I stepped out of the cab, steaming mad. The night wind stung my face, and I silently cursed myself for underdressing. I looked down. I was wearing a sparkly blue blouse and plain white shorts. The colors matched nicely with my strawberry blonde hair. Appealing, but not the best choice for a fall night in El Paso, Texas.

    Tonight, I was going to get good and drunk, for once. I wanted to stagger back to my apartment intoxicated, not giving a thought about the filthy, lying boyfriend I had. Ex-boyfriend, now.

    I had answered the phone with dread in my gut. That dread gradually cooled and hardened to an icy rage as I heard his news. I got up from the desk slowly and stalked to the door, yanking it open. I strode down the stairs, and stopped at the curb to wave to a taxi.

    Fifteen minutes later, I was trudging up the muddy and overgrown lawn to Justin’s flat. The state of the grass reflected the owner’s personality, I thought. The front door’s brown paint was chipped in places; the whitewashed walls were no better.

    Justin was too cheap to hire someone to repaint the damned place and too lazy to do it himself. I had once offered to do it for him, provided that he bought the paint. He refused.

    I pushed the door open without knocking and surveyed the mess inside. Clothes and crumbs were scattered everywhere, as usual. I took out a note I’d written on the ride here and placed it on the coffee table. The paper held two words.

    We’re done.

    I walked out without bothering to close the door. I didn’t look back.

    So here I was, standing in a crowded bar, breathing in the smoke and listening, wondering if I had made a bad decision by coming here.

    You’re already here, I chided myself. Why let this opportunity go to waste?

    So I plopped down on a bar stool next to two tittering college students and ordered a vodka. The bartender was an unshaven surly faced man with a tattoo of a shark’s gaping maw on his arm. As a matter of fact, he had tattoos of shark anatomy on his legs, neck and hands. I stared at them, wondering if he was part of some sort of shark-worshipping gang.

    He jerked a thumb at me. “You got an ID?”

    I groaned inwardly. I’d faced this situation in bars too many times before. I had a girlish face that looked 17, not the 21 I was.

    I silently pulled my wallet out, and flipped through the various credit cards until I pulled out an identification card and handed it to the bartender.

    He grunted and poured me a drink, which I gulped down in three long swigs. I was usually a light drinker, but today was different.

    “Another one please. A merlot.”

    “A champagne.”

    The wine was surprisingly sweet for a low-grade bar.

    “Sherry.”

    I was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol.

    “A Pinot Noir.”

    My vision was getting blurry. Dimly, I was aware of the chatter at the bar, the music playing in the background. I was having trouble keeping my words from slurring.

    “C-chardonnay.”

    From what seemed like miles away, a smooth male voice declared, “I’ll pay.”

    I turned around, and almost impaled myself on a bar stool. I giggled, stumbling. A pair of hands reached out and steadied me.

    “What’s your name?” came the voice.

    I staggered to the counter, knocking over a glass of sherry.

    “Stephanie.”

    “Well, Stephanie, do you need a ride home? It seems like you’re pretty tipsy right now.”

    “Sure,” I stumbled, and I felt my head colliding with the counter.

    The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the dirty yellow tiles on the floor.

    I woke up in bed with a pounding headache. Oh God, I was throbbing in parts I didn’t think it was possible to be sore in.

    I sat up and my whole body screamed in pain. I promptly threw up on the wooden floor. Groaning, I crawled to the toilet and continued to vomit.

    “Never try it again.” I gasped out. Gods, what was I thinking? Well, lucky for Justin, I was too busy retching my guts out to deal with him.

    After I had enough strength to lurch to the cupboard and drank some Alka-Seltzer, I was feeling much better. Or at least, the best you can be with a hangover.

    Since I had no appetite, I opened my laptop and searched for cures to a hangover.

    “Eating pickles helps with your hangover?” I muttered, clicking on the link. Just then, my head gave a throb, and I accidentally clicked on a local news website.

    The headline blazed across the screen, “Man jumped off bridge, suspected suicide,” with a photo of the victim below it.

    I froze. I knew that face. No, it couldn’t be!

    It was Justin.