Gary’s attempt at confidence collapsed the way cheap furniture did: suddenly, loudly, and entirely in public.

It began with a joke that should have landed. In Gary’s head it was sharp, cheeky, charming. Out loud it came out slightly slurred, half a beat late, and aimed at the wrong part of the conversation. A nearby bloke laughed—not with him, but at the shape of the moment, the way people laughed when someone walked into a glass door.

Gary tried to recover with a smile. Unfortunately, the smile dragged across his face like a faulty curtain. The tooth chose that precise second to announce itself, sending a bolt of pain through his jaw that made him flinch hard enough to look like he’d been slapped by an invisible hand.

The pub noticed.

There was a small, dreadful pause—just long enough for the background noise to shift around him, as if the room itself had leaned in.

She looked at him then. Not cruelly. Not disgusted. Just… done. The expression of someone who’d offered patience and wasn’t going to keep handing it out for free.

“I think you should probably sit this one out,” she said gently, voice low enough to be kind but clear enough to be final.

Gary felt heat crawl up his neck. “Yeah,” he said, nodding too quickly. “Fair. Completely fair.”

He stepped back, clipped a stool, corrected himself, and realised with horror that his exit had become a performance.

Someone clapped him on the shoulder on the way past. “Rough night, Gaz?”

“You could say that,” Gary muttered, forcing a laugh that sounded like a cough.

Outside, the cold air hit him like judgment. His jaw throbbed violently now—less a warning, more a countdown.

Whatever this night had been, it was over.

Go home and sleep → Page 18

Go home and spiral alone → Page 40