Adlai let the glass slip back from his lips and rest on the bar. A few drops had spilt onto its dull wooden surface. He traced circles idly through them.

He missed her, he could admit that now. At least, he missed his memory of her back in the beginning. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he just missed company. An audience.

Sometimes he wondered to himself, had she really happened? Could he be sure she wasn’t another in a long line of fantasies dreamt up and then created to immerse himself in? How many of his dreams were out there running around now? Such thoughts used to trouble him.

No, she was real enough. He may have turned her into what she was now, but she was real nevertheless.

He remembered the exact point when it started to go sour. They’d been in another meeting, arguing amongst themselves, taking two steps back for every three forward. They were all reaching breaking point. Gretchen had finally leant over and whispered to him that she wanted to show him something, something the others weren’t yet ready to see, and he knew straight away she was trying to trap him.

He couldn’t really blame her, much as you couldn’t blame a wild animal for striking out at you. It was her nature, he’d seen it from the beginning. He nodded his head and got back to what the group was talking about, but that was the moment. He remembered the stillness of it, the feeling of the world shifting around him. It wasn’t shock, or sadness, but something else. A revelation. Like a curtain falling.

“Nothing wrong with it is there?” He fished a cigarette out and tried to ignore his shaking hands as he tried to light it. “That’s why we have this place. William James.”

Finally it caught and he sucked back smoke.

“William James said that mankind held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. Nice idea. Not sure about the heroism part, but theatre? Bang on the money. Make believe. We all fool ourselves, and we all want an audience.”

Maybe that’s why he’d let himself be drawn in. Certainly, it was why he kept on going, well past the point where he should have turned his back and walked away. He was drowning in loneliness. He was willing to cling on to whoever drifted past.

“Not anymore though.” Adlai downed the last of the drink and let out a long, tired breath. “Not anymore.”

He sat and stared and only let go of the glass when a full one stood next to it.