HERO SYNDROME

❝We Can't Go Back❞

"Read it and weep boys." I said laying down my cards, as they all groaned collectively. I had earned a hundred bucks, winning two games. I lost a couple times but I was holding my own amongst the serial poker players.

"Lou Anne is going to kill me." Walter sighed defeated. I learned a lot about each of them during the two hours I'd spent with them. Walter was a Vietnam vet who lost his left leg during a botched mission. He said it took him nearly thirty years to come to terms with his PTSD, but his wife Lou Anne was a God sent angel who saved him.

Dallas, who's real name was Marcus, was a big time lawyer in Texas. He had been married a whopping eight times and said he hated marriage but loved the drama and romance of weddings. His fourth wife left him after the fall of the economy in the 1980's which left him nearly broke.

Grandpa Stone knew him from his time at boot camp and invited him here to become the Bar's finance lawyer. The rest is history. As they say.

The eldest in the group was Sam, and I learned he was eighty one. He was married to the same woman for over fifty years before she passed. He has to live with his grandson who he says is a big, sissy boy. Whatever that meant. He doesn't like talking much because he's too invested in the game.

"Well here you go Walt." I said passing back the money I had won. Walt opened his mouth to protest but I stopped him short. "No it's fine, I don't need it. I just played for the fun of it." I promised him.

He pocketed the money and jabbed Grandpa Stone in the ribs playfully. "I like her. She's honorable." He decided and I liked the sound of that. Honorable.

"Well I'm done for Stone." Sam sighed, throwing down his cards. He reached over and grabbed his cane, steadying it. "Henry's picking me up soon."

"I'm calling it too." Dallas added, then glanced at me. "You were good, kid. Too good." he laughed, taking his coat and dragging it on, slowly as if his limbs ached.

"You've caught me, I'm secretly a professional player." Beside me, Grandpa Stone cackled so hard that he choked on his beer.

"Whatta I tell you guys! This girl is too good for Jace."

I wanted to say that wasn't true. That his grandson was an extremely kind and patient person, and you don't find that often in eighteen year old boys. You don't find that in a lot of people, period. But before I could, I heard him say.

"He's right." I quickly turned around and found Jace standing there with a tight lipped smile on. "She's too good for me."

It was like seeing a ghost, that's the only way to describe it. The ghost of 'almost' past. Jace stood there, in front of the bar wearing a white t-shirt that wrinkled a bit, and grey sweatpants. His eyes that were usually filled with exciting blue skies, were nothing more than a dull blue marred with dark circles. He looked like a boy with too much on his mind, but very little left to be said. I did that to him, that was me, I had to say to myself.

That snapped me out of my lucid carefree state real quick. I was in reality now, and my mind and body were exhausted.

"What are you doing here?" I asked in a small quiet voice.

"Gramps called, said you were here. Do you wanna take a walk?" He asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets. I glanced at the older men who said nothing, did nothing, and just watched me carefully, as if reading into what was really going on. I turned back to Jace and nodded silently. I was too tired for a walk, but for Jace I would do it, because he had something to say and I wanted to hear it.

__________

I held my shoes in one hand, and let the other hang loosely next to Jace's. Careful not to touch him, in case he didn't want me too. He asked for a walk and thus far we had rounded three blocks in silence. Painful, sad, silence that was only met with cars passing in the night. Finally I mustered up what little courage I had left and said.