned into my memory. In fact, alcohol only made the image more vivid, causing bursts of anger to spread through me like liquid fire while my heart clenched painfully in my chest. Not even the drunk girl dancing by herself in the middle of the room or the couple having a heated debate a few chairs to my left could distract me.

With the desire of getting drunk, maybe beer had not been the best decision. Drinking before dinner resulted in an empty stomach. But the alcohol was not hitting me like I had expected it to. But then there was always vodka. A couple of shots of vodka would surely get the job done, right? Or so my already tipsy mind argued. Not in the mood to argue with myself, I waved at the bartender and ordered three shots of pure vodka. As the cute but bored-looking bartender placed the sloshing glasses of clear liquid in front of me, I inwardly gagged at the thought of downing them. I took a deep breath and tried to force my stomach to behave. I had to stay strong. While alcohol might not erase the memory of my cheating boyfriend, it might be able to make me forget for a while. That is, if I managed to get drunk enough. I nodded to myself, pleased with having gotten my priorities set in order, before I signaled the bartender for another beer. If nothing else, I could use it to wash down the horrible taste of vodka. He looked like he sighed at the depressed vision of a girl who clearly had made up her decision to come to a bar at the last second, so I sent him a glare. Who was he to judge me, anyway?

The bartender turned his back to me and ignored my challenging stare, so I turned my focus on the drinks in front of me instead. Going for the beer, I wondered why I hadn’t just ordered some other, slightly better, type of shot rather than pure, disgusting vodka.

Heartbreak will make you unable to think straight, I guess.

As I sipped on my beer, staring at the three shots sitting innocently on the bar counter in front of me, I vaguely noticed someone sitting down on my right. It was a guy, I realized, and since I was drinking alone at a dirty bar, I did appreciate him leaving the seat between us empty. With nothing else to do, I listened as he ordered four beers from the bartender while scratching absentmindedly at the label on my beer. Contrary to when it had been me ordering, the bartender was now quick to bring the four beers to the guy with no attitude whatsoever. I huffed and rolled my eyes, really not in the mood to deal with some random bartender treating me like I was being unreasonable.

The guy who had ordered the beers made no immediate move to take them.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he eventually spoke up. I turned my head and met his gaze, confused.

“Are you talking to me?” I asked stupidly since I was the only person close enough for him to talk to—unless you counted the bartender, of course. But it was a rather odd question to ask someone working.

The guy offered me a small smile and nodded. He had kind, dark eyes and in the dim lighting of the bar, his skin looked flawless. His blond hair was parted down the front to reveal a triangle of his forehead and, presumably, to keep it out of his eyes as the hair was long enough to reach them. Not a bad-looking guy at all, I mused silently, before I realized I should probably get it together and answer him.

“No, why?”

He made a vague gesture towards the bar in front of me. “Just wondering.”

I looked down and realized he was probably referring to the three shots. Had it been any other day, I might have felt embarrassed or even accused him of judging me. Today, though… Today I did not really care what this stranger thought of me. So what if I wanted to order three shots for myself? So what if I wanted to get drunk alone on a random Tuesday evening? Who cared, anyway?

“Nope, not waiting for anyone,” I told him without looking back up, my voice a little harsher than I had intended. It wasn’t even that I disliked having a tiny bit of company even though it was from a complete stranger. I just did not feel up to defending myself.

Luckily, he didn’t seem like he was going to make me justify my actions. Maybe he really had just been curious. He did, however, seem to notice my tone and he started to reach for the beers, probably to take them to wherever he was sitting. I assumed he was here with someone since he had ordered four. Or maybe he was like me, here to get drunk and drown his sorrows.

Based on his smiling attitude, I deemed it unlikely.

“Do you want to join me?” I blurted before I had even made the conscious decision to invite him to drink with me. Or just to stay and talk. I didn’t really care for what reason he would want to stay. But something about the way he was starting to move away made me acutely aware that I actually did not prefer being alone right now.

The guy glanced at me, seemingly a bit unsure whether he wanted to stay and chat with the cranky, lonely drunk girl. I tried to soften my look a bit but, honestly, I worried that softening it too much was going to make my facade crack and I would start to ugly-cry right there in the middle of the bar.

No, I concluded. It was better to let him think I was slightly bitchy than for the whole bar to see me cry snot.

“Are you sure you want me to?” he answered my question with a question. I simply nodded and shrugged, returning my attention to my shots. Although I found myself actually wanting this guy to stick around and talk to me so I would feel less lonely and sad, I was mentally preparing myself for whatever excuse he was trying to come up with. “Okay, give me a minute,” he eventually said, and my head just about whipped around so I could look up at him in surprise.

He offered me a bigger smile this time, big enough to turn his eyes into small crescents, before he grabbed all four beers and walked away. I turned to trail him with my eyes and saw him place the bottles on a table with three guys who, apparently, had been watching our interaction from a distance. Obviously, none of them had been able to hear what had been going on because they seemed to think he was picking me up. At least that’s what it looked like based on their teasing smiles and attempts to playfully push his shoulder. He, however, seemed to shut down those rumors by smacking one of the guys on the back of his head, making the remaining two howl with laughter loud enough for me to hear.

With a smile and a shake of his head, the guy grabbed one of the beers, did a quick cheer with his friends, and started heading back towards me. I quickly turned back around, pretending like I hadn’t been watching, and downed one of the three shots. The vodka burned my throat, and I quickly gulped down some beer in an attempt to mask the horrible taste. Cheap vodka had definitely not been the way to go.

My stomach was still turning by the time he sat down in the chair next to me, and I focused intently on my breathing.

“So,” he started, and I glanced at him to indicate that I was listening. I didn’t dare to open my mouth just yet, though. “Can I ask why you’re getting drunk by yourself on a Tuesday afternoon?”

I did a couple of slow breaths before I figured I had my stomach enough under control to keep the vodka down.

“Aren’t you doing the same thing?” I asked, making him laugh.

“Well, not really. I’m not alone, first off, and we were only planning on grabbing one beer, maybe two, while we were talking,”

“Oh,” I said before I could stop myself.

I felt stupid for even asking because I obviously knew he wasn’t here alone. Heat was slowly rising in my cheeks, and I stared down at my beer. He, however, just seemed amused and laughed in a way that, surprisingly, did not make me feel judged. I dared to glance up at him, and he smiled at me. I noticed a small golden hoop hanging from his right earlobe and caught myself wondering if his left ear was pierced as well before I remembered his initial question.

“Honestly?” I asked, and he nodded. “I found my boyfriend in bed with another girl so I’m drinking to forget while trying to figure out where to sleep tonight,”

He opened his mouth and made an almost-silent ah-sound. I pursed my lips and dropped my eyes again. Saying the truth out loud hurt a lot more than I had expected. But somehow, it felt easier to talk to this stranger than I imagined it would be talking to some of my friends or, even worse, my family.

Without giving the guy next to me a chance to actually answer or even react further to my explanation, I pushed one of my two remaining shots toward him.

“Cheers,” I told him, raising my own shot. He looked skeptical but slowly picked up the shot and carefully sniffed it. In spite of myself, I laughed at his strong reaction to the smell and the way he stuck out his tongue in disgust. My laugh seemed to encourage him, though, as he touched his glass to mine before throwing it down his throat. I followed his example and finished the last shot while he stuck his tongue out again and coughed, clearly displeased with the taste. He seemed to almost gag, which I very much understood, while I tried to mask the taste with beer again.

“Who drinks straight vodka?” he demanded in a hoarse voice, still very much trying to deal with the burn of alcohol.

“Someone who just got cheated on.”

“Fair point,” he waved two fingers in the air as he talked to underline his acceptance of my reasoning.

He continued to struggle for a bit, and by the time he followed my example and downed half of his beer, I was already flagging down the bartender to replace my empty bottle.

“You said you were here to catch up with friends?” I wondered out loud, a thought suddenly hitting me. The guy hummed and coughed before he attempted to wash his mouth with beer again. “Aren’t they annoyed you’re sitting here with me instead of being with them, then?”

“Ah,” he coughed again. “We actually get together once a month, so it’s not like a lot has happened. They didn’t seem to mind, they just assumed we were hooking up.”

I shot him a sideways look, not really knowing how to react to that.

“Not that I’m expecting anything, really. They’re just being stupid,” he was quick to clarify, clearly worried he had offended or scared me.

My heart did a little weird thump when I realized that I didn’t mind all that much. It wasn’t like he was making me uncomfortable at all and, come to think of it, wasn’t I allowed to flirt with him if I wanted to? Hook up, even? Granted, me and Liam hadn’t officially broken up yet. But my mind had been made up the second I saw him with that girl. Our relationship was done and over and I did not want to even see him again. I knew I most likely had to in order to move my things out of our shared apartment and finally tell him to piss off.

The bartender brought my new beer, and I instantly brought it to my lips.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

He blinked at me, seemingly surprised by my lack of reaction to what he had just said as well as the change in subject.

“Tyler.”

“Where do you live, Tyler?”