Gary didn’t plan to become a fixture.

It just happened gradually, the way most habits did. One quiet night at the pub turned into two. Two became routine. Routine became familiarity. Soon enough, the bar staff stopped asking what he wanted and just started pouring.

The tooth was fine. That much was undeniable. He ate without thinking, drank without wincing, laughed without adjusting his jaw. The physical crisis that had upended his life was over, neatly wrapped up and stored away as something he referenced occasionally, like a story he told more than a lesson he carried.

Socially, things stayed surface-level. Banter flowed easily. Conversations reset every night, never quite progressing past the same jokes and observations. Gary liked it that way. Nothing was expected of him beyond turning up.

Some nights, he wondered whether this counted as success. He was comfortable. Familiar. Known. People nodded when he walked in. That had value.

Other nights, usually when the pub was quieter, he noticed how little changed from week to week. Same stool. Same view of the door. Same stories repeated with minor variations.

Gary told himself there was no shame in this. And there wasn’t. He wasn’t miserable. He wasn’t broken. He’d simply settled.

The question wasn’t whether this life worked. It clearly did.

The question was whether he wanted to call it finished.

From here, Gary’s story could resolve as a quiet survival — a life made smaller but manageable. Or this could be the pause before something else, if he chose to step away from familiarity and test what he’d learned.

He finished his drink and sat with the thought longer than usual.

Accept this as your ending → Page 108

Decide this isn’t where you want to stop → Page 81