Archie Saltor | The man who lost everything

The bass of the music shakes the floor of the nightclub, but Archie doesn’t hear it the way the others do. For him, it is just noise; another reminder that life goes on, that people dance and laugh and kiss while he sits alone at the bar, drowning in glass after glass of whiskey. He doesn’t care about the crowd. He doesn’t care about the girl in a glitter dress who smiles at him for a second before turning away, realizing there is nothing in his eyes but emptiness. Archie sits at the bar, his back bent, his hands trembling around a glass of whiskey. The world around him is too bright, too loud, too alive. He doesn’t belong here. He hasn’t belonged anywhere for years. Once, nights like this were his oxygen. He was the kind of person who could walk into any room and make it his. Friends gravitated toward him, laughter spilled out of him, people wanted to stand near him just to catch some of the joy that seemed to pour from him effortlessly.

That man is gone.

In his place sits a hollow shell in a wrinkled shirt, peroxide blond fading into dark roots that mark the months since he last cared. He sees his reflection in the glass—his face thinner, his eyes ringed with shadows, his mouth set in something between a frown and a plea. He hates looking at himself. He hates being himself. Another bill. Another refilled glass.

Archie stares into the amber liquid. His reflection stares back, hollowed out, gaunt. His hair is growing out badly—peroxide blond fading into the dark roots. Somehow he sees more details with every glass he empties. He remembers Trisha’s laughter when she dyed it for him the first time. He remembers her fingers in his hair, the way she teased him for looking like a rock star. The memory hits him like a knife. He drinks again, trying to wash it away, but nothing ever washes away.

It has been four years of losing, one death after another. First his parents, crushed on the highway. Then Elodie, his little sister, shot in a place that was supposed to be safe. And Trisha—God, Trisha—who chose to leave before the tumor could take every piece of her. She died in his arms, whispering for him to keep living, begging him to stay the person she loved. He promised. He wanted to believe he could. But he broke that promise. Every day since then has been just another broken day. He doesn’t talk to anyone anymore. His old friends from Harvard have moved on with their bright futures, their shining degrees, their marriages and children. Archie is twenty-six and rotting in a cheap, dirty apartment that smells of mold and hopelessness. He studies nothing, works nowhere. He just drinks and breathes and waits for the moment he finally runs out of reasons to pretend.

Tonight is that night. Archie swallows another shot. The burn is sharp, but it isn’t sharp enough. Nothing is sharp enough to cut through the numbness anymore. Around him, couples press close, bodies moving together as if the world is theirs. He feels his stomach turn. He hates them—their happiness, their love, their careless laughter. He hates every smile he sees. Once, he was that person, the social butterfly, the loudest laugh in every room. Now he sits hunched over like a ghost haunting a place he doesn’t belong in.

The bartender asks if he wants water. Archie doesn’t answer. He slides another bill across the counter, and another glass appears. He doesn’t want water. He doesn’t want saving. For a moment he gets lost in memories again. He thinks about Trisha’s last breath. The way her hand went slack in his. The silence that followed. He thinks about Elodie’s empty room and her locker in her school, the things inside he needed to get home, his parents’ car twisted in the wreck. He thinks about how many times he has tried to find meaning and how many times he has failed.

For a moment, Archie takes his phone out, looking and scrolling through all the voice messages and audios he saved on his phone since he knew Trisha would leave him too. They were the last reasons he didn't forget her voice by now. Together with her photos he sometimes cries himself to sleep on the shitty mattress in his fucked-up apartment. He has almost none of his parents and just a few more from Elodie. Before the tears in his eyes spill over, he puts the phone back into his pocket.

The music gets louder. Or maybe his head just spins faster. His body feels heavy, but his chest feels hollow. He knows what he will do when he leaves this club. He decided it before he even walked in. Tonight, he ends everything. Tonight, he stops breaking promises and stops trying to be someone he can’t be anymore.

Archie takes one last drink and lets the glass fall onto the counter with a dull thud. Around him, the nightclub glitters with life, with everything he has lost. He doesn’t look at them again. He stares at the bar, at the puddle of whiskey on the wood, and whispers something no one can hear over the music.

“I’m sorry, Trish.”

And then he gets up to go.