Ugh, 38, how did he get here?
"Happy Birthday to me, I guess." Eli said, out loud to himself as he took another shot. They were birthday shots, or at least, that's what he told himself. Just another excuse to drink before 5pm, instead of the odd random Jewish holiday that he'd usually get sloshed for. As if he didnt day drink every day.
Its been 20 years since high school. More things he wished he could forget. Hence the drinking. Looking around his shithole New York apartment, he couldn't help but to be taken back to those days. How he put on successful school plays. How he'd play video games with his late best friend Adam. And even…her.
He loved Clare Edwards. More than anyone else before, or since, for that matter. But he just couldn't abide her getting pregnant by another man. His best friend's brother. Drew Torres. He scowled to himself as he remembered the name, and downed another shot.
He looked at his phone. Two unanswered texts and two missed phone calls. One each from Cece and Bullfrog, trying yet again to reach out and to wish him a happy birthday. "Just let me be a disappointment in peace." he said, as if they could hear him, all the way in Toronto.
Eli never went back to NYU after leaving to try to win Clare back, just to find her knocked up by the school asshole. He only went back to NYC because he loved the city so much, but it didn't take long for that to fade due to his bitterness at the situation. He hopped from shitty job to shitty job, never able to get back that lust for film and writing.
He tried, in vain, to straighten up the apartment. Shot glass in the sink, liquor back on top of the fridge, leather jacket in the closet, when… knocking. Knocking? At his door? Today? Surely Cece and Bullfrog wouldn't fly all the way here just to check on him and jet back out.
He opened the door to find a teenage boy standing in the dimly lit hallway of his apartment building. He had never met this kid, but he looked strangely familiar. He had piercing blue eyes that sat behind tasteful, round wire rimmed glasses, vaguely curly yet swooshy dirty blond hair, and a crooked grin much like his own. The boy extended his hand.
"Eli Goldsworthy? My name is Adam. Adam Goldsworthy. I believe I'm your son."