After getting away from his cruel father's tyranny, Randall has to learn how to live again, and accept the person he was meant to be - with a little help of a local bartender...
*****
An empty shell is all what is left of twenty-five-yea...
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-Randall-
The next five days went by pretty fast. I stayed with Cole the entire time, either on his couch or on the couch at his bar. I saw Vaughn on Friday, and again on Monday morning, and I knew that without Cole, I would never have made it so far.
"See you again on Thursday," Vaughn told me as I exited his office and stepped into the hallway, where Cole was waiting for me.
The two of them bid their farewells while I waited. Once we were ready to go, Cole turned to give me a smile.
"How did it go?" he asked.
I shrugged. "You know... It's not easy..." I mumbled, feeling way too exhausted to talk.
"I get it," he said quietly, touching my back so lightly I almost missed it.
Talking about the issues in my head was so unbelievably tiring. The amount of energy I had to use just to force the words out of my mouth... I didn't want to come back. I didn't want to talk anymore. I'd rather have dealt with my issues the old way. With cheap whiskey. But...
I peered at Cole. He was still smiling at me.
We walked down the stairs in silence, and when we stepped outside into the rainy street, he still wasn't saying anything. The silence was unnatural. It made me agitated for some reason.
"Say something," I blurted.
"About...?" he spoke slowly, frowning.
"About anything. Just talk," I said, and immediately regretted the harshness of my voice. "Sorry... Just... Talk my ears off. I don't want to think."
"Okay," he said, and started talking about the nice weather his old hometown always had, and how lousy it was here. How he could spend thirty minutes talking about that was beyond me, but I appreciated it.
I felt better when we entered his apartment. We both were soaked wet, but that had no effect on my rising mood, weirdly enough.
I stopped in the middle of the entrance hall, slowly taking my wet jacket off.
"This will sound so stupid, but..." I muttered, losing the courage to say what I wanted.
"Yeah?"
I glanced at him, feeling stupid, but decided to go for it, anyway. "I'm just happy I made it this far... With Vaughn."
"You mean the appointments?" he asked quietly, walking to me.
He stopped right in front of me and reached for my jacket. Our fingers touched when he took it from me. The touch was slow, like he was trying to make that moment last longer. I nearly forgot what he'd asked as I stared at our hands being so close to each other. When I looked up, he was standing so close I could almost feel his breath on my face.
