I didn't go to the bar looking for anything meaningful. I went because noise helped me forget the quiet parts of myself the ones that asked questions I didn't want to answer. The kind of questions that crept in when I was alone with my canvases late at night.
The place was crowded, alive in that careless way only nights like that could be. Music thumped through the walls, glasses clinked, laughter spilled everywhere. I slipped through the room with practiced ease, smiling when I needed to, letting my confidence lead before my thoughts could interfere. This was familiar territory. Safe. Predictable.
That's when I saw him.
He was sitting alone at the bar, shoulders straight, posture calm, as if the chaos around him had nothing to do with him. He didn't look bored just distant. Thoughtful. Like someone who had stepped out of another life and landed here by mistake. There was something unsettling about how still he was, how he watched the amber liquid in his glass as if it held answers.
I told myself not to stare. I told myself I didn't care.
But my eyes kept returning to him.
I decided to approach him the same way I approached everything else with confidence, with a smile that didn't reveal too much. I slid onto the stool beside him and let my presence speak before my words did. Normally, that was enough. Normally, men noticed.
He didn't.
I tried again, a playful comment, a soft laugh meant to draw him in. He turned toward me then, and for a brief moment, our eyes met. His gaze was calm, observant but not hungry. Not impressed. It caught me off guard.
"I'm not interested," he said gently, not unkindly. "But you're beautiful."
The words shouldn't have stung. I had heard worse. Yet something about his honesty unsettled me more than rejection ever had. I felt my pride flare, my defenses snapping back into place. I laughed it off, stood up, and walked away as if it meant nothing.
But it did.
I danced. I talked. I let someone else buy me a drink. Still, my thoughts kept drifting back to the man at the bar who had looked right through me. There was something unfinished about that moment, something that refused to settle.
When I finally stepped outside for air, the night felt colder than I expected. The city hummed softly, a distant echo compared to the noise I'd left behind. I wrapped my jacket tighter around myself, ready to head home.
I didn't know then that this night wasn't over
I didn't know that the man who had ignored me would soon be the one to change everything.