She looked up into the mirror for the tenth or so time and then down to her glass again. She stirred her drink for a bit sighing as she did so and feeling old. It was her thirty-fifth birthday and she felt all the weight of those years resting on her. The couple of drinks she'd come in for hadn't been enjoyable like she'd hoped for. Then again her past 35 years hadn't been exactly as she hoped for either. A smile broke across her face at this thought yet it wasn't a happy one but a cheerless thing. She stirred her drink some more before drinking it down before she could decide whether it was time to leave or not the elderly bartender was there like magic to refill her.
At eighteen when she'd gone to the intensive nursing school she thought she was setting herself on the right path. She'd be helping people and putting herself in a well paying and in demand job field. At eighteen she'd been foolish enough to put her personal life on hold for school. Four years later when she graduated with honors she'd already been lined up for a job. Of course at twenty-two she'd thought there was still plenty of time for a social life and so the decision to work as much as she could to pay of her bills and to set her career on the right path seemed logical.
Somehow she'd kept chugging along and when she hit thirty she knew that she should slow down but that goal always seemed a month or two away. Now five years had passed since she'd told herself she would stop taking so many shifts and start taking her friends up on their offers to hook her up. Except of course she really didn't have friends anymore. Somewhere along the way she'd lost touch with most all of them and her only friends now were co-workers. The only co-workers she considered friends were barely married or completely single with just as little of a social life as herself, for the same reasons. To many overtime hours and too little energy to do anything after work was finally over.
Her school debts were paid and she owned her own home and she'd paid her car off within eight months. Lots of money in the bank and yet she felt that her sisters who were both pretty much living paycheck to paycheck had more than herself. Her sisters who had married a year apart from each other and gotten pregnant at the same time. Both of them older by three and five years and both with three kids and seemingly happy marriages. She hadn't seen a man naked without a hospital robe on in nearly two decades. The thought strayed up like it always did quick and like a snake strike. The sting of the initial bite and then the dull ache of the poison.
She'd been sixteen when she'd lost her virginity and at seventeen and a month away from graduating when she'd gotten the scares of her life. The memory of those long days after the time of the month came and went without her period. She'd been frightened to her core of what her parents would do and if her boyfriend would even stay with her. Then of course came the really bad news going to school with the shadow of pregnancy hanging over her and having her friend come to her. She came bearing the gift of gossip that her boyfriend and possibly father of her child had been cheating on her. Not just cheating but sleeping with the slut of the school who everyone knew had crabs or herpes.
When the doctor told her she was clear of diseases and not a mother to be she'd been relieved. That had been the reason why she'd devoted herself to school and then work seeing how much of her future could have been ruined. Not that she thought a child would be the end of the world but certainly would have been a strain on anything and everything that might come after. Plus even though her teenage mind had been sure that she was totally in love with her boyfriend at the time some nagging part of her brain was always whispering that there was no chance it would last forever.
"Hey," Her eyes went to the mirror and saw a handsome but much younger man standing behind her with a smile on his face, she felt flushed all of a sudden giddy that he might be trying to put the moves on her, then she forced some realism into her brain. "This is going to sound like such a bad pick up line but do I know you?"
"I don't think so," She said turning in her stool to face him and he looked at her face pointing as if he could just not recall where he knew her from. He was young and very attractive she found herself unable to help the quickening of her breath or to stop the instinctual pushing out of her chest. "I honestly don't get out enough. So you must have me mistaken for somebody else."
"No, I don't think so." He shook his head closing his eyes for a moment and seemingly trying hard to remember where he knew her from, then finally he shook his head. "You're so familiar though."
"Maybe I got one of those faces," The words came out and she was embarrassed by them if he was trying to hit on her she was not doing anything to help him out. Yet when she thought hard of what else to say all she could come up with was slutty responses and she didn't want to be the old lady in the bar trying to pick up all the younger men. "I work at the hospital if you've ever been there you could have seen me."
"No, I just moved into town, going to the University." Her breath caught in her chest when his eyes did trail down her body and then back up again. "Maybe I should visit though."
"Yeah," Stupid answer a disheartened smile crossed his face and he shrugged and then stepped away from her.
"Sorry for bugging you," He said reaching into his pocket and placing a five dollar bill onto the bar, the bartender looked his way at this move. "Get her another drink on me please." A nod from the older man behind the bar and her young admirer stepped back again. "Sorry again enjoy your day."
"Uh..." She started but couldn't think of anything and her eyes went to his ass as he walked away, at least she'd gotten a small present on her birthday.
Of course she'd botched it up completely. She returned to her drink and stirred it wanting to leave. Yet some part of her hoped that he would come back or maybe she'd get courage enough to go seek him out. The rest of her drink and into his drink and he didn't return and she was more sure it had not been flirting but maybe he'd actually thought he knew her. She ordered one more after finishing the one he'd paid for and then rose from her seat. The small present she thought had been nice, had only soured inside. Leaving her feeling older and more lonely. Thirty-five and her future of being single seemed a guarantee. She thought she'd go to bed tonight and in the morning she might wake up and be sixty living in her same empty house and living her same empty life.
As she exited the bar/restaurant she saw HIM standing outside he was on his mobile phone looking as if he didn't have good service. Slowing she took a moment to try and catch her courage. To see if she could somehow muster enough guts to ignore the fact that she could make a fool of herself and go flirt with him a little. It had been so long since she'd flirted she almost had no idea how it was done, so long that she wondered if she'd ever done it before. He was so handsome and so young a large part of her couldn't believe he'd ever been remotely interested in her. He was so attractive that she almost couldn't pass up the opportunity to try.
"Hey, can I call you back." He said when he saw her standing there watching him and whoever was on the other end must have answered because he flipped his phone closed. "Not a good night?"
