Freddie had heard that breathing helped.
With stress, anxiety, excitement, even – breathing helped. Exercises that filled one’s lungs but expelled all the bad carbon dioxide. It was supposed to clear the system, somehow. The bad energy clung to the bad carbon dioxide and was flung free, leaving the body cleansed. Did he believe in that? Maybe. Maybe not. Did it matter? Deep breath in one, two, three, four, deep breath out one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, deep breath in….
And so on, so forth. Whether it did exactly what it proclaimed to do didn’t matter. Regardless, it made Freddie feel better. Freddie, or Lancaster? Which should he call himself? He had to breathe, now, because he was standing beneath a glowing sign that read Lancaster’s. His pub. A pub he owned. A pub that was his, that he started. One of the numerous businesses, he assumed, that kept his bank accounts flush.
He’d not yet got back into the rhythm of sleeping at night and doing practical human things during the day, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get back into that habit (even though he did hang out in the sun whenever he had the opportunity, basking in one of the things he had missed the most, glorying in the warmth and the absolute miracle that was that glowing orb in the sky). Truth be told, he needed to practice breathing again, because sometimes he forgot. And because he honestly wasn’t sleeping very well. It was all still a bit overwhelming.
Which is why he asked himself why he’d come back to this pub.
But he supposed it felt a lot like home, in a way. Even that hops scent that rushed from the doors every time someone came or went fired the synapses in his brain in all the good ways. Deep down, despite whatever issues he’d stumbled across, he was happy. Ultimately. He felt the cold again, was bundled up against it, and this was a good thing. And if he wanted things to go back to normal, to settle into something like he’d said he wanted to settle – well, he had to get back to the bar. He had to take the reigns again. He had to dredge up all those memories that hadn’t yet resurfaced, and he had to get back to himself, who he’d been those six or seven years ago before he’d ended up in Harper Rock.
It was up to him to take the first step.
And so he did. Holding his breath, he took one step and then another toward the entrance to Lancaster’s, and he pushed open the door. He stepped inside and turned toward the bar. Should he just walk behind it? Go into the office? Sit down, like he’d never left? Were the same employees even still hired? He had to get there, first, to find out.
Freddie approached the bar.
