Astrid loved him.
She loved him perhaps ever since he first walked into the pub and ordered a single malt whiskey while regarding her with beautifully grey eyes. Her hands fluttered foolishly over the glassware and the ice as she prepared his drink. He thanked her with a quiet nod and took a seat in the booth at the far end of the pub.
Then, he began to read. No one ever came to the pub to read. People came alone all the time, but never to read. He looked withdrawn, his eyes never leaving the pages except to glance at his drink once in a while and decide he wanted another. He would look over to Astrid then, and nod, and she would understand. Single malt whiskey, neat.
Astrid had not been working there long, only to help pay her fees for medical school which she had started in the city the year before. But somehow, she felt like she had already become a part of the pub. On its loneliest nights, she became a part of its worn, tattered leather booths and its idle air, tinged with the smell of citrus and cigarettes. She could follow the lines of her hand until they joined the grain of the mahogany bar top. She felt so much a part of it that she needed only snap her fingers and everything would warp and change into whatever she wished. A travelling circus. A metal capsule, floating in wide open space. A house, inhabited forever by its ghosts.
Centuries later, she imagined an archaeologist would find this pub miraculously preserved under a pile of rubble. And there, surrounded by a fine layer of dust on the bar top, they would find her handprint.
It was obvious the man wasn't from around there. People in the town had a dejectedness about them, like the salt from the ocean had seeped through their skin and dried out their optimism. He, on the other hand, looked like he had once lived far above the concerns of everyday people, shielded from the humdrum realities of the world. But something must have gone wrong, because there he was now, like he hoped no one would ever find him again.
Astrid developed a habit of looking at him from the bar whenever she had time to kill, which was often. He had to be in his late twenties, although there were lines around his eyes that looked like he had seen more in his years than most. He wore dark clothes, usually a pair of dark jeans and a black hoodie. His features, in contrast, were pale and sharp and his hair was so blond it was almost white. His movements were light, his fingers always gentle on his glass and on the pages of his book.
He would come in almost every night around the same time, drink and read for about three to four hours, and then leave. Astrid began expecting him after a few weeks, feeling strangely empty on the nights he did not appear. She took to drawing on the chalk wall on those nights, writing out the menu in different styles and sketching out the moon and the stars. There wasn't much else to look forward to, between school and bartending. At least that's what she believed at first.
She was not expecting it the first time he talked to her. She was drawing a large star cluster on the chalk wall, thinking he wasn't coming that night, when she heard his voice right behind her.
"You're very talented."
She jumped, the chalk falling from her fingers. He was looking intently at her artwork, as though it reminded him of something he had long left behind.
"Sorry, I get carried away sometimes," she murmured, reaching under the bar for a bottle of whiskey.
"No, keep at it by all means. I really like it," he said, before turning his gaze to her. "I take it you study art?"
"Oh, no, I could never get in," she blushed. "I'm studying medicine."
"A Healer," he said, eyes widening. "That's a noble profession."
"That's a nice way to put it," she smiled. He really was quite strange. But Astrid knew she had been right about him not being from around town. His speech was elegant and well-mannered, like he had been educated somewhere foreign and expensive. He reminded her of very wealthy people who dressed ordinarily so as not to attract attention.
He was also beautiful. His cheekbones rose high above a strong jaw and a finely-curved, cynical mouth. White-blond hair fell over his eyes, which were grey as a storm.
Astrid wanted to fall headlong into his world.
"I take it you're not from around here?" she ventured as she held out his glass.
A faraway look appeared briefly in his eyes before his expression drew closed. "I'm not."
She had been over-friendly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to —"
"Thank you," he muttered and turned once more to his usual place.
A woman came to the pub sometime in late Autumn. Astrid remembered thinking how strange she looked, not in any manner of physical appearance - she was actually quite beautiful - but because her cheeks were red and her curls were wild and dishevelled, like she had just whirled through space and time and then spent another hour walking outside in the cold. No one in that dead-end town spent more time outdoors than they absolutely had to, especially not at that time of year. It was like this woman wanted to be there, like the place she came from was somehow worse.
Astrid's thoughts were interrupted by a hot crackling sound from one of the ceiling lamps. The bulb flickered, faded for a moment, then came back on a touch brighter than before. She thought she should call an electrician just in case.
There was a weary, defeated look in the strange woman's eyes as she took a seat at the far end of the bar. She ordered a vodka, drained it, and then ordered three more over the course of the night. It wasn't until her third or fourth drink that Astrid noticed how visibly her shoulders had relaxed.
"You're not from here either, are you?" Astrid asked, pushing a fresh glass toward the woman.
"Hm, what?" The woman, who had been staring raptly at something over her shoulder, spun around to face her.
"I said, I don't think I've seen you around here before."
"No, I'm— you haven't, no." She suddenly looked petrified, like she had just realized she left her fingerprints at a murder scene. Her fingertips had turned white from pressing against her glass.
Like a good bartender, Astrid pretended not to notice. "Where're you from, then?"
"Yes, yeah..." She seemed scattered, distracted, her mind in a thousand places at once. She seemed to go through entire phases over the next few minutes - her lips twisted first in shock, then worry, and then finally anger. She eventually stood and headed straight for the blond man.
Astrid pretended to busy herself with wiping glasses, but kept the pair in her peripheral vision. Two of her strangest customers, talking.
She could not hear a word, but could tell that the woman was the last person he was expecting to see. His first reaction was to cast a quick glance around the pub, as though ensuring she was alone. It was the first time Astrid had seen him look so nervous. Frightened, even. But the woman shook her head, crossing her arms against her chest as though offended by the insinuation. Then, the man sighed and nodded toward the seat opposite him, which the woman hesitatingly took.
Neither of them spoke for a long time. The man's posture had hardened somewhat as he sat straighter in his seat. The woman kept biting her lip, her eyes darting between the man and the glass clutched in her hand.
Astrid leaned against the bar and watched them openly. There was an undeniable history between these two. A tragic and painful one. He had done something terrible, something to hurt this woman, perhaps irreversibly. And now he was paying for it, driven into hiding to spend the rest of his life alone and in remorse. But now, after what could have been years, the woman had found him. And maybe she was about to give him another chance.
The woman spoke first, unable to meet his eyes. A question. His jaw tensed in response and he raised his glass to his lips. He answered so quietly that his mouth barely moved. The woman ventured another question, slightly bolder this time. But Astrid could tell she had already gone too far. He set his glass down, a little too hard. Silence again.
The woman allowed herself to study him in the quiet minutes that passed. It was like old thoughts were slowly dislodging themselves from the deepest corners of her mind and trying to fit themselves into new spaces. It seemed to give her an idea. She spoke to him again.
This time, Astrid could faintly see the corner of his mouth lift in a tiny smile. But the moment was gone as soon as it arrived. The woman's eyes shone. She spoke again, her hands sliding an inch toward his on the table. His shoulders fell on a sigh and he said something that made her smile too.
She had done it, it seemed. Chipped away ever so slightly at an icy armour that he had built around himself.
They spoke for only a few minutes more before she took her leave. Something in the way they looked at each other told Astrid that the woman would be back.
The woman returned to the pub every Friday for the next five months. On the first few of these nights, silence stretched between her and the blond man like a vast, unchartable sea. Even with drinks they spoke stiffly with each other, like there was a third person at their table, watching them.
What could this man have done? What could have been so heinous that he had to hide from everyone he once knew? Why was this woman reaching out to him now?
He did not look like he could hurt anyone. Astrid saw it in his hands, in the lightness with which he lifted his glass or turned the pages of his book. Could those same hands have killed?
Once, when Astrid was sure she had not slept enough the night before, she almost swore the man's glass floated above the table. He absently pointed a finger at it as he read, and the glass hung there, suspended as if by some invisible force. Astrid blinked and it was back on the table.
It made her think of another world entirely, a world where the laws that applied to her had no meaning. A world where people had the power to do things she only dreamed of. It made her think of crimes so unforgivable they surpassed something as trivial as murder.
At first, he fended off the woman's attempts at conversation. He remained stoic and unreadable as she asked him a question, or just talked sometimes for minutes without really expecting a response. His jaw would tense or his eyes would flick to hers at certain things she said but otherwise he stayed mostly silent.
Perhaps he didn't believe he deserved her company.
But as one month passed, then two, Astrid sensed the air between the two of them shift slightly. He started to drink a bit more freely around the woman and a former, youthful sort of haughtiness bloomed in his features. He would lean carelessly back in his seat and watch her over the rim of his glass as she spoke, and Astrid was not always sure he was truly listening.
At one point, she thought she saw the tips of their fingers touch, but then one of the ceiling lamps blew a fuse and she had to go check.
He angered the woman too. A few times, she raised her voice at him and Astrid could catch parts of their conversation.
"...no reason not to try…"
"...there really is no point…"
"...have to stop letting them…"
Once, the woman grew so upset that she stormed off and did not return for weeks.
Astrid thought more about the woman. It became clear that she had found the pub entirely by accident, and not because she had been searching for this man. The first night she came in, Astrid remembered she looked like she had spent hours walking around outside in the autumn chill. Whatever had happened to her, she was clearly still hurting from it. That night, something happened that brought her to this town, and into this dingy old pub.
She may not have been expecting to see him, but now this man had become just the thing she needed.
In the woman's absence, the blond man appeared more frequently by the bar. He would leave his book in the booth and quietly watch Astrid draw. Astrid loved to draw while he watched. She drew stars and moons and galaxies, and watched them dance and swirl in his eyes.
He was sad, and Astrid wanted nothing more than to hold him in her arms and take his pain away. She imagined touching him. His soft, pale skin brushing hers as she handed him his drink. The heat of him on her lips, her jaw, tracing a path down her neck. His hands sliding up her stomach to cup her breasts. She closed her eyes and saw herself in his grey eyes, coming undone.
One night, as she was drawing the aurora borealis, she felt his breath on her hair.
"You really are remarkably talented." He was standing so close to her, just within her arm's reach.
"Thank you," she breathed, and something in her voice made him glance at her in surprise.
She raised a hand to his shirt and traced her thumb over a button. Her stomach flipped when he met her eyes. She pushed herself on her toes, lowering her gaze to his lips.
All the lights in the pub flashed simultaneously. Both of them turned instinctively to the pub's entrance. The brown-haired woman was standing there, looking at the man with hurt and confusion. He immediately stepped away.
"I'm— I'm sorry," he whispered to Astrid before half-running toward the woman outside. Astrid watched him go. He had left his book behind and the ice melted in his half-finished drink.
And that was that. Astrid never saw the pair of them again. She mistook other people for them a few times, when she caught a flash of blonde hair or wild brown curls.
Wherever they were, she wished them well. She hoped they would find peace.
And once again, when everyone was settled in their booths, their heads silently bowed toward the drink in their hands, Astrid stepped into their lives. She imagined who they were and what their lives could be. It was a way to forget herself and live briefly in the infinite space of another.
But she never could quite forget the blond stranger with a book in his hand, and sipping a glass of single malt whiskey, neat.