2 A.M. was the worst time to be awake when you needed to be asleep. There was nothing on TV. Nothing on the radio. Sure there was the internet but that was what Buck already did during the day when his boss wasn’t looking. You could only scroll through the same three or four feeds for so long before you ran out of new content and then it was just boring. It was boring anyway but at least it helped pass the time.

His apartment was a mess. It only bothered him at times like this, when he couldn’t find something to distract himself from it, but cleaning was women’s work. He felt stupid cleaning. The same could be said for cooking but he’d long since decided that he couldn’t live on microwave meals alone. There were a lot of things he thought were wrong for him to do. He needed a woman to do them because that was how things were supposed to be.

His phone was in his hand before he realized it and he was searching through facebook for her. She’d rejected all of his friend requests. He hated looking at her page but sometimes he couldn’t help it.

There she was, smiling, a baby on her hip and a boy in front, a man standing beside her. Buck had sent him a friend request as well but it seemed she’d warned him about Buck.

Whatever.

Buck hated those smiling faces. It should have been him standing beside her, not some other guy. It used to be Buck standing there, though they’d never gotten around to having kids. That was something he was both happy for and regretted. If they’d had kids then she’d have to talk to him, but then he’d have take the kids on the weekends or whatever and he had no interest in playing mommy.

He should turn off his phone and go back to bed instead of sitting in his living room looking through photos of her family but he couldn’t quite convince himself to stop. Their house was nice, much bigger than Buck’s apartment. He wondered what her husband did for work. Probably something with computers. People who worked with computers always had nice homes. It made up for their lack of personality, Buck supposed.

They had a dog. That was new. Looked like a medium sized, mixed breed. He’d always wanted a dog but his landlord wouldn’t allow it.

Buck finally closed his phone and looked away, staring off at the wall. How’d he end up here? This wasn’t how it was all supposed to turn out. He was a hard worker, good looking, and knew how to treat a woman right. It just didn’t seem like any women he met these days wanted to be treated that way. More and more they were wanting to be treated…well, he wasn’t sure. Everything he tried seemed to backfire.

When he’d left her, he thought he’ be swimming in hot women all the time. Instead he’d been alone ever since. It wasn’t fair. He even tried to apologize to her after a few months when things weren’t going how he’d planned. That was a mistake. All that happened was that she’d laughed at him and said he’d gotten what he deserved. Well screw her.

Drinking this late at night was never a good idea either but Buck needed a beer. Just one to take the edge off and then he’d be able to fall asleep. He’d be plenty sober for work in the morning. He knew better than to show up drunk again. Even still, he grabbed two beers instead of one. He was getting angry and would need the extra alcohol to bring him back down to a mellow state. At least he had that going for him. He was a calm drunk. He’d never done or said anything he regretted while drunk. Well, except for getting in trouble at work for being drunk, but he was never that drunk and it wouldn’t have caused any problems. He was still high functioning when he was drunk, unlike some other guys he knew. His boss knew it too. That was why he hadn’t fired Buck. Still, better not press his luck. He didn’t need to lose another job.

The first beer was already down and he was working on the second when he pulled his phone back out. It opened back up to her facebook page. He stared at the pictures for a long while. He didn’t cry. Men don’t cry. But he certainly couldn’t deny he felt some regret for what he’d lost. He sniffed and tossed the empty beer cans into the corner with the others. He’d need to take them out to the bin soon but not right now. He kind of liked the way they looked all piled up there.

He clicked the ‘add friend’ button before he could stop himself. What was the point? She’d just reject it again, but it was done and he always had that bit of hope that she’d accept it, that maybe she’d see the error of her ways and take him back. Though, looking around at his apartment and the messy state it was in, he knew he couldn’t bring her back here with it like this. Maybe he could hire one of those cleaning services. Get a few of those Mexican ladies in here and they’d have it looking right in no time. How expensive could they be?

A few minutes of searching online showed him exactly how expensive they were and put an end to that plan. How could they charge so much? All they were doing was cleaning. It wasn’t right that he should have to pay all that for something that ought to be done for him for free.

He closed his phone again. He needed another beer. He shouldn’t. He should just go back to bed. He got himself another beer and drank it down.

Alcohol didn’t effect him like it used to. One or two beers used to be plenty to make him able to get back to sleep. Sitting in his living room certainly didn’t help but he hated lying awake in bed. Finally, Buck pushed himself out of his chair and, though he meant to go to bed, wound up in front of the fridge grabbing another beer. It was empty before he could get back to his chair and now he needed to pee.

Buck still wasn’t feeling the buzz he wanted. If he didn’t get some sleep then he wouldn’t be able to work. It was dangerous to work when he was so tired. Better to be buzzed than tired. His boss knew that. He wouldn’t really fire Buck. Buck was a great employee. Everybody liked Buck. His past jobs had just been temporary anyway so he wasn’t upset about being let go from them. This job was real, though. He’d be there until he retired, he was sure of it.

Somehow, Buck was halfway through his fifth beer and back in his living room, scrolling through her feed once more. She didn’t know what she was missing out on. She could have had such a better life. She couldn’t be as happy as she seemed in her pictures. Everyone smiled for pictures but she obviously didn’t mean it. Poor woman. As soon as she accepts his friend request, he’ll offer to take her back, get her away from that loser tech bro and show her how a real man treats a woman.

Then he won’t have to worry about cleaning up all the time or cooking because she’ll be here to do it for him, just like she used to do. They’ll have kids of their own and he’ll raise his boys to be real men and she’ll teach their daughters to be real women. Then the world will be right again and everything will make sense and Buck won’t need to sit up all night wondering where everything went wrong.

How many beers had he had now? There was a collection of empty cans around his chair and he couldn’t remember if they’d been there before or if they were new. That wasn’t good. Or maybe it was. He was tired. Buck pushed himself out of his chair and staggered down the hallway to his bedroom and flopped down face first into bed. The fall was harder than he expected until he remembered his bed was just a mattress on the floor. The frame he used to have was broken. It’d been broken for years and he’d never gotten around to fixing or replacing it.

Whatever.

Sleep hit Buck and he snored loudly into the early morning for the few hours he had left before his alarm went off. It beeped and buzzed for several minutes before Buck woke up. Everything was blurry and he had the beginnings of a headache. He stumbled out of bed and got a quick shower. He didn’t linger because the hiss of water was like a drill to the side of his head. A small handful of painkillers would fix that. He didn’t bother counting them out, just dumped a few into his palm and swallowed them down.

He was late so he had a beer for breakfast, popped a stick of gum in his mouth and drove to work. It was hard to pay attention to the road with the sun blaring in his eyes but he managed it alright once he found his sunglasses. He was still a little buzzed from the night before but not too bad. Not enough that anyone would notice.

Work was work and he high fived everyone he saw, smiling and laughing to mask the headache he still felt. He’d barely gotten started when his boss called him in to talk. Only then did Buck begin to worry. Had he been too happy, too loud, that he’d given it away that he was, perhaps, a little more buzzed than he ought to be?

“You’re drunk,” his boss said.

“No I’m not,” Buck lied.

“You’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes and it looks and smells like you spilled half a can of beer down your front.”

Buck looked down and only then did he realize he hadn’t put on clean clothes that morning. A light stain of spilled beer was, indeed, all down his front.

“Look, I’m sorry, I had a rough night,” Buck said with a shrug. “Won’t happen again.”

“Uh huh,” his boss said in agreement, “because you’re fired.”

“What?” Buck slapped his hand onto his boss’s desk. “Come on, I thought we were friends. I do good work, don’t I?”

“Sure, your work is fine,” his boss shrugged, “as long as I keep all the women away from you, and you’re sober, and you’re not behind on your rent and asking for an advance on your next paycheck.”

“This isn’t women’s work,” Buck countered, using his fingers to keep track of his points. “I’m sober practically all the time, and I only needed an advance like, once or twice.”

“I’m not arguing with you Buck. Get your things and get out.”

Buck gaped, opening and closing his mouth as he tried to think of what to say.

“I can’t lose this job,” he finally settled on. “I’ll lose my apartment.”

“I’m sorry Buck, I really am,” his boss replied, “but I’m running a business here, not a charity, and I can’t have you drunk on the job. Get yourself sober.”

With that, Buck was ushered out of the office. He didn’t really have much to grab on his way out since he’d forgotten to pack a lunch. There were no high fives or laughter as he left. Gone were the smiles of his coworkers as they watched him leave. It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair.

Buck slammed his car door shut after climbing in. What was he going to do? He was already behind on rent again and his landlord wasn’t going to like to hear that Buck had lost his job, again. As Buck pulled out of the parking lot he noticed his boss coming outside. He shouted something at Buck but Buck didn’t hear it. He briefly considered going back and seeing if his boss was reconsidering but judging from the upset look on his face it wasn’t that.

Buck hopped the curb and a car honked at him as he turned onto the road. He shouted at them and flipped them off but they were already passed him and gone. As he drove, he pulled out his phone. He needed to see if she’d accepted his friend request because if she had then he could get her back and her husband, soon to be ex-husband, could pay off Buck’s rent. Put that nerd’s money to good use.

The friend request had been denied. Again.

Of course it had. Maybe that tech bro of a husband of hers was keeping any eye on her facebook. Maybe he was the one rejecting all his requests. That made sense. He’d have written a program or something that would monitor her account and just reject any requests he didn’t like. She probably didn’t even know Buck had been reaching out all this time.

Tires screeched and a horn blared but before Buck could realize what was happening he was slammed through the windshield and out into the air. He hadn’t put on his seat belt in his haste to leave work. He didn’t often put on his seat belt. They were a waste of time.

He briefly reconsidered that opinion before he collided with the tree on the opposite side of the road.