“Let me guess. In your world, I’m a priest.”

“You were.”

He laughed to himself. “Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I’d taken that path. Maybe we all do that.”

“Believe me, I’ve been obsessed with that idea recently.”

Roscoe nodded as he looked around at the bar. “I asked you here for a reason, you know. This place right here is where my Dylan’s life changed.”

“Mine, too.”

“So tell me what happened to you here,” he said.

I picked up my club soda and swirled the ice, watching it clink around the glass. “Four years ago, on the anniversary of the night my parents died, I came here. I got drunk, and I got into it with a guy who was calling his girlfriend names. The cops came and arrested me. When they let me go, I called you, and you came to pick me up.”

Roscoe knew there was more. “And? What happened next?”

“There was a car accident. You died.”

A blink was his only reaction. He took another sip of Southern Comfort. “Oh.”

“I blamed myself.”

“Of course you did.”

“There’s more. I met a woman that night. It was a coincidence, a weird twist of fate—or at least, that’s what I thought at the time. Now I don’t know. She rescued me. She helped me recover. We got married. Then very recently, I lost her, too.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Roscoe glanced at me from over the top of his drink. “What was her name?”

“Karly. Her name was Karly.”

“Did you love her?”

“Yes, I did. I can’t imagine my life without her. I finally had everything I ever wanted, and I let it all slip through my hands. I screwed up my whole damn life, and now I can never get it back.”

I slammed my glass down on the bar. Ice and club soda sloshed over the side. I shook my head and dabbed at the spill with a napkin, and I waved away the bartender, who was looking at me with concern.

“You still have that temper, I see,” Roscoe murmured.

I drank what was left of the club soda. “So that’s my story. What happened here? In this world.”

My friend sighed. “Four years ago, on the anniversary of the night your parents died, you came here. You got drunk, and you got into it with a guy who was calling his girlfriend names. You started beating the hell out of him on the street.”

“And? What happened next?”

“The guy hit his head on the pavement. He died.”

“Shit.”