The ice clinked against the side of the glass like a hesitant greeting as I rummaged through my coat pockets for the cash to pay for yet another overpriced beer. People laughed and shouted in the background, a disorienting maelstrom of sound I'd grown accustomed to at parties like this one. My eyes scanned the crowded room with the desperate intent of a librarian searching for a missing copy of 'Finnegans Wake', my gaze flicking past familiar faces until I finally landed on a lone figure – the bartender, who raised an eyebrow that seemed to say "you again." I pushed my way to the bar, my elbows knocking against a stack of unattended plates in a collision eerily reminiscent of a particularly sloppy breakup five years prior.
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