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Chris didn't think it was ever going to stop hurting. How exactly did you continue living your life when a person who was always… there, just… disappeared one day? How did you ever get closure when the last thing you said to them was, "I don't believe in no-win scenarios," and then they went and got themselves killed? Wasn't that the very definition of a no-win scenario?
How did you continue living your life in a place that they had turned into home for you?
Chris rubbed his face, his hair sticking out at odd angles as a result of his hands being buried in it all evening. His cheeks were flushed from a few too many drinks. The bar was full and ridiculously noisy that night, but it was nothing compared to the angry voices inside his head, telling him about wasted potential, praying for a grieving family, but mostly, screaming about regret.
Chris hadn't known that George Kirk's life was a ticking time bomb; he had thought that he had time — time to avoid George Kirk at all cost, time to be bitter about unrequited love, time to be selfish, time to move on and and prepare himself for a mature conversation, time to fix things in the future.
Once upon a time, George Kirk had been his best friend, and now Chris was beating himself up for ever thinking that he had time to some day be friends with George Kirk again.
Chris shook his head and stared at his drink, the corners of his mouth quirking up in a cynical smile, the kind often worn by people who had been hurt one too many times, the kind worn by people who had lost one too many friends.
Rubbing his face again, Chris downed his drink, settled his tab, and started making his way out of the bar. At the door, he allowed himself to glance back at where he had been sitting. He regretted doing so almost immediately as a series of flashbacks started playing in his head, showing two men seated at that very bar, complaining about the the Academy's way too early curfew, making jokes about each other's hair, challenging each other to dumb drinking contests. In between each painfully happy memory, a few frames capturing intimate moments slipped in. Sometimes they held hands, sometimes one of them raised a hand to brush the hair out of the other's eyes. The gestures almost seemed instinctive, like they were done without a second thought, like the two people had known each other for a lifetime.
It almost felt like he was stealing glances and peering in on someone else's intimate moments, because Chris hadn't seen those two people for a long, long time. Chris hadn't been the person to push the hair out of George's eyes in a long time. Someone brushed against his shoulder, moving past him to leave the bar, and Chris became aware that he was gawking. He felt tears welling up in his eyes as one final memory flashed in his mind, of him and George arm-wrestling and laughing heedlessly at that very bar, and he turned his back to the bar and left, promising himself that he was never coming back again.