On New Year's Eve, Oak Town's streets were packed. Couples stumbling out of bars. Children setting off fireworks a little too early. Someone singing through the third-floor window.
Ben sat alone in the dark and listened to all of it through thin walls.
His house, if you could call it that, was more like a closet than a living space. A bulb that had not been used after the electric bills came.
He stared at the wall stained with water in the shape of a handprint. His gaze had been lingering there for three months.
Twenty-seven years old, alone. His phone buzzed with the messages from the landlord.
Five years old, he came down for breakfast like he always did.
His mother's arms were cold; he shook her. "Mama."
She didn't move, and neither did his father.
He sat between them for two hours until the neighbors came to check, not because it was noisy but because of the complete lack of it.
At nine years old his aunt dropped him off at a bus station with a backpack and twenty dollars in his hands.
When he asked why, she, with her eyes not meeting his, said, "We can't afford you."
He sat alone in a park watching families with their children and, at night, doing part-time jobs.
He got into college with a loan he wouldn't be able to pay and money saved by delivering newspapers at 4 a.m. He had thought maybe life would go on like this.
But he met her, Maya.
She would sit with him in the library and laugh at his jokes day after day.
For three years she came back every day.
Three months ago they decided to get married on New Year's Eve. They had made plans for their future together; he got himself a house too.
He still remembered when his phone rang.
He checked; it was an unknown number.
When he picked up, the voice on the other side said, "Mr. Ben, we are sorry to tell you that your fiancé has died."
She died before the ambulance arrived.
He didn't remember what they said after that.
Ben watched the pills on the table. His hands reached for them. But every time he stopped.