Chapter two
1111 Words
The bitter night air nipped at Cynthia's skin as she walked the streets in a trance. Her feet hurt and were grimy, but she did not mind. Her heart was exposed, vulnerable, as if it had been stretched to its fullest, strained too tight. She did not even know where she was going—she just wanted to leave.Leave home. Leave Adam. Leave it all behind.
Neon lights flickered in the distance. A small, inconspicuous bar was peacefully sitting at the corner of an unused block. The Rusty Oak, its sign groaned. It did not appear to be expensive—four walls, a neon sign flashing, and warm, mellow music floating out. She stood there for an instant, then went in.
The bar was almost empty. Two couples sat at a corner table and a solitary man at the jukebox. Cynthia strolled calmly to the bar and sat on a stool.
The bartender turned, drying a glass on an immaculate towel. Tall and tough-looking with dark waves of hair and very dark brown eyes that seemed to stare right through her, he was not smiling.He was just looking at her, as if reading the anguish.
"Bad night?" he asked slowly, in a soothing voice.
"The worst," she said softly, barely louder than a whisper.
He didn’t press for details. He just poured her a shot of something golden and strong and slid it toward her. “First one’s on the house.”
She took it without hesitation and let it burn its way down her throat. “Thanks.”
He nodded and turned to clean another glass. “I’m Fred.”
“Cynthia,” she replied.
They hung there for a moment in silence. She observed ice dissolve in her second drink. The quiet wasn't awkward. It was. quiet. Like he understood words weren't what she required of him at that time.
Later, after her third shot, she talked again. "Do you ever get the feeling you're drowning. though you're breathing?"
Fred leaned against her. "Always.".
Their eyes met. Something flashed between them. Not attraction, exactly—something else. Recognition. Pain touching pain.
Cynthia breathed hard and long. "I left him tonight. My husband."
Fred nodded slowly. "Good for you."
That squeezed a laugh out of her, a broken, quivering laugh. "Is it? Doesn't feel good."
"Sometimes freedom doesn't feel good at first," he said softly. "Sometimes it just feels… hollow."
Cynthia observed him once more. He wasn't the type of men she had grown used to. No pressure on speech. No judgment. No superiority. Only enduring strength. Compassion.
"May I ask you a question?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Why are you tending the bar here? You don't appear to be the type of man you'd find in a venue like this,"
Fred grinned roughly. "Maybe I don't. But not all people wind up where they're supposed to."
She looked at him. That rang true.
The liquor was finally getting to her. She could feel her head going mushy. Her heart beating too hard. "I need to hail a cab," she slurred.
"I'll get one for you," Fred said, his fingers already on the phone's keypad.
But Cynthia took hold of his wrist lightly. "No… I don't want to go home yet."
Fred raised his eyebrows. "Where do you want to go?"
She swallowed hard. "Nowhere. Somewhere. I don't know. Just… don't leave me alone tonight."
Fred stretched out silent as eternity. And then nodded soundlessly. "Okay."
Led her quietly to one of the back rooms in the bar. One of those small private rooms upstairs in the building maybe used by staff or as a storage room. It was plain but neat—single bed, chair, window over quiet street.
Closed the door behind her when she went inside. Took a step back. But then moved because he saw her look around small room and stand up and close door.
What came after was a blur—of lips against one another, of hands around skin, of forgiven apologies neither owed the other.
Cynthia did not need comfort. Cynthia did not need gentleness. But within Fred's arms, in their moment of distraction, she was seen.
She cried in the middle of a sentence—shameful, quiet tears that streamed down her cheeks as he kissed the top of her shoulder. Fred did not make a sound. He just held her closer, his mouth warm on her, his fingers gentle as if she might break.
No words. Two broken people clinging to the only thing they could in a dishonest world.
Hours had gone by, and the sky had lightened. Cynthia rested against the bed, straightening out her dress on her figure.
Fred moved position but a word did not come out of his mouth.
"I have to go," she said under her breath as opposed to anyone.
He nodded and rolled on his side, closing his eyes, not holding her back.
She knotted her shoelaces in her hand and stepped out of the door barefoot, the hallway light dancing on her sleep-tired face.
Outside, there was a morning of silence. Quiet. She moved into the street, her heart pounding.
She looked around and slowed, glancing back for a second at the bar.
Fred stood by the window, shirtless, shadows surrounding him. Didn't wave. Didn't smile.
Simple glared at her with enigmatic eyes, as though he was aware that this was only the beginning.
And perhaps, it was.
Cynthia's palms smacked the ice sidewalk as she continued walking away from the club. Her body ached—not tonight, but all of it that she'd been storing within herself for so long. Every step to her was like stripping away a shell of her former life, and she wasn't entirely certain what lay beneath.
She had no idea where she was headed. She simply walked.
Her morning breeze pulled at her robe and swirled around her like a gentle wind that the world still rotated. That she existed. Was alive.
But within, she was shattered. Relief mixed with shame. Guilt alongside a small, strange feeling of freedom. She hadn't meant to do any of it. Not the drinking. Not the talking. Not the night she'd spent with Fred. But somehow it had felt real—nauseatingly real.
She hadn't lied long ago.
She tripped over the turn and looked down at herself—hair tousled, dress wrinkled, shoes being held under elbow. And upwards at the clearing sky.
Her mouth opened on a shivering breath.
"I don't know who I am anymore…"
But far beneath her, way down, there was a little voice that spoke.
It would be time to find out.
- Writer
