The sharp bite of straight whiskey seared in my throat as I drained the shot glass, thwacking it back down on the bar.

“Another,” I said to the bartender. He had to be some kind of graduate student at Rosecrest. He looked like a total hipster—tattoos everywhere, a vintage vest, thick-rimmed glasses.

“Are you sure you should be having another one, buddy?” he asked. I didn’t like his tone. Was this pompous twenty-four-year-old really trying to tell me what I should and shouldn’t be doing?

People trying to tell me what to do sure seemed like the theme of the weekend.

“Give me another,” I said, narrowing my eyes at Mr. Tattoos and Glasses.

He sighed and shook his head. “Suit yourself,” he said, pouring another. I rolled my eyes, which made the room seem to spin slightly—he was right, of course he was right, I’d had too much to drink. But that wasn’t going to stop me.

Last night, after I’d finally spilled my guts to Ryan, I’d gone into a state of shock, practically numb to the world around me. It was weird—I’d gone through similar conversations with other people before, some people that I’d even known longer than Ryan, but none of them had ever been so hard.

Because now, more than ever, I knew that the real problem was me.

With others, I nitpicked, finding small flaws with them that I’d build up in my mind. I could always blame it on something, anything other than my own inability to commit.

But with Ryan, there weren’t any flaws like that. Sure, he probably had some—maybe I hadn’t known him long enough to discover anything truly annoying about him—but I knew that at his core, Ryan was just an incredible person.

He was kind to everyone, as far as I could tell. Most importantly, he was even kind to himself, which was impressive in a way I couldn’t even fathom.

It was something I wasn’t capable of. Which was glaringly obvious here in the Wishing Well Pub, the same place that Ryan and I had passed by last weekend and thought looked far too depressing to grab a drink in.

It turns out we were correct. The place was as drab and dreary as ever on a Thursday night, the worn green carpeting under the pool tables reflecting wan fluorescent light. It didn’t help that a light snow had begun to fall outside. It would have seemed cozy anywhere else, but the dingy pub with its cloudy windows just made it seem depressing.

When I’d walked by tonight, I’d known it was the perfect place to go—my surroundings would match the sheer misery that had draped itself around me like a cloak.

Other than me, there were only three other people in the place. An older woman absorbed in her smartphone at the far end of the bar, a grizzly man who looked like he belonged in a saloon instead of a bar, and then a student—probably another goddamn graduate student—who had just walked in a few minutes prior and taken a seat fairly close to mine.

I turned to him now, the motion of tuning my head actually a little nauseating. Through my drunken haze, I could tell that the guy must have been going for some sort of fancy degree—he looked crisp, clean, and so young.

“Evening,” I said to him, and he darted a quick glance my way. He pressed his lips together in a tight smile before turning back to the huge tome of a book he’d cracked open on the bar.

“That’s a big book,” I said, dimly aware that I sounded incredibly drunk, but not caring.

“I’m studying,” he said, his voice soft and polite.

“Good for you, kid,” I said. He was probably less than ten years younger than me, but he seemed to me like a child. “Stay in school. It’ll make everything easier for you.” God, I thought to myself, I really had turned into an old curmudgeon.

“School is great,” he said, not even turning to look at me. “I hope to stay in it for as long as possible.”

“You remind me of Ryan,” I said, pulling in a deep breath and sighing audibly. I got up from my barstool, shoving it back under the bar, making an awful racket. The student really did look like he could have been Ryan from ten years ago—dutifully studying in a bar, devoted to school and perfect hygiene.

“I don’t know who Ryan is, but okay,” he said, a snide tone edging into his voice. I didn’t blame him for it—I would have been twice as snide to any drunken idiot bothering me like I was bothering him right now. I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and laid it on top of the bar, then threw on my jacket.

I almost jumped when the kid finally looked up and met my eyes. He was suddenly fierce. “Look, dude, I’m trying to study, and I don’t need you fucking loitering around me like some washed-up creep. Listen to me clearly: fuck off. Leave me the hell alone.”

I nodded, pretty much agreeing with his entire assessment. “I changed my mind,” I said, the words coming out without my being able to stop them. “You don’t remind me of Ryan at all.”

I made my way to the front door and pushed out onto the street. The snow fell onto my face in little wet clumps, and I couldn’t decide if it was a nuisance or one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. The Promenade was fairly calm—it was late, even for a Thursday, and I realized that my delirium was probably as much from exhaustion as it was alcohol.

I meandered through the streets, slipping a couple of times on the freshly wet walkway, grabbing onto tree trunks or columns to prop myself up.

I stopped for a moment once I’d made my way out of the main Promenade area, pausing before descending the hill that led down to my house. I was right next to the mini-mart, with Brew For You right across the street. As I stood there, regaining my composure—what little of it I had left—I saw Patrick swinging open the door of Brew For You and locking up for the night.

God, he must have been there all day—from opening the coffee bar in the morning with me, all the way ‘til now, past midnight, when he was closing the beer part of the bar.

I was so used to only working there mornings that I almost forgot that it became a beer bar by night—it was like a whole different place in the evenings.

“Patty,” I shouted to him across the street. He must not have heard me. He hated it when I called him Patty. I took a deep breath and crossed over, walking up behind him on the dim street.

“Patrick,” I said, “How the hell is it goin’—fuck,” I said, tripping over a brick in the sidewalk that was jutting upward.

I would have careened to the ground if Patrick hadn’t grabbed my arm, hauling me upward. He had his backpack on, and had dark circles under his eyes—clearly, he was exhausted, and had probably been waiting to go home.

“Jesus, Emmett, you smell like the bottom of a barrel of whiskey,” he said.

“Patrick,” I said again, leaning against him, “I’ve missed you.”

He gently took me by my shoulders, pushing me backward, staring into my eyes and frowning. “What the hell are you doing?” he said.

I snorted. “What, a guy can’t have a few drinks to relax after work?”

“Emmett, have you been drinking since you left work? At one o’clock in the afternoon?”

“What?” I said, waving a hand and stumbling sideways a little. “Of course not. I went home and changed clothes first. Then I started drinking.”

“Christ,” Patrick said, rolling his eyes. He checked his phone, and his frown only grew in intensity, like he was angry that he had to talk to anyone at this time on a Thursday. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Well, I was bothering the kid in the bar, the Ryan-kid-guy, but not Ryan, because God, Ryan wouldn’t fucking do that, you know? He wouldn’t talk to me like that. Not him. And now, now… I’m bothering you, outside the bar. Except you own this bar. God, I’m so proud of you, Patrick, you know that?”

Patrick pulled in a long breath, his frown softening, and somewhere deep in the recesses of my conscious mind I knew his anger had turned into pity.

“Alright, Emmett, I’m going to get you home safe,” he said. I groaned in agreement, but as he took my arm in his and we began to walk again, I felt a lurch in my stomach.

“Oh God, I’m going to be sick,” I said, coming to a stop and closing my eyes, breathing deep, trying to will away the urge to throw up.

“Okay. Change of plans,” Patrick said, digging in his pocket for his keys. “We’re going inside now.”

I moaned. “No, it’s okay—” I started protesting, but a wave of nausea hit me again.

“Shut up, we’re going inside,” he said, swinging the door of Brew For You back open. He gently pulled me in and ordered me to sit on one of the plush couches in the café, one that was almost always occupied by a big group of college students during the day. The cool leather felt wonderful under me, and I slipped off my snow-speckled jacket before relaxing back into the couch.

It was dark inside, and Patrick went over to the bar, turning on only the dim pendant lights above it. They illuminated the rich wood, casting the whole room in a calm glow. He crossed back to the front windows, closing up all of the blinds.

“Last thing I need is some drunken idiots walking by and thinking we’re still open,” he said, shaking his head. I had no idea if he was obliquely referring to me. I was barely able to follow his movements as he went and poured a glass of water for me from the tap, and when he placed it on the table in front of me, the clatter of glass on hard wood startled me.

Patrick sank into the leather chair across from me.

“Drink it,” he said, unsmiling. “Even if it’s only a sip.” He shrugged off his own jacket, putting his head in his hands, as I drank a few gulps of water.

I set the glass back on the table, staring over at Patrick, trying to focus on him and pretend that I was at all sober.

“You still feel like you’re going to be sick?” he asked, his voice calm and measured. I had a brief surge of friendly affection for him: he was being so patient, while his friend—employee—made an utter fool of himself at an ungodly hour.

I shook my head slowly. “No,” I mumbled. “I like this couch.”

“Good,” Patrick said, lifting an eyebrow, “Because I’m going to need you to explain a few things to me.”

I nodded once.

“First of all—how old was this ‘kid’ in the bar?” he asked. “Please tell me he was of legal drinking age, Emmett.”

I groaned loudly. “Ew, God, of course he was,” I protested. “He was at least twenty-four, some kind of grad student. But it doesn’t matter. I barely exchanged two sentences with the guy.”

Patrick gave me a hard glare. “You’ve had sex with people after speaking less than two sentences to them.”

I was silent. He was right, and I knew it.

I waved a hand through the air, which was meant to look nonchalant, but actually took a great deal of effort in my current state. “It wasn’t like that at all,” I said. “He was a total asshole, and I wasn’t interested in him. Not even remotely, actually. Which is fucking weird.”

“It is a little weird, for you,” Patrick said. “There usually aren’t that many people you wouldn’t be interested in having sex with—whether they’re assholes or not.”

I paused, staring over at Patrick. My head was swimming—I had a million thoughts at once, but not a shred of coherence to actually be able to articulate any of them.

“It’s because of Ryan, isn’t it,” Patrick said.

It was as if he’d seen into my mind.

“It is,” I said as if I were confessing to a crime.

“I knew you seemed… weird, this morning at work,” Patrick said, a note of concern in his voice. “But I didn’t ask why. Did something happen with Ryan?”

I shrugged one shoulder, shaking my head listlessly. “It’s not so much that something happened… nothing happened, actually. And nothing is ever going to happen.”

Patrick nodded. He had heard similar things before from me, tales of would-be relationships fizzling out before they ever really started. Patrick wasn’t surprised to hear this.

But the pity did return to his gaze.

“I fucked up,” I said, my voice echoing slightly off the walls of the empty café. “I fucked up so badly, Patrick. Ryan was… wonderful like he always is, looking out for me even though he owes me nothing, and I may as well have spat in his face.”

“You told him you didn’t want to see him anymore?” he asked.

I nodded. “Not because I don’t want to see him, but because I know I’m not good enough for him. I don’t want to wait around for him to figure that out.”

“I don’t think I need to tell you this, but that’s more than a little self-defeating, Emmett. How can you know if you don’t try to be with him?”

“I’ve done this a million times before, Patrick. It hurts, but at the end of the day, it’s just another failure in a long list of failures,” I said with a weak shrug.

Patrick shook his head. “I don’t think that’s the important thing,” he said.

“Then what the hell is?” I said.

“The important thing isn’t that you’ve done this so many times before. It’s that this time, you actually care.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. I wanted to argue with him, to tell him he was wrong, to fight and bluster and dig my heels in the dirt.

But instead, I blinked, feeling the sharp sting of tears forming in my eyes.

He was right. He was so, so right. I’d done this sorry dance with people before, but when all those other quasi-relationships had crashed and burned, I hadn’t fucking cared. I hadn’t dwelled on them, hadn’t drank myself to oblivion. In fact, I’d actually been relieved almost all of those times.

But the thought of never being with Ryan again almost made me feel sick.

“It makes no sense,” I said, my voice cracking as I spoke. “I don’t like people like him. I don’t want someone with a baby, with a mini-SUV, with a mortgage and a soft spot for awful things like marriage.”

“What’s his baby’s name?” Patrick asked. I knew he was just trying to pull me out of a spiral of wallowing self-pity, and I was both grateful for it and a little disappointed.

“Her name’s Anna,” I said, looking back up at Patrick. “She’s… kind of amazing, Patty. She’s just a baby, yeah, but I feel like I can already tell what kind of human she’s going to become. She’s determined, you know? It didn’t matter how many times I tried to hide her little red plastic block—that was her favorite one, and she wouldn’t let me build a tower without it. And I already know she’s going to be a foodie. She apparently only eats this one brand of sweet potatoes, the organic kind. Ryan was telling me about how he’s tried and failed with so many others. She’s going to be a whole bundle of trouble, and she’s going to be so smart.”

Patrick laughed out loud, startling me. I felt my cheeks start to heat immediately, and I swallowed hard.

I started to stand up, swaying a little, grabbing for my jacket.

“No,” Patrick said, his laughter quieting. He got up and grabbed me, gently ushering me back down onto the couch. “You can’t leave yet. You’re nowhere close to as sober as you need to be to walk downhill in snow.”

I cut a glance at him. “Then do me a favor and don’t fucking laugh at me. I know I’m a pitiful idiot, but at least wait ‘til I’m at home before you make fun of me.”

Patrick slumped back down onto the couch next to me, peering at me, confused. “Making fun of you?”

I nodded.

“Emmett, I’m not making fun of you. I was laughing at how clear it is to me that you just made two very paradoxical statements.”

“I’m too drunk; you need to explain it better than that.”

“You said you don’t want a guy who has a baby. But then when I asked you the simple question of what the baby’s name was, you went on and on about all the things you love about her.”

I blinked at him.

“You might not want ‘a guy with a baby,’ Emmett, but it’s pretty obvious to me that you want this guy with a baby. You’re enamored with them both. You smiled for the first time tonight when you were talking about Anna.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face.

“You keep saying you’re not good enough for Ryan, not good enough for Anna, not good enough for blah, blah, blah,” Patrick said, his eyes wide. “But you care. You care so deeply, already, and you’ve barely scratched the surface yet of what a relationship with this guy could be.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m enough,” I said, my voice weak.

“There is no such thing as ‘enough,’” Patrick said. He reached out and took my hand, a gesture that was uncommon for Patrick. He was nice enough, but he wasn’t usually so overtly expressive. “It is enough to just like someone. It’s enough to be there for them. Or, for fuck’s sake, to make a lemon cake and bring a slice, just for them,” Patrick said.

I let out a long, slow sigh.

“And I hate that I’m about to say this—but it also applies to yourself, Emmett. You can treat yourself with the same respect, not running away from things you care about, even if it’s harder at first.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I said flatly, and it came out sounding less like a question and more like a disinterested statement.

“You know what it means,” Patrick said. “You’re immensely talented, and I know it doesn’t matter what I say about it, or what Ryan says about it, or anyone. But you’ve at least got to stop lying to yourself about it.”

I stared off into the middle distance, my eyes unfocused on the lights hanging above the bars. The moment stretched on, and Patrick eventually let go of my hand, but I made no attempt to respond.

“Do you know why I opened Brew For You, Emmett?”

I shrugged. “Because you’re awesome at doing stuff like that?”

He rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t because I knew everything about opening a café or a bar, or even that I thought I could compete against every other awesome café and bar out there. In fact, I was scared shitless that I couldn’t.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“But you know what was ten times more terrifying? The thought of being on my deathbed and never having even tried to do something. I didn’t know how I could go on if I didn’t at least try. I went into it knowing full well I might fail—and hell, I still might fail—but so far, opening this shop has been the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s also been the scariest.”

“I’m proud of you, Patrick.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “This isn’t about me. I just want to tell you that no matter what you do—whether it’s basket weaving, or hedge cutting, or trying to build a fucking robot, you should honor that. And you can’t let fear stop you. Make of that what you will.”

My level of inebriation had finally downgraded from nearly incoherent to just bitterly drunk, and a numbness fell on me again, like my brain wasn’t even willing to let me think.

I stood up, and for the first time, didn’t feel like the ground was swaying beneath me.

“I’m going to go,” I announced, blinking and turning back to Patrick. I expected a protest, or for him to drag me back down onto the couch, but he said nothing. He looked calm and just nodded once at me when I met his eyes.

“I trust you,” he said as I pulled on my jacket. He stood up, gathering his backpack.

“Patrick, thank you for… this,” I said. “I’m not coherent enough to think of how I could possibly express how thankful I am. I don’t even think I could if I were sober, though, so… whatever.”

“I get it,” he said. “I know one way you can make it up to me.”

“Lemon cake?” I asked.

“Lemon cake,” he confirmed. “But don’t you dare try to make it tonight, or even tomorrow morning. I’ll expect it on Monday, though.” A light smile spread across his face, and I leaned forward to give him a tight hug, holding him close against me.

I didn’t feel any better, but I certainly felt less dizzy, and that was going to have to be enough.

When we went outside and were a few paces away from his car parked in the back, I turned to him again.

“Please sleep in for a few hours tomorrow, Patrick,” I said, “I can open up the shop on my own.”

He shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but you know how I am. Even if I tried, I couldn’t stay away from my baby,” he said, patting his hand on the brick side wall of Brew For You. “Now go home.”

I made my way back slowly, pulling in deep breaths of cool air and trying to clear my mind as best as I could. For most of the walk home, I was able to keep my head blissfully blank; I listened to the light rustle of the wind in the trees, the pavement under my shoes, the low rumble of the few cars that drove by.

When I got home was when Patrick’s words finally hit me with a wallop. It was almost as if they had worked their way into my mind, and I didn’t let them fully sink in until I was home safe.

Tears began to stream down my face before I even realized how overcome I was, standing there just inside my house after coming inside. The house was silent other than the sharp intakes of air every few seconds as I sobbed into my own scarf. Because Patrick had been completely right—I was living my life completely driven by fear.

Fear that I wouldn’t be good enough. Fear that if I was good enough, I couldn’t keep it up. Fear of intimacy, fear of commitment, fear of success. Fear of growing up.

These were all things that I knew about myself, though, deep down. I hadn’t consciously thought it, but fear had been in the fiber of my being, of everything I did. Patrick had been right, and Ryan had been right, but I’d just refused to see things from anyone’s perspective but my own. And now I was alone, so utterly alone, because of it.

And somewhere, in the numb stupor that came after the torrent of emotion, two words hovered at the front of my mind: fuck it.

Fuck it.

For once in my pathetic life, could I ignore the fear? Was there one thing I could do, no matter how small, that would be the tiniest step in the right direction? Not because I felt pressure from someone else, not because society wanted me to. But because it was the only thing I had left.

Because the alternative would be waking up one day and realizing my life had passed me by, and I would have nothing to show for it. I just wished it hadn’t taken me losing Ryan, and making a total drunken fool of myself in front of my boss, to finally make me see it.

I sank onto my couch, opening up my old laptop and tapping impatiently on my leg as it whirred to life. The screen looked blurred through my eyes, and I blinked away the fog. I had an old website set up that I used to upload designs to as a sort of “portfolio”—when I looked at it now, I realized that all of the images were at least six years old.

God. Had it been that long since I’d tried to apply for graphic design positions? I briefly scrolled through all the old artwork, shocked by how different my style had become. Everything on the clunky old portfolio website made me want to recoil, to slam the computer shut and toss it out the third-story window.

But I didn’t. I pushed past, ignoring every silent signal in my brain that told me to abort mission. Every signal that told me you’re not good enough.

After a few minutes, I had deleted the entirety of the old website and was looking at options for creating modern, sleek storefront websites. They even had a template specifically for visual artists.

In my brain, the same mantras rang, over and over: you’re not a real artist. This isn’t for you. People will just laugh if they see you doing this. What makes you think this is a good idea?

But I had a new mantra, louder and stronger, that blew all those out of the water. Fuck it.

And many hours and cups of strong homemade coffee later, I was red-eyed, achingly exhausted, and staring at the new Emmett Crawford website. I’d set up pages to sell prints of my own designs, pages to offer my services for hire, and even done the completely unbearable task of writing an “about me” author bio page.

It was dead simple, and I had been on the verge of breaking down in tears or screaming the entire time.

I’d seen so many artist friends make similar things, but it had never been for me, never seemed like an option available. In my twenties, I had thought I’d be better off applying for “prestigious” graphic design firms, and after the litany of rejections from those, I had written off the whole thing entirely.

My finger was shaking as I pushed the button to activate my new website. But once it was live, nothing earth-shattering happened. Nobody came out of the woodwork to tell me I was a fraud, that I couldn’t sell my own artwork, that I didn’t have the “credentials.”

The world just kept turning.

And I was still there, in my apartment, alone, and I needed to be at work in thirty minutes.

But among everything, there was one small victory: I didn’t feel good, didn’t feel accomplished, didn’t feel like anything really had changed—but at that moment, I felt like myself.

And maybe, if I couldn’t have anything else, I could at least have that.