Frankie was at her wit's end.
There she was, in a little pub out in the middle of nowhere, staring at the bottom of her umpteenth bottle of beer and barely listening to the Pink Floyd droning in the background. She'd already wiped off most of the mascara that had stained her cheeks, flushed from the alcohol, though there was some still caked to her eyelashes, the result of a few hours' worth of crying.
God, she looked like a mess, and she felt even worse. Beyond the split lip she'd numbed with booze --- no, that was nothing compared to the sense of dread lingering in her gut. The pitiful "why me?" that never seemed to go away, and only got worse the more she drank. She could have been something, she thought. But right then, sitting at the bar at midnight, with four kids back at a shitty house she could barely pay for, she felt like a total loser.
Sniffing pitifully, she dabbed at her eyes again, peering down at a man at the end of the bar. She didn't know how long he'd been there --- she'd been so wrapped up in her own problems, she hadn't paid him any mind. But, after a moment, she decided to talk to him. ❝Hey, wanna buy me a drink?❞