Park.
Street.
Mall.
Bar.
Club—
I released my lip, my heart stuttering in slight excitement. Perfect. Let’s start with that.
It was always the same bar, the same people. Stale cigar smoke and the scent of alcohol filled the air. It was almost suffocating, but in a comforting kind of way. The kind of way that made you feel like you were invisible and the center of the world all at once.
Today, however, there was something different lingering around me. Something unsettling.
I couldn’t help but look around as I headed for my barstool, trying to put my finger on what was making my hair stand on end. The bartender immediately walked up to me as I took a seat, asking me the same thing he always did. “The usual?”
I nodded, glancing around the room again. A lady of the night was self-medicating with something that would make her forget what she was about to do. There was an old man already passed out in one of the booths, five empty glasses in front of him. I couldn’t help but wonder why the bartender hadn’t picked up the extra glasses yet.
“Here you go, Sophia.”
I stared at the drunken man a second longer before turning back to the bartender. I downed the drink in one painful swallow before tapping the rim, glancing at the man again. It was sad. Did anyone even miss him?
“What are you thinking about?”
I turned back to the bartender, my glass full once again. “I’m wondering how long you’ll wait until you check his pulse,” I said just as the door opened.
Light flooded across the dimly lit scuffed floor, pulling my attention over to a man I had never seen before.
His eyes flicked to mine as if they had been looking for me for generations. They looked like silver-blue stars, endless and filled with a chilling mystery nobody in this world would ever solve.
Instantly, I felt powerless, a string of words whispering through me on a phantom wind. “He’s going to kill you. You need to run—”
A movement in front of me caused me to jump, eyes jerking up, finding the exact pair I had described now sitting before me, hidden behind that mask, uncaring that the world would think him psychotic for wearing a mask in March.
My heart skipped a beat as I glanced around the room for something I couldn’t identify. Maybe help. Did I need help?
I noticed the baristas whispering and the current customer keeping one eye on the man while she tossed her money onto the counter and quickly skuttled out of the café.
That’s just great. They were going to call the police, and I was going to be labeled an accessory to his psychotics simply because he decided to sit across from me.
When I found his eyes again, he was leaning back in his chair, one leg spread out into the walkway, the other tucked under the table while one hand was wrapped around a coffee sitting on the table.
How long had he been sitting there? And whymy table?
I grabbed the top of my laptop screen and folded it towards me, watching him evenly. “Can I help you?” I asked, pushing one of my headphones back.
He watched me for a second longer before taking a drink, ignoring my question completely.
I frowned, tracking the motion of his cup as he set it back down. Between his fingers, I could see a little black heart that one of the baristas had drawn on the cup for him and I found myself glancing towards the counter again, searching the faces of each one until I landed on a beautiful blonde, shorter than me, glaring right at me.
She hadn’t been among the two whispering about the man moments ago. Probably into the whole ‘mask’ thing. I didn’t care about her cup of tea,Iwasn’t interested.
I turned back to my laptop, irritated. This wasn’t my fault.
I shoved my headphone back over my ear and pushed my screen up, not caring to glance at him again before I got back to work.
If he wanted to sit there, fine, it was an allegedly free country, but I didn’t have to entertain him either.
