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"Jedan čašu vine, molim."
"Još jednu čašu vine, molim..."
"Još jed- Da, vine, m-molim."
"Cašu vine, molim..."
"Ej, konobar... Daj mi joooššš jeddaannn... V-vino, da, da..."
Dražen ordered the same drink over and over again.
Cold, red wine. His favorite.
Right now, it didn't feel like his favorite.
It felt like he was being forced to drink it over and over again to forget him.
That long, brown curl that bounced when he walked.
Those deep, dark brown eyes.
The creases in his khaki uniform.
Everything about him made his heart ache and his head pound with a pain only the red wine could soothe.
He missed Romano so bad it felt like every memory of him was being burned into his skull every time he thought of him.
Tears began to form in his eyes.
They burned like hell.
The same song played on the jukebox over and over, and it felt like it was mocking him with its repeated lyrics.
Bolje biti pijan nego star.
God, why did it have to be like this?
Why did he have to leave?
Leave them behind?
For what?
–
He still remembers the day Romano saved him from that group of Italian soldiers years ago.
The young Croat still remembers shoving cotton balls up his nose and hissing when he wiped blood away with disinfectant wipes.
The ache in his heart hurts more than any disinfectant wipe in the world could.
He'd take a thousand blows to the face just to hold Romano's one more time.
–
"Daj mi najjača alkohola koje imate," Dražen called out, lazily raising a finger to point at the bartender who was cleaning a glass.
The bartender gave him a shot of rakija.
Three deciliters.
The moment he took a swig from the glass, he felt his intoxicated brain go more numb than it already was.
The music on the jukebox continued to mock him with its too-close-to-home lyrics.
Vino ne zna da smo nekad bili sretni par.
Another swig of his glass.
Instant relief washed over him, but it lasted shorter than he could even process it.
Another swig.
Then another.
Another.
"Samo još jedan," He told himself.
Dražen took more and more swigs of his glass, refusing to acknowledge how deeply he was destroying his body.
By now, he felt like his entire body had gone numb, and the only thing he could move was his mouth to order more and more alcohol.
This was the lowest he had been in years.
–
God, he missed it all.
The way Romano cursed him out in his mother tongue.
Those hazel eyes that burned into his oak colored ones.
The way the wind would blow in his hair while they were by the dock.
The laughter they both shared when Romano had grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him down into the sea with him.
Everything about that stupid Italian boy made him sick to his stomach.
No amount of alcohol could help him forget the gentleness of his hands.
–
Dražen silently prayed for one more moment with him.
"Bože, molim vas, dajte mi još jedan šanca s njim."
But God didn't answer.
Just the bartender asking him if he was ready to pay his tab.
He looked up at the bartender and set a couple of thousand dinars onto the counter with much more force than necessary.
"Laku noć," Dražen managed to slur out, getting up from the bar stool and walking— or, at least he tried to— out of the bar.
The rhythm of his steps was very uneven.
The Croat kept wildly going off course while walking in a straight line, bumping into more than just a few people on his way out.
He stared at the lively road right in front of him.
Loud cars honk their horns for no apparent reason.
Bright, flashing lights that hurt his eyes so much he had to cover them with his hands.
He turned around, looking at the bar from the small sliver he could see of it from behind his fingers.
He turned around to face the bustling street.
Dražen began to inch closer and closer to the street.
One step.
Then another.
Then another,
Another, then another, then-
"DRAŽEN!"
The Croat immediately snapped his head around, his heart beginning to pound in his chest from the adrenaline.
But there was no one there.
He felt a pain beginning to grow in his head.
–
He turned his head to the side and realized where he was.
In the middle of the street being held by a woman he didn't know the name of while a man he didn't know talked with policemen.
"Gospođo? Di sam? Zašto sam nasred ulice?" Dražen mumbled, his blinking slowing down as he began to lose energy.
Then he turned his head to the side.
A massive pool of blood was on the street right underneath himself.
There were pieces of bloody, mutilated skin sprinkled in the pool of blood, too.
His breathing quickened.
His throat tightened.
His stomach began to twist.
In the middle of all this chaos, a sudden rush of relief washed over him.
–
He felt like he was a child being held by his mother again.
Not a drunk man heartbroken that his boyfriend had left him for Italy.
Dražen stopped smelling asphalt and blood all around him.
Then the taste of red wine and rakija in his mouth went away.
His vision slowly began to darken, and his eyelids fluttered shut.
The comfort of the random woman who resembled his late mother in an indescribable way slowly faded away.
The pounding pain in his head quickly went away after that.
–
The Croat felt like he was swimming in a big black pool of nothing.
The blaring sirens of the police cars slowly faded out after a couple minutes.
It all hit him like a bus.
He was dying.
What was he going to do? Where was he? Where is Romano? Where are his friends?
That one question lingered in his mind far too long than it should've.
Where is Romano?
The emptiness he swam in didn't respond to his questions.
And before he knew it, Dražen's ability to think faded away.