She went to the bar alone that night. Things were getting confining at home. She needed a break, some time just to herself. Things weren't bad, just hectic. She told her husband she was going out with some friends, only a little white lie since she was going alone. He was a bit nervous considering the way their relationship had begun, but she didn't really leave him much of a choice.
She sat down at the bar, waiting for the bartender to notice her. Normally, it would not have been a problem, being as attractive as she was, but tonight the bartender was a woman and she seemed more interested in the long haired stranger at the end of the bar. For some reason he looked familiar but she could not place from where. She gave up trying, deciding that he simply had one of those faces that looked like someone else.
The bartender seemed to be getting nowhere with the stranger and finally headed her way. She ordered a beer, not really in the mood for anything stronger. The bartender returned with her beer and a shot. She looked up but the bartender had already walked off. The stranger had gotten up and walked over to the juke box, his baggy jeans stained from long traveling. He dumped in some change and pressed some buttons.
She sipped her beer and considered the shot. She didn't really want to drink too much, needing to leave herself able to drive home that night. But the longer she looked at it, the more appealing it seemed to be. And, seeing as how no one in the bar was claiming responsibility for having bought her the shot, drinking it would not be a tacit acceptance of whatever offers he had.
She had just decided to drink the shot when a familiar song began to play. It was a song she hadn't heard in a long time. As the opening strains of Blaze of Glory by Bon Jovi filled the air, the sense of familiarity returned to her. She looked over at the stranger and he held up his own shot glass in salute to her. She gulped down the shot, feeling the tequila burn its way down her throat.
The combination of the tequila and the song took her back to a day long before her marriage, back to the days when she was in Basic Training, back over ten years. She remembered a man, the one who got away, remembered his soft smile and his charm, his slick way with words that should have sounded insincere but didn't; his words to her had been sincere and somehow she had known.
She remembered the quickly scheduled rendezvous, plans that had been shattered by unexpected and ill-timed arrival of her fiancé of the time. With a sad farewell and a suppressed tear, she had bid him good bye, knowing full well that it may well be the last time she ever saw him again. Over the next year several more assignations were set and cancelled due to uncontrollable circumstances.
They had fallen out of touch for over ten years and now she was thinking about him again, something she had tried very hard not to do. She shook herself out of her reverie and looked up but the stranger was gone. She rushed out the door, hoping to see him, to catch him and talk, hoping beyond hope it was him, praying for a miracle.
