Volume 1

Chapter 30

366

Part 2

January 18th, 20?

?, California, United States of America, Planet Earth

?

"It's been a long day without you my friend,

And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again

We've come a long way from where we began

Oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again!

When I see you again!"

As hauntingly beautiful as the closing chorus was, the rest of the song would soon start to be interspersed with the equally haunting sound of three grown men struggling not to bawl their lungs out, at least for those in that particular section of the bar. Thankfully, the music was loud enough that the only other people who were close enough to be disturbed by this were the employees who had to pass by on their way to deliver food and drinks to their tables. Those who had started relatively recently all found themselves scornful of and annoyed with the group, wishing that they would grow up and get over whatever it was that was wrong, and stop ruining the atmosphere of the bar before it could end up costing them tip money. Those who had been there a little longer than a few months, however… Well, if they hadn't been working the first night this particular group had made a spectacle of themselves, they had been on shift for at least one of their subsequent visits and knew by now; they were well aware of why this group tended to become so emotional when that particular song was played, and thus were more sympathetic than scornful…

As the song ended, 3 identical shot glasses were placed on the bar in front of them, causing them all to look up with teary, confused eyes. The man at the far end of the bar, short, scrawny, but most importantly, the least indisposed at the moment, was the one to voice what was wrong with the situation. "We didn't order these?"

The bartender, a nondescript man in his late 30's or perhaps his early 40's, gave a disinterested shrug. "These ones are on the house, courtesy of Sierra."

As one, three heads turned to look down to the end of the bar, where, sure enough, they could see the waitress in question loading up a tray with drinks. A sad smile graced her heart shaped face as she made eye contact with the three at the end of the bar, who all in unison raised their glasses in salute, before tossing them back (metaphorically, of course; it'd be poor manners to throw away free drinks!). The display was enough to draw an amused chuckle from the petite waitress, before she walked away to deliver her drinks and take care of her tables. The woman was short, and as already stated, petite, standing around 5'3" and somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pounds. As is typical of successful waitresses in a bar setting, the woman was very pretty, though with her shoulder length brunette hair, almond shaped green eyes, and glasses, it was in more of an innocent, girl next door type of pretty than one might expect in such an establishment.

"They would have made such a good couple…" The man in the middle opined wistfully, even as he used a sleeve to wipe the tears away from his impressive mountain man beard. All three knew that she was exactly the type of girl the absent fourth member of their group would have gone for.

"Maybe, Nick, maybe…"

Nick, the man in the middle, could hardly believe what he was hearing. "C'mon Josh, you know they would have been cute together, almost like watching a couple of highschoolers! Tyler, brother, help me out here!"

"Possibly," Tyler, the aforementioned scrawny man, mentioned from the seat to Nick's right, stroking his auburn goatee contemplatively as he did so. The lack of support for what, to Nick, should have been an obvious argument caused him to open his mouth to assert his point, but Tyler continued on before Nick could interrupt. "Back when I was still working here, she used to tell me that she appreciated the fact that he would actually talk to her rather than just hit on her like 99% of the other guys that come through here."

Sure enough, a quick look over to where she was currently taking a table's order would be enough to make Tyler's point; if the slightly pained quality her smile had taken on was any indication, at least one of the guys at the table had just said something totally inappropriate. Of course, this wasn't an unusual occurrence, and not just for Sierra; just about every waitress who worked there had to deal with that. Fortunately however, most of the bar's patronage understood that there was such a thing as taking things too far, and on more than one occasion, a patron who had overstepped that line had promptly found themselves roughed up by every other able bodied man in the bar, before being tossed out the front door in a heap along with a ban from returning until a certain amount of time had passed, and they had made a public apology to the woman they had harassed. It was why even though many of the regulars would, while under the influence, perhaps flirt with the waitresses a little too much for some of their comfort, everyone at least understood that it was usually just harmless banter and part of what kept business booming. So of course the patrons who would actually take an interest in the employees as people rather than sexual objects would be viewed a little bit more fondly by the staff than the rest, even if they didn't necessarily tip as well…

"See Josh? Our boy totally had better odds than all of these other pricks who only wanna get into these girl's pants. They totally would have had a good relationship!"

Josh just rolled his eyes, because he knew Nick was forgetting one crucial fact: "You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take, bro. Not to mention it would have been a little difficult to date a girl living in California from three time zones away.."

"Yeah, that's fair Josh." Came the input from Tyler.

"Okay, but we all knew his job was going to move him back here. L.A., sure, but still, that's not too far away. Hell, Tyler, didn't you say your parents go on dates there every other weekend? It isn't too much of a stretch to say they could have made it work with him living there and Sierra living here."

"Yeah, that's what he was waiting for."

The three men all jumped a little in their seats, having been so engrossed in their discussion that they hadn't noticed Sierra sneaking up on them. When they did manage to look in the direction they had heard her voice come from, all three with comical expressions of shock, they were met with the sight of the girl shaking her head and laughing where she was leaning on the end of the bar. Still, that amused smile quickly became a wistful one when she calmed down enough to continue. "Los Angeles would have been a bit far, yeah, but not so far we couldn't have made it work. It would have been worth it."

All three men shared small smiles at that, happy that their friend had apparently made his move…

"See guys?" Nick asked his companions quite eagerly, encouraged by Sierra's comments. "He totally had it in him. Our boy may have been shy, but once he decided someone was worth coming out of his shell for, nobody could resist that friendly charm!"

At that comment, Sierra could feel the teensiest bit of heat coming to her cheeks, and instinctively turned her head, subconsciously hoping to hide her blush… But, though the guys had been drinking for a while already, Tyler, both eagle eyed (at least while wearing his glasses) and being well acquainted with the girl, did not miss it. With a cheeky grin, he had to ask:

"Oh? Did something happen that neither of you told us about? Eh? Eh?"

Of course, that just increased the amount of blood flowing to Sierra's face, which of course made her blush all the more noticeable, not that Nick and Josh needed it to be that visible now that Tyler had caught onto her embarrassment. With as much dignity as she could muster, Sierra straightened up and tilted her head back, pointing her nose into the air, and affected a tone of faux-disdain as she replied: "A true gentleman does not kiss and tell, which is why your friend and I did so well." With that final comment, Sierra beat a hasty retreat, lest the guys start to ask her for details.

"Damn shame what happened to him." Sierra thought to herself with an audible sigh, once she had gotten back to work. "The guy actually gave me hope that not all men are pigs… Why couldn't either of the last guys I was talking to be like that? To think I actually liked assholes like them when I was in highschool... Ugh. Things would have worked out so well too, I can see it! We'd have spent our days working, but then our nights would have been amazing! So much exploring to do in L.A., and the perfect companion for it! Give it a few years for me to finish my degree, and for him to advance a little in his career, and then we might have been thinking about getting married and having kids… Instead, I'm still here in this shitty town dating shitty guys and pining after the one half decent one to come through here… Ugh. I better stop thinking about this for now, before I start crying like his friends. I certainly wouldn't have wanted that for him if it had been the other way around…"

If her sudden bout of melancholy had affected her job performance, her coworkers and regulars certainly didn't comment on it, the girl having worked there long enough to avoid judgement for having an off day every once in a while. And if her tips ended up being a little less than usual because of that off day… So what? She'd be fine. She may not be a widow, seeing as they had not been married, and their relationship, if it could have even been called that, had been in a very tentative beginning, but she had mourned for him. And though, a full year later, she could honestly say she was ready and attempting to move on, the fact remained that he had made enough of an impact on her that she wasn't able to easily shake the thoughts of 'what if?' from her mind. Unable to do so, and also unwilling to torture herself further with imagining what life together might have been like, she instead found herself wondering:

"If he's in some weird alternate universe, I wonder what he'd be doing right now?"

Hehehe, if only she knew! Poor Sierra…

Anyways! I'd just like to take a moment to apologize for how long this chapter took to write, especially for how short it's turned out to be. The only explanation I can really offer for it is that it's just, well, weird to be writing about the aftermath of your own supposed death. Though Lee has evolved into his own distinct character in my mind, his group of friends in this chapter are based off of my own, so I was very uncomfortable writing this scene. That being said, with this scene out of the way, I can finally move on to the scene I've actually been wanting to write for a little over a year now, so I hope to get that one done much more quickly. To everybody who has been a fan of this story thus far, thank you for reading, and for your patience if you're one of those who has been waiting!

P.S.: 366 is the final part of Volume 1. I do have a fairly good idea of how Volume 2 is going to go, however, so there shouldn't be too much of a wait between finishing this and starting on that. I do think I'll go back and edit earlier chapters for some small details and things like grammar and punctuation that slipped through the first time, but I don't expect that to take long.