David sighed.
It pulled away.
“I’ll just open a tab,” Matteo decided for him. “Just remind me if you and Phillip decide to get dinner. I can either close it out or just add it to your final bill.”
“That’s… that’s fine.” David sat upright again. His tie was too tight. He really shouldn’t have worn it.
Matteo grinned and opened his mouth to say what, David didn’t know, but was interrupted when the man watching the silent television signaled for him, raising his empty beer bottle.
“I’m being summoned,” Matteo said, winking again at David. “Destiny awaits no man.”
David didn’t believe in destiny. He thought such things were only in fairy tales, but he didn’t think now was the right time to say so. He just nodded, and Matteo’s fingers brushed David’s glass of bourbon, which was wet with condensation. Little droplets of water were left atop the bar, catching the lights above, the flickering TV.
He was sad.
He knew this.
He knew this more than anything else.
David was sad, and he didn’t know how not to be.
It was all he’d known for years now.
There had been the Zoloft, or at least the offer of it. He hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t even given any real thought to taking it. He didn’t like feeling muddled. Besides, he’d told himself, he needed his mind clear as possible in case of any developments, especially given how he’d spent the third year. It just wouldn’t do for him to be a zombie of sorts and to have the phone ring and have the voice on the other end saying, David, we have news. We have news and I am about to tell you everything you wanted to know.
For the longest time, he hated the way a ringing phone had sounded. Ever since March 22, 2012, any time a phone rang, his heart would beat out of his chest, and he’d be sure, he’d be so goddamn sure that this was it. This was the one phone call he both hoped for and dreaded all at the same time. He would put the phone to his ear, and the voice on the other end would say, David, David, David, we finally have an answer. We finally know what happened. Here. Let me tell you. Let me tell you everything.
But that was never it. There were never any answers. Only questions. And any time his phone rang, anytime he put the phone to his ear and said, hello, hello, hello, he would have to push down on the rage that rose through him, that strange fury at whoever was on the other end of the call was not finally giving him what he wanted.
The first year had been the hardest.
Or maybe it was the second year.
The third hadn’t been too bad because he’d been drunk most of it, and numb. The less said about it, the better.
The fourth year had been bad because he’d been so goddamn tired, having to smile at people, having to pretend that he was getting better when he absolutely wasn’t. Phillip had seen that. And it’d become too much.
And this last year, the sixth, had been quiet. So very, very quiet. No wonder he was having trouble speaking.
Here he was now, approaching the seventh year, the sixth anniversary.
Dean Martin had fallen away a long time ago.
It was Vince Guaraldi now. Smooth, smooth Christmas jazz.
He breathed.
He ached.
He lived.
He died a little too, sometimes. These little deaths. He couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard he tried. Maybe he’d turn on the TV and see a woman with black hair and dark eyes, and his heart would suddenly be in his throat, his hands gripping the armrests of his recliner, fingers digging in.
Or maybe he’d be online, scrolling through celebrity divorces and a bombing in a faraway country that killed seventy-six people—twelve of them children—and how scientists had discovered seven new types of spiders, when he’d see an Amber Alert, or a photo of a smiling woman, standing in a garden, a fruity-looking cocktail in her hand, the picture oddly cropped as there would be a hand on her shoulder, but the rest of whoever it was cut out, and there would be a headline in bolded font that said REWARD NOW OFFERED FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO—
That would be as far as he’d get before he’d be dry-heaving.
So yes. David was sad.