it wasn't an easy night. predictable, yes, another night detined to be hazily remembered in the grey dawn and finally forgotten. sinking faces looked around in desperation, finding nothing but their anxiety mirrored back.

i was doing the same thing, for different reasons. i was trying to forget her. but it's not a big town, and most of these people, i went to high school with. the last few weeks, trying to numb the pang i feel when i hear her name, i've gone home with one or the other of the girls who were tramps while we were teenagers. it only made me more depressed. their tired bodies, moaning without passion, the pain in their eyes as we fall asleep and they know they'll wake up to hear me leaving or see me gone.

that night, i was scanning the bar for salvation - someone still alive enough that i'd lose track of why amy was so damned perfect.

but that was why i left in the first place. these people are all dead, they've been dead most of their lives. and me, back in the moldy trailer behind my parents' home, i'm not doing so much better. if i'd been working when she left, at least then i would've had something. but she was gone and there was no reason to stay.

there was a ring i was saving up to buy her, and i was going to propose. and she would get her master's and i would finish my book and we'd get married and move out of town. not back here but to somewhere with wildfire leaves in fall and rolling hills and a sky full of silence. the money ran out pretty quick after she left. i was working with my dad again, and there wasn't enough work for even him. they don't need more trees cut down. there's no more demand.

i watch the puffy faced women waddle in and out in their white stretch pants, ankles covered in mosquito bites, hair bleached blond. and guys my age all had beer guts and crewcuts, and wore cowboy boots and held one girl while ogling another.

somebody touched my shoulder. i couldn't quite see who it was, before she'd pushed my face against her chest, her hair falling around me like a curtain. i knew her smell.

'joey?'

she pulled away, smiling. and her eyes were moist.

words poured out. 'you left, remember? and i said you'd be back. we were up on the hill, by the water tower. i told you.'

i did remember. we were talking about our dreams and i was going to be a writer and joey was going to be a drummer and we vowed we'd never come back. and amy and i snuck away in the night, but i held joey before i left. both of us cried.

'we're failures,' i said, and had to laugh. 'i'll buy you a beer.' but i stuck my hand in my pocket and all that came back out with it were quarters.

'it's too late for beer. there's nothing to do now but go home.' and she was right, the bar was emptying, couples and big groups yelling out in the street, the bartender setting the stools back on the bar. 'don't go alone,' she said, hands on my arms, 'you can come with me.'