Things We Said Today

Chapter Eleven

I paced my living room in a small line, back and forth, back and forth. The smell of the pasta I had made for dinner lingered in the air and caused my stomach to churn. I had tried to eat some of it, but as the clock ticked closer and closer to seven-o-clock, I felt more and more anxious. I couldn't eat when I was anxious, so my abandoned bowl sat sadly on the kitchen table, growing cold as I continued to pace.

My mind kept trying to convince me not to go to Fireside. But as soon as I would accept that I wasn't going, it would spiral back and start trying to convince me of the opposite. You absolutely shouldn't go, why would you want to spend time with that fuckface? But would you rather sit here alone on Christmas when you could be out drinking? I felt sick from the constant seesawing that was going on in my head. I didn't know what the right choice was, I didn't think there was a correct choice... I either had to suck it up and spend Christmas with Jude again... for the first time since the incident. Or, I had to sit at home and watch some terribly executed romantic comedy on the Hallmark Channel.

I paced back toward the hallway. My eyes flickered up from where they had been focused on my feet and landed on the black book that was still sitting on the coffee table. A pang of guilt stung my gut as I stared at it.

Just think of it as a gift from the old Jude.

"You don't exist anymore." I muttered into my empty house, feeling quite deranged as I imagined speaking with a past version of him.

"You still see traces of me in him, though... don't you?" My imagination spoke for him as I began to pace again.

"No." I spat out, fully convinced I was losing my mind.

"Sure, you do, Luce. That's why you get so mad at me, because sometimes you wish you could push away your hostile facade and be friends again."

"It's not a facade!" I grumbled.

"Just come to Fireside, Lucy. We both know you want to."

I pushed away the voice in my head and cursed myself as I grabbed my jacket from the hall closet. I would go there for one drink. One drink and then I would come back home and spend the rest of this Christmas evening by myself.

I shrugged on my coat, grabbed my keys, and stuffed them in my purse as I shoved my feet into my boots. I tried to keep my thoughts to a minimum as I walked toward Cole Street. This wasn't a big deal... I was just grabbing a drink at the same bar Jude was at. We didn't have to hang out.

I boarded the N train toward Ocean Beach, standing near the door until it shuddered to a stop at 6th Avenue.

Fireside was one block down, on the corner of 7th and Irving. My mind flooded with memories as I approached the wooden building. I hadn't been there since senior year; the last time Jude and I had sat by the fireplace and discussed our upcoming graduation. The graduation Jude had skipped, because he had gotten on a flight to Vermont the day before without telling any of us.

I took a deep breath and pulled open the door. The familiar scent of maraschino cherries and burning wood flooded my nose and caused my chest to ache as my eyes scanned the room. It seemed impossible, after two years, but I swore the crowd was the same. An Asian couple was sitting at one of the tables near the door, chatting quietly to themselves. An older gentleman was wobbling toward the jukebox on the back wall, pulling change out of his pocket as he did. The bartender, a man in his late fifties with a Santa Hat on his head, was wiping a glass clean with the rag he kept hanging from his apron. Everyone looked the same... except the booth near the fireplace was empty. Jude wasn't there.