Chapter 19
It doesn't feel like a year has passed.
He sips the coffee slowly, looking at the table as the warm spring wind wraps around him from the drafts in the windows.
Hell, it doesn't even feel like a month has passed.
The days blended into each other, but he can still tell you exactly what he did on each of them.
Takes another sip, trying to sober himself from last night.
Monday, he went for a surveillance check around the 3 blocks around him. Nothing.
"You always take your coffee black?" The waitress said, looking at him with care.
Tuesday, he bought some supplies for the week from a grocery he never went to before. The one on the street a few blocks down gave him strawberries knowing he picked some up the previous week.
It hurt to stop, the owner reminding him of his Grandmother.
He felt himself smile, as her hair shone in the sun from the diner windows.
Wednesday, he went to the library. Picked up almanacs and looked at newspapers from 1969.
"There's enough sweetness in life."
"That was corny." She smirked.
"[I know.]" His Russian bled into the dream.
Her hair turned red.
Thursday, he stayed inside, listening to the radio as Romanian representatives were amongst the first nations to join the Sokovian Summit.
He had a headache the rest of the night.
Yesterday, he read a paper someone threw away; the next newsstand a mile or so away.
He's considered going to the liquor store. Just getting a bottle of bourbon, whiskey.... Anything.
Looks down at the coffee.
But it won't do anything. A year's worth of whatever this was, hiding out to keep anyone safe from him, he remembers.
Remembers the dive bars in Italy, France; Germany. The show he had to put on to the unit. To Steve, pretending he was drunk when really, it felt like gasoline flavored water passing through him. Whatever happened in Austria, taking away the ability to numb it.
Looks down at the coffee, trying to fight the urge to throw the thing across the room.
He wants to have a drink. He wants to remember the girl he can't stop dreaming about.
He wants to remember.
Closes his eyes & tries to hold onto something, anything.
He remembers laying on a motel bed with someone, feeling like for the first time, he actually could breathe. Could enjoy something.
It's been a year. It'll never feel like it because time doesn't exist for him anymore.
But he's grateful it's his own time.
And it's the only that's keeping the damn coffee cup on the table.