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It had also been five days since he’d spoken to Alyssa.

When she showed up at the funeral, he couldn’t bring himself to utter a word to her. He looked at her for a brief moment, the dark circles under her puffy eyes were pronounced and she looked very pale. He wanted to go to her, but he didn’t have an ounce of energy left in his body. He was cemented in the chair. He kept his eyes locked on the coffin for the remainder of the service. It was better that way.

He hardly even spoke a word to Ford, or anyone from his small town that showed. He was drowning in the memories and that was all he could take.

That night on the back of his truck, under the moon, had been one of the best and worst nights of his life. He’d been to both heaven and hell and his head had been fucked up ever since.

The next morning when he and Alyssa left Whiskey River, they’d gone their separate ways. She’d made attempts to contact him, but he didn’t want to talk to her. In fact, he didn’t want to talk to anyone. He felt utterly alone inside. He wanted to be alone. He descended deeper into depression and it was no one’s fault but his. What would he say? Let me cry on your shoulder? Hopefully she understood where he was coming from. He felt bad about it, but he was so fucked up in the head it was all just too much. The only time he spoke to someone was when he helped Maryanne with the funeral arrangements along with his parents. He spent his nights down by the river pounding beer after beer by himself.

A part of John had died with Jace that night. He wasn’t sure if he would ever heal. So this was his way of handling it on his own. He didn’t even reach out to his brother, Luke, who he looked up to.

So where was he now? Drunk, alone, and staring at a fresh lump of dirt and a tombstone still dressed in his suit and tie. His head was throbbing thinking about how Jace was under that red, muddy, ugly ass dirt rotting away.

But he wasn’t really there now, was he?

Fuck. It didn’t matter. What mattered anymore?

John stood tall at the burial this morning fighting the tears and his stupid emotions as he stayed strong for Jace’s mom with shoulders back and hands clasped in front of him. Listening to her sobs and watching her visibly shake cracked him open inside. It was rough. A few times tears slipped out but he quickly wiped them away.

Once everyone left, John grabbed one of the twenty ounce beers he hid in his truck and cracked it open. He took a long, hard pull on it as he sat down in front of the fresh dirt in his suit not caring that the dirt would probably stain it. A stained suit was the least of his worries. John took another sip as he looked at the trees on the horizon. That cool refreshing crisp felt damn good as it slid down the back of his throat.

A deep blush swathed in warm orange hues coated the sky as the sun set. It was quite the contrast from this morning’s bleak sunrise. The melancholy skies fit the mood though— after all, his small town was saying goodbye to one of its own.

Tilting his head back, John stared at the sky above him. Was Jace up there somewhere looking down at him? Was he making fun of his suit and tie and telling John how stuffy he probably looked and to go take it off? Or was he sitting next to him drinking a beer and he didn’t even know it? John gulped hard. He looked back at the pile of dirt and picked a handful of it up. Closing his hand, he gripped it as tight as he could and then opened it slowly to a molded form in his palm. John stared at it for a few moments then moved his fingers, watching as the red dirt slipped through to the ground.

John raised his beer to Jace’s headstone. “’Til I see you again …” He took a sip, and then tipped it over the dirt giving Jace a drink too.

“This isn’t goodbye, Jace …” he took the last sip before he got up and went home to change.

He was going to get obliterated tonight.

John spent the days following Jace’s burial by himself, or with Ford, getting drunk on his memory. When Ford left for the night, John would stay for hours longer drinking and listening to country music on the back of his truck down by Whiskey River. Those damn songs cut deep, especially drunk. In some bizarre way, he liked tormenting himself through music even though the whole point of pounding beers away was to erase every feeling.

This had become his life, and he was good at hiding it.

Alyssa had been nonexistent during this time too. He had no idea what she was doing, and at times he didn’t even care. He stopped reaching out to her, but that didn’t mean he stopped thinking about her every minute of every day. Truth was, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. At one point she had become his other half, his best friend, the one he reached for. Now he was reaching for beers. He may be young, but there was a connection between them. There was no way it was all in his head. He’d seen the look in her eyes, the desire, the lust, it mirrored his own. Her eyes told a different story than her words. She was like a drug he couldn’t stop craving. He missed her smile, the way her blonde hair would fall over her shoulders when she laughed, the way her eyes would twinkle when she was testing his patience. He even missed seeing her feet on his dashboard. He was reaching blindly for her all the time.

God, he wanted her so bad. John singlehandedly pushed Alyssa away. One day he would fix it, but right now he had other plans.

If it wasn’t Alyssa on his mind, it was Jace. He felt his absence big time, like there was a hole in his chest that could never be filled. Like he was missing a part of himself. And even though he had Ford, John still felt alone. It wasn’t the same. Like that one piece to finish a puzzle was forever lost. How did people move on?

Closing his eyes, John dropped his head between his propped legs and rested it on his forearms as a beer dangled from one hand. The fresh scent of cut grass mixed with dirt flooded his senses. John inhaled, absorbing the smell and exhaled loudly. He picked his head up and opened his eyes, looking straight at a gray tombstone. Jace’s tombstone to be exact. He was missing his friend big time and wondered if Jace was missing him six feet under.

Of course not. Jace was dead.

John’s chest tightened and his heart began to beat hard. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing away the pain. Fuck. He needed to stop thinking about Jace that way, but it was so difficult. If he didn’t think about him, then it was like he was forgetting him.

Bringing the longneck bottle to his lips, John took a long hard swig on his beer. He’d been sitting out here for a few hours now and the only light he had was coming off the faint streetlamps while he nursed beer after beer. He just kept staring at Jace’s grave thinking how this was all some sort of nightmare.

But it wasn’t.

It was true life. And he was drowning in the memoires day in and day out.

Reaching over, John took out the last beer he had left. He cracked it opened, took a sip, and then he reached for the red solo cup. He poured some liquid into it, watched the carbonation bubble to the top and placed the cup next to Jace’s tombstone.

“Thought you could use a drink. Actually, I thought you were lonely out here all by yourself so that’s why I’m here, why I’ve been sitting here every night. Figured we could have one together.” John took a sip of his beer. “Just wanted you to know that I’m still here thinkin’ about you, buddy. You’re not alone … Miss ya, man. Everyone misses you.”

John shook his head, trying to blink away the tears that formed in his eyes. The pressure in his chest was all consuming. He ached terribly.