Walking around the house, Cole picks up a few other hints: her toiletries are gone from the bathroom. Her pillow is missing from the bed. He slides open the bedside table on her side, and it's empty. He walks back out to the living room and sits down on the couch. It's then that he sees it. A note. Pinned into the apartment door on the inside. He rushes over to read it.
Cole,
I'm done waiting. I thought my father was wrong about you, but now I can finally admit that he was right all along. You have no ambition and no hopes for the future. I won't stay with a man who can't provide for his family. I tried to push you in the right direction, tried to get you a job at Daddy's firm, and done everything in my power to make you into a respectable man.
Take care,
Kat.
For a moment, Cole doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Today. Of all days, it had to be today. Their relationship wasn't flawless, Cole had to admit, but he was a caring boyfriend. They enjoyed their time together, or at least he thought she enjoyed it. Had she always seen him as a failure because of his job? Or was it her father's influence that set this into motion? Doesn't matter now. She's gone.
Cole walks out the door, not even bothering to close it. He walks coldly down to the lobby and out the door.
Three blocks from his apartment is a corner store. He pulls the door open and a bell above the doorway chimes to signal his entry. The left-hand side of the store was filled with dry goods, canned foods, and other commonly needed items. To the right, banks of coolers along the walls, refrigerated magically, of course. The coolers were filled with various canned drinks of all sorts. From one cooler he pulls a six pack of pint cans labeled SWISHER'S LAGER. He reaches into the adjacent cooler to retrieve a single pint can with the label HOTBELLY RUM. He takes both to the counter, where a woman in her mid-forties stands, reading a magazine lazily.
"Good evening, hon, will this be all for you tonight?" she asked.
"Yeah, just this, thanks." Cole said. His tone was distant and disinterested. He kept his eyes down, afraid that any eye contact at all might make them well up. His chest hurt. It was like a weight keeping his lungs from filling all the way, he simply couldn't take a deep breath. His stomach hurt, too. A lot.
The clerk tallies his total in a handwritten register book. He slides her a short stack of silver coins, she returns 2 bronze coins to him in change. Cole exits wordlessly. He pops the tab on the rum and takes a swig, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. The drink was spiced heavily with cinnamon and sweetened with honey, but still kicked like a mule. Heat coats his mouth and tongue immediately, and he slowly feels that same warm sensation migrating down his throat to his stomach.
Instead of walking back to his apartment, he took a walk in the cool evening air through Beanfield's modest downtown. A few groups of people moved among the various shops, restaurants, and gathering places of the city, but the streets are mostly quiet. He takes frequent sips from his can of rum, left hand still clutching the six pack of beers. His increasingly-stumbly steps took him in a wide, circular and roundabout path home. On the way, he walks past the shimmering all-glass storefront of Beanfield Expeditions, the firm that Kat's dad runs.
He looks into through the windows and at first he's delighted. Kat is there! I should just go talk to her, I bet she didn't even mean what she wrote. His mind starts to race with possibilities as he reaches for the door. He can see Katrina inside, she looks happy. She looks… happy? Shouldn't she be sad? At least a little upset that we broke up?
Cole watches Katrina erupt with laughter and extend her arm, reaching for something. A man steps into view and she wraps her arm around him. He returns the gesture, and then they both sit down on an overstuffed dark leather armchair. He can't believe his eyes when she sits on his lap and then tosses an arm around his neck.
What the actual hell is going on here? She's with someone else already? At her dad's firm? Cole's blood boils in a way he never knew possible.
He can sense someone approach him from behind and speak. "It's about time, isn't it? We all knew that Katrina was due for an upgrade. Dover is an ambitious young man with a tremendous amount of promise. He's set to take over my position when I retire. You can see why my little girl has given up on the mistake of a fling she was having with you." The voice was one he knew too well, and one that was entirely unwelcome today. Aaron Dewford, Executor of Beanfield Expeditions, his ex's father.
Cole clenches his fists in anger, crinkling the mostly empty can of rum. "Shut the hell up, Aaron. I gave everything to Katrina, and this is how you repay me? By setting her up with a different man?" His voice wavers with emotion, and he curses mentally for not sounding more intimidating.
Dewford laughs derisively. "You think I had to set her up, Cole? Guess again. My Katrina knows a high value man when she sees one – she didn't need any pressure from me." He steps past Cole, placing his hand on the doorknob. "Don't make this more embarrassing for you than it already is. Don't be pathetic." With that final snide remark, Aaron Dewford steps through the door of the firm and locks it behind him, not giving Cole another glance.
Cole was embarrassed beyond belief. He walks away, huffing angrily. He stomps his way back toward his apartment. He drops his mangled rum can into a trash bin on the street and opens the first lager of his six pack, chugging the whole thing and tossing the empty in the bin with his rum can. He cracks the seal on a second beer and his head starts to swim from the alcohol.
By the time that he walks through his still-open apartment doorway, there are only two cans left in the paperboard container. His stomach is souring – sixteen ounces of rum is evidently not a good appetizer to four beers. He managed to drink away his emotional pain, but he was paying the price now. He sits on the couch in the dark and finishes the two remaining beers. Well, he intended to finish that last beer, but passes out halfway through.
-
BWEET BWEET BWEET BWEET BWEET BWEET
Cole wakes with a start, reflexively swinging his left hand out to silence the alarm. His hand doesn't hit anything though, which makes Cole finally open one eye. To say he is hungover would be an understatement. His head is pounding, making every bit of light beaming through the living room window stab his eyes like spears from the sun. He swallowed saliva fighting the urge to get sick. He weakly walks to the bedroom to silence the morning alarm and his first cogent thought of the day is that he's running late for work. Within the fog of the hangover, his mind was either ignoring or avoiding the events of the day before. He goes through the motions of his morning routine with his eyes still closed, internally begging for any relief from this hell he's feeling.
In twenty minutes the young man is dressed and presentable. He grabs his backpack from the floor near the door and exits his apartment. In only moments more, he and his bike are rolling smoothly out of the confines of Beanfield and onto the open road. The morning light is just beginning to rise above the horizon. The air was warm with a strong breeze, possibly hinting at storms later in the day despite the cloudless sky. The gentle rolling hills of Beanfield and beyond looked like waves on a sea of deep green, the sort of imperfect uniformity that only nature can create. A faint trail of dust rose from the rear tire of Cole's bike as it rolled over the packed gravel roadway.
It takes about thirty minutes of driving with his brain on autopilot before he begins to form actual rational thoughts. His gloomy mood colored his inner monologue. What a terrible day. I can't believe Katrina left. I hope Aaron Dewford gets eaten by a sabrecat.
The mental image of a sabrecat almost shocks him into though about his own brush with a monstrosity yesterday. OH MY GOD. I almost died! Probably should have died, honestly. What kind of an idiot stumbles into a First Era ruin like that? Every kid is taught to stay far, far away from those. Am I dumber than a grade schooler? Is that really where my life is at this point? No wonder she left, I'm embarrassing. Even if she knew I was a Hero, she probably wouldn't stay.
Oh right. I'm a Hero now. What am I doing? Cole looks down at his bike. The only reason he has access to it is his job as a courier. Most folks didn't have access to their own personal transport like this, they would have to take a bus to get where they're going. Travel isn't easy in the Second Era, and it's often dangerous, so buses drive in well-protected convoys. The routes are regular, but they move slowly. Couriers are needed for expedient deliveries and to shuttle news and correspondence quickly between settlements. The lion's share of his work is simply hauling mail back and forth between Beanfield and Wakeville, and he was thankful for the steady excuse to get out and see the landscape. Becoming a Hero means that he is qualified for a higher echelon of career that he'd never been able to access before. His courier job will soon be nothing more than a fond memory for him.