Now Playing: No. 1 Party Anthem - Arctic Monkeys
wherein valentine's day is not ryland grace's favorite day of the year — and the bar downtown seems to offer an unusual haven past midnight.
Liquid sunset was poured directly into his veins.
The burn touched his tongue first, bright and sharp like a match in the dark. Then it descended, dragging a ribbon of warmth behind it, slipping down his throat and blooming beneath his ribs. He can almost imagine it there: a small amber lantern being lit inside his body.
The warmth spread outward from his chest like ink dropped into water, staining everything it touched. His limbs grew pleasantly heavy, as if gravity had become affectionate. The weight of his own body felt less like a burden and more like being wrapped in a blanket fresh from a dryer.
Ryland sat on a lone stool by the wall, cheek resting on his fist, as his eyes dragged leisurely through the bar.
Valentine's day had technically ended an hour ago. The paper red hearts still hung crookedly above shelves of liquor, but they looked exhausted now, their shadows stretched thin beneath ochre lights.
Spilled beer soaked into old wood, citrus peels abandoned beside cocktail shakers, and expensive perfume clung stubbornly to the air after its owner had already left while cigarette smoke drifted in every time the door opened, bringing with it the cold February night.
A woman sat alone at the other far end of the counter, absentmindedly tracing the rim of her wine glass. Two men occupied a booth meant for six, staring at a basketball game neither seemed interested in.
His eyes found his glass of beer once more, fingers lightly tapping the surface before curling around it, and bringing it back up to his lips.
Warmth spread through his veins, turning his bloodstream into a slow-moving river of gold. The muscles of his shoulders had loosened as the sharp edges of the evening began to soften. The music — which had been little more than background noise — began to feel closer, wrapping around whispered conversations like velvet ribbon.
Outside the window, the city glistened with rain. Neon signs bled color onto wet pavement; red bled into pink — pink bled into gold. Headlights stretched across puddles like melted stars.
Time moved differently inside. Minutes stretched into hours, and hours seemed to stretch into days. The ice in his drink cracked softly, sounding almost like distant thunder.
The heartbroken sang along loudly to the music, raising their glasses haphazardly, clinging to one another without a care in the world. The drunk danced in the middle of the bar, arms tangled with one another, swaying slowly to the hum of the drums. Time seemed to move slowly inside.
Thoughts that usually marched in neat, disciplined lines became drifting things, floating like dust motes suspended in sunlight. Memories rose from between the crevices of the old wood — between cabinets, between floorboards, between cracks in tables: the curve of a smile, the scent of fresh rain on concrete, the bustling of traffic during early mornings.
They surfaced the way old photographs emerge in developing fluid.
With a slow exhale escaping through soft lips, Ryland melted into the stool, elbows resting on the counter as he leaned forward. He could see fragments of light behind his eyelids — red, pink, purple, yellow, and white.
He felt like he was floating on his back in deep water and realizing he no longer needed to tread.
Paired with the unhurried pulses of his heart, Ryland drifted through space. His lungs seemed to expand easier, drawing in air that felt sweeter than before. And yet beneath that warmth was a peculiar ache.
The sensation never erased loneliness. Like candlelight revealing the shape of a room after dark, the warmth gathered around the emptiness without feeling it — outlining it in gold leaf.
He could feel both at once; the comfort and the ache. The fire and the hollow space it illuminated.
The umber liquor cascaded down his throat once more — though the burn no longer felt like fire. It felt like dissolving. Like the rigid borders of himself were being softened by tidewater. The careful architecture of thoughts, worries, expectations — all of it becoming less solid.
The alcohol became the sea.
And with every wave, all things jagged was worn smooth.
In a room filled with a diverse array of people, he felt like a grain of sand. They were one and the same — he did not have to carry his shame.
The liquor slid across his tongue like melted sunrises, smoky and sweet and bitter all at once. It tasted like burnt sugar; like cedarwood; like something beautiful left out for being unconventional.
For a moment, the warmth reached his fingertips.
For a moment, the loneliness felt elegant.
And in the hazy golden light of a bar that smelled of old wood and expensive mistakes, with the city breathing softly beyond the windows and February pressing its cold face against the glass, he understood why people stayed out long after they should have gone home.
Because some nights did not want to end.
And alcohol, glowing in crystal beneath amber lights, offered the comforting illusion that if he drank slowly enough, perhaps they never would.
The ice shifted in his glass with a soft clink. He watched it lazily through the whiskey, catching fragments of light as it turned. Gold. Then amber. Then gold again.
Around him, Valentine's was dying a slow death.
A cluster of red balloons sagged near the ceiling, their ribbons twisting in the draft whenever the door opened. Half-melted candles sat abandoned on distant tables. Someone had left a rose beside an empty booth; its petals had begun to curl inward, edges darkening like old paper left too close to a flame.
His body felt heavier but his thoughts felt lighter.
A couple occupying a booth near the back had caught his eye. Their fingers remained intertwined on the table. Every so often, one would lead forward and say something too quiet for anyone else to hear; the other would smile.
A simple thing. An ordinary thing.
The sort of thing songs were written about.
The sort of thing films ended with.
And for a moment, he watched them.
The warmth in his chest expanded slowly, like sunlight crawling across a floorboard at dawn through curtains. Not outward; inward. Settling into corners he had spent years assuming were vacant.
The whiskey had long since stopped burning. It sat beneath his bones, gentle and tepid, radiating through his skin like radio waves.
Outside, rain whispered against the windows.
The glass had begun to fog from the difference in temperature. Beyond it, the city dissolved into streaks of color and light. Red traffic signals bled into the pavement. Storefront signs flickered in puddles. Headlights drifted past like slow-moving constellations.
Everything felt distant — in the same way stars were distant. Present all the same.
A record crackled softly overhead before giving way to another song. Somewhere near the heart of the bar, someone laughed — softness spilling without restraint. The woman from earlier stood from her stool, leaving cash pressed underneath the foot of her wine glass, giving Ryland a polite nod before exiting the small bubble that the bar had created.
Life continued around him.
For years, he had treated solitude like a symptom — something that would eventually disappear once the correct person arrived.
The assumption had followed him so faithfully that he could no longer remember when it had first taken root. Perhaps it had been planted by songs playing through cheap earbuds on bus rides home. Perhaps by films that faded to black the moment two characters finally kissed, as though there was nowhere left to go after that. Perhaps by countless casual conversations that treated romance like a milestone everyone was destined to reach eventually.
He had never questioned it.
You do not question the wallpaper when you've spent your entire life staring at it. The thought settled over him as he rolled the whiskey around his glass. Amber liquid climbed the sides before slipping back down again. The movement reminded him of a tide; of something returning to where it belonged.
Outside, rain continued to streak the windows. Each droplet caught the glow of passing headlights before vanishing into the next. The city beyond the glass looked half-drowned in gold.
He watched it for a while.
And for reasons he couldn't quite articulate, he found himself examining the feeling he'd always called loneliness. Turning it over and inspecting its seams. The way one might inspect an old scar after years of forgetting it existed. It felt smaller than he remembered — stranger, too. Less like a wound, more like a scratch.
When he stripped it down to its barest form — when he peeled away every expectation that had been wrapped around it by songs and films and Valentine's Day decorations hanging tiredly from the ceiling — he found that the feeling itself was surprisingly difficult to locate.
He searched for it anyway.
In the tingling settling beneath his skin, in the pleasant heaviness of his limbs, in the low murmur of conversation surrounding him.
In the comfort of knowing that if he checked his phone right now, there would be messages waiting. Group chats full of nonsense. Friends sending pictures of their dinners. Someone complaining about work. Someone sharing a joke they knew he'd appreciate.
The loneliness he expected to find remained frustratingly absent.
Instead, memories surfaced.
The memories arrived one after another, collecting quietly in his chest. And with each one, something inside him loosened. The sensation was almost physical. Like untangling a necklace chain that had been knotted for years. Like removing a stone from your shoe after walking miles with it lodged beneath your heel. Like discovering a pain you'd grown accustomed to was never actually part of your body to begin with.
The bar seemed softer suddenly. Warmer.
The amber lights blurred against the polished bottles behind the counter, their reflections stretched across the lacquered wood like pools of liquid honey. Somewhere nearby, someone opened the door.
Cold air swept through the room and it carried the scent of rain and damp concrete.
For a moment, the chill brushed against his skin.
Leaving only warmth behind.
And sitting there, watching droplets race each other down the windowpane, Ryland realized how exhausted he was.
Not from being alone — from trying to feel incomplete.
From measuring the architecture of his life against blueprints that had never belonged to him. From staring at perfectly solid walls and convincing himself they were missing bricks.
The realization settled slowly. Not like lightning; like snowfall.
There was no missing piece. There never had been. His life was not a half-written sentence waiting for someone else to finish it. It was already written with countless hands; in friendships accumulated across years; in shared memories; in familiar voices; in people who carved permanent places for themselves within him without ever asking for anything in return.
The thought filled him with an odd, aching tenderness.
The same feeling that came from returning home after a long trip and seeing the porch light still on.
The same feeling as slipping beneath blankets fresh from the dryer.
The same feeling as hearing your name spoken by someone who knows you well.
Outside, the rain continued to fall.
Inside, glasses clinked softly together.
The record crackled overhead.
Life moved forward in a thousand small directions around him.
And for the first time, he did not feel like he was standing apart from it.
He felt woven into it — threaded through it. Part of something vast and ordinary and beautiful. The whiskey glowed in his hand, warmth lingered beneath his skin. The city breathed beyond the glass, and the absence he had spent years mourning dissolved so quietly he almost failed to notice it leaving.
Like mist burning away beneath morning sunlight.
Leaving behind not emptiness — but space.
Room to exist exactly as he was.
Room to recognize that fulfillment had been sitting beside him all along, wearing different faces than the world had taught him to expect.
By the time he lifted the glass to his lips again, the loneliness was gone.
Or perhaps it had never been there at all.
author's note: happy pride month to my dearest aromantics, asexuals, and aroaces :) here is a gift from me to you. writing this piece has been an emotional journey. it is, in a way, an affirmation for myself that i am fulfilled and satisfied, with or without a romantic partner, for i have my friends and family to complete me. this is your gentle reminder that the only person you have to give the look of love is yourself. the fear of growing old and alone, and eventually passing alone, is scary. but you are never alone. you have many people around you, surrounding you, who loves you and whose warmth makes your being whole. aroace ryland grace is very dear to me. i hope this piece reached your soul the same way it reached mine. i love you and i'm proud of you :)
