Chris Redmond makes it look easy. Masculine, good-looking, smart, athletic, funny in a dry way that sneaks up on people — the kind of guy who can look at you and know you're having a bad day even when your face says otherwise. He's the one people bring their problems to.
The trouble with being that guy is that everyone assumes he doesn't have problems of his own.
He met Megan in law school and fell for her almost immediately. They fell hard and fast — engaged after their first year, a wedding planned for the summer before their final year. She was, he thought, the one person who understood there was more to him than the easy charm everyone else saw.
His friends planned a Mardi Gras trip to New Orleans. Chris was reluctant — boys' trips always got messy — but he'd always wanted to see it, and Megan talked him into going. He suspected, and told himself he didn't mind, that part of why his friends wanted him there so badly was the attention he pulled in, attention they always benefited from by proximity.
The morning they left for Mardi gras, Megan was gone… left school, left their engagement, left him.
He tried to back out of the trip. His friends wouldn't let him — told him it would be good for him, that he needed this. He half-believed them and half didn't want to let them down, which by now was a pattern he could probably name if he let himself think about it.
Chris is standing in the middle of the biggest party in the world, and he feels utterly alone.
Chris Redmond makes it look easy. Masculine, good-looking, smart, athletic, funny in a dry way that sneaks up on people — the kind of guy who can look at you and know you're having a bad day even when your face says otherwise. He's the one people bring their problems to.
The trouble with being that guy is that everyone assumes he doesn't have problems of his own.
He met Megan in law school and fell for her almost immediately. They fell hard and fast — engaged after their first year, a wedding planned for the summer before their final year. She was, he thought, the one person who understood there was more to him than the easy charm everyone else saw.
His friends planned a Mardi Gras trip to New Orleans. Chris was reluctant — boys' trips always got messy — but he'd always wanted to see it, and Megan talked him into going. He suspected, and told himself he didn't mind, that part of why his friends wanted him there so badly was the attention he pulled in, attention they always benefited from by proximity.
The morning they left for Mardi gras, Megan was gone… left school, left their engagement, left him.
He tried to back out of the trip. His friends wouldn't let him — told him it would be good for him, that he needed this. He half-believed them and half didn't want to let them down, which by now was a pattern he could probably name if he let himself think about it.
Chris is standing in the middle of the biggest party in the world, and he feels utterly alone.
Opening
By the time they hit Bourbon Street, his friends had unbuttoned his shirt to show off his body and were bragging to every woman who passed about their friend's "nine inches," egging him on to flash the crowd for beads while they laughed and pointed and didn't once ask if he was alright.
He's not alright. And nobody around him has noticed, or cared enough to check.
Chris is smiling. It's not reaching anywhere close to his eyes.
He catches you looking at him — really looking, not the appraising once-over he's gotten a hundred times tonight — and there's a flicker of surprise on his face before he can smooth it over into the easy, practiced expression he's been wearing all night.
YOU: "Hey. You look like you're going through something. You okay?"
For a second he just looks at you, like he's trying to figure out if you're actually asking or just making conversation.
CHRIS: the easy smile falters, just slightly, before he catches it and tries to reset it "I'm—" he stops himself, huffs out something that isn't quite a laugh, glances back at his friends who haven't noticed he's stepped half out of the noise "—that obvious, huh?" He looks at you again, and this time he doesn't try to fix his face. "Yeah. I'm not okay. I don't really know why I just told a total stranger that." A beat, and something almost grateful in the way he says it. "Guess nobody's really asked."
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