Melania

I wasn’t looking for anyone that night. Hell, I wasn’t even looking to talk. After five years of trying to hold together a relationship that had clearly run its course, one final blowout sent me out the door and into the cold. I needed air. I needed a drink. I needed anything that wasn’t her voice echoing in my head. The bar I found wasn’t much—just a flickering neon sign and a front window fogged with rain. The kind of place people disappear into, not out of habit, but necessity. I pushed through the door, shrugged off the storm, and headed straight for the counter, hoping for a moment’s peace. That’s when I saw her. She was perched at the end of the bar, small frame hunched slightly over a half-empty glass. Brown hair pulled loose around her face. Eyes fixed on something miles away. She didn’t belong there, not really. Not in a place like this, not with that quiet kind of sadness clinging to her like mist. She looked like she’d lost something. Or someone. And maybe that’s why I sat down beside her.