20 counter and looked over my shoulder to see the man next to me peering at me with an inquisitive look. “Yeah, yeah I guess it is,” I said, trying to act uninterested without coming across as rude. I came here for solitude, not for awkward conversations with strangers. “Been having one of those myself,” he said, grunting in agreement. “But when things get real rough, I find that we often tend to even take the simple fact that we’re alive for granted anymore. After all, living with the people you got around you ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at, no matter how hard things get. Wouldn’t you agree?” I pursed my lips and closed my eyes for a second, trying to hold my composure together. I could feel my heart starting to race as my breath quickened, the room coming into painful focus as my senses felt sharpened, like I was moments away from a panic attack and this wasn’t helping. Maybe coming here was a mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t have— “Been difficult for you without her, hasn’t it?” His words, tinged with his hint of a Southern accent, cut through my thoughts with ease and my eyes flipped open. “Wh…what? How did you know?” “That ring of yours, you ain’t glanced up from it for a few minutes. No happily married man stares at their wedding band the way you were. So what was it, divorce? Death?” “Death,” I managed to respond, my voice coming out little more than a dry whisper as my hand clenched against the bar. “It’s been a year today.” “I see,” the man sighed. “I’ve been there myself, been there on the days when it hits harder than others. I feel your pain, friend.” I looked back at the man next to me in a new light, truly noticing him for the first time. He looked around my age, maybe in his late thirties, and was dressed in a plain, black suit. He
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