They say time heals all wounds. Boy are they fucking lying right to your face. Let me tell you, I’ve had wounds since the day I was born, and they’re all still there despite the twenty-two years that have passed. I can still feel them etched in my mind and soul, burning through the flesh till I am nothing more than a pile of my own ashes.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asks. He gives me a curious look as if to say, “What are you doing here? It’s Christmas Eve.” Yeah, well, I could ask him the same question. What kind of a freaking bar is open on Christmas Eve anyway? Even the dirty video store down the street is closed. Perverts have to celebrate Christmas, but apparently drunks don’t have to.

“Beer. Whatever,” I reply.

He brings me a mug filled to the rim shortly. Good man. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Family?”

“I have no family,” I say, shaking my head.

Christmas has always been wonderful in pointing out that fact. I remember my first Christmas after my mom left. Dad tried to do everything just like she had. To sum it up in one word: disaster. It was after that Christmas that we decided to just watch the ball game and then eat at the Crashdown. It became a tradition. Until she came around. She became family and she made that one Christmas she was there special. For the first time in a long time, Christmas had been done just the way my mom had done it right down to the three-cheese potato gratin. She’s gone now, and so is tradition and family.

My dad tried to do it just like her the year after she left, and every year after that. And he succeeded with the same degree he had when he had tried to copy my mom. But for some reason, he didn’t give up. We didn’t go back to the Crashdown for Christmas the next year. He just kept trying every year. My dad died last year so there’s no one here to try and hold together the tradition now.

“Sorry,” he replies apologetically. Like he even cares. “What about friends?”

Ha, were they ever such? Friends are the reason I went across country to college. Not to be with them, but to get away from them. My so-called friends who fucked up my life. They brought people in and out of my life without a second’s hesitation. I don’t think they could ever have imagined the impact these people would make. The hole they’d drive me into. Heck, they even brought me in and out of life. Did they need a promised word? No, they did as they fucking pleased.

Sometimes I lie awake and imagine what my life would be like if Max Evans hadn’t healed me. Is that even what he did? Healed? Seems more like he decided to take control of my fate. But then again, the guy believes he can make his own destiny. Why can’t he make my fate? Who gives a damn if I’d rather be dead than brought into his world of alien high jinks? Who cares if I’d rather be a memory than have him bring her in and out of my life? Make her a memory, make her your queen, whatever you please, but you can’t make me forget her. God, I wish he could.

I lie awake and realize I’d be dead. I come to this realization every night even though I should know this by now. And every night, the thought seems a little less unappealing. Maybe I’d reborn, and this life would be gone from my memory. I could someone different, even something different. Just please don’t let me be a gopher.

The memories would be gone. It’d be easier. I could breath without inhaling the scent of my ashes. Right? Right?!

“My friends were never a reality,” I reply as I drink. “See, where I come from, things and people are never as they seem. Trust me.” Yeah, some normal looking people aren’t even human.

“Where did you grow up?” he asks. I can tell it’s just small talk, but what better do I have to do? I’m the only one in the bar. I can’t talk to myself.

“Roswell,” I mumble. Here it comes.

“The alien town?” And there it goes. Give the guy a treat. I nod. “So...are there any?”

“More than you know,” I reply, gulping down the rest of my beer. He rolls eyes, writing it off as drunken babble.

“There must be somewhere you can be right now. Something you can do,” he urges. “You can’t be alone on Christmas Eve.”

“I’m not,” I say, smirking.

Why does he think I came here? For the beer to drown my sorrows in? Getting drunk has never made me forget my problems. It’s only magnified them, turning me into an introspective thinker. It’s the company that has me here, and as much as I hate it, his stupid small talk. I’ve never needed talk. I can take in a person’s presence with silence, enjoy their company with only my eyes, but if needs the small talk, fine.

I used to watch her sleep. I never told her, but I think she knew. When I stood in the doorway, watching her face for a moment at peace, I felt like I was having a conversation with her. At first, I thought it was some alien thing. Maybe she was taking me into her mind or something. But then I realized it was her. There was something about her soul that wrapped me around her heart and dragged me in against my will and pleading at the same time.

“What are you thinking about if you don’t mind me asking?” he asks. “You have this far away look.”

“Her.”

“The one?” he asks, smiling. I can tell by the sparkle in his eyes as he says it that he has a ‘one.’

“The only,” I reply. He nods, urging me on. “She’s gone. Moved away.”

“Maybe you should pay her a surprise Christmas visit. Tell her you’re thinking about her.”

“I don’t think she wants to know the things I’m thinking,” I reply, handing him my mug and a tip. “Besides, she’s the reason I’m here. She gave me the best Christmas of my life and then took it all away from me. She ruined it for me. She drove me to this place. Anyway, if I stay here talking to you I think of her every other minute instead every minute.”

I check my watch and see that it’s past twelve in the morning. Christmas Eve is over and I can leave now. I’ve sat out my demons for the season. I get up and wave goodbye.

“Merry Christmas, man,” the bartender says as I exit.

Yeah, whatever. See you next Christmas.