2:55 am

Prolouge

Some people say that love doesn't happen at first glance. I believe that to be true, because I didn't fall in love with Berkley Adams the first time I saw her, I fell in love with her when I heard her laugh. I was standing in a smokey bar just outside of Queens when I heard the beautiful sound that brought me back to life. I was twenty two, and had been engaged just the month before. However, one night, my pregnant fiancé had swerved to miss a deer that was in the middle of street, thus making the accident tragic, leaving me with no one to comfort me but Jack Daniels. I had gone from mister family man to a single alcoholic who had no direction at all. So it was just like any other day, I had gotten off work, and headed straight to the bar, Johnny's. I was sat alone at the bar, making small talk with the bartender whom I had become great friends with over the course of 37 days to be exact. I hadn't seen her, but I heard her laugh which instantly sparked something inside me, causing a bubbling sensation to arise in my chest. Then as quickly as it had began, it had ended as she pulled the bar stool next to me out, and sat down. She was the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen. Long golden blonde hair stopping just above her small waist, and a beautiful face that I couldn't help but stare at. A blue silk dress clung to her body like a second skin, accentuating all of her curves. Her long tan legs were simply jaw dropping.
My pulse quickened.
"Hi, I'm Berkley, Berkley Adams, and you are?" She held out a slender hand out for me to shake.
"Christian Zephyr." I said quickly, at a loss of words caused by her immense beauty.
Berkley's bright green eyes stared back at me with a certain sparkle that I had never seen before. I was broken out of my trance once she spoke again.
"You look like a man that knows a lot of pain. I just so happen to know it all too well too. So, let's play this game where you tell me what's on your mind, and I'll tell you what's on mine."
"You want me to tell a perfect stranger why I am the way I am?" I said, taken aback by her bluntness.
She nodded, and I sighed.
"Well, I'm twenty two, and I lost my unborn child and my fiancé to a car accident 37 days ago. I'm living a slow hell, doing what I had always wanted to do, up until I realized that being your own boss is nothing like it is made out to be. I'm living in a house that I feel like I have to walk around in with caution as if someday she'll return and pick up life where she left off. I have a drinking problem, and a failing business, I'm hated by more people than I actually know, and I come to this same shit hole bar every day. But you know, life is great. Your turn." I finished, and as soon as the words had stopped flowing from my mouth, I realized the truth behind them.
"I'm nineteen, the typical broke college student with daddy issues. I was in a serious relationship of three years, until recently when I found out that I was pregnant. No, he didn't leave me because I was pregnant, he left me because I aborted the baby. I was raised up with beliefs against it, but somehow at that moment I felt it was right. I thought that I had no business bringing another life into the world when I couldn't even manage my own. Getting pregnant had been an accident, the goal was for us to become engaged, get married and then have children. But mistakes are made daily. My mistake was a baby. It didn't hit me until it was over that I had just became a murderer. That I had just went against everything I had been taught. I took a life out of the world."
I looked at her, I was amazed that so much beauty could harbor so much pain. Somehow she had went through horrid things, but yet, she seemed so perfect, and happy.
"Well, tonight, we shall feel no pain." I raised my glass, and Berkley did the same.
"Here's to a powerless pain."