He had his head in his hands, his arms leaning against the bar’s counter. It was horrible, almost too horrible to think about. He was all too conscious of the golden ring on his left hand, on the fourth finger. Sobbing for about half an hour at this bar, his drink sat untouched, not caring that it was going to waste. He lifted his head and put them on his interlocked black feathered hands. He felt nothing inside, not hate or sadness or regret or anything. It was hard to bear at all, yet he would have to.
	There were others in the bar, sitting on a stool a little ways down and in booths to eat and drink at their leisure, some playing billiards. But he didn’t notice it in a way that mattered. They were just there, part of the background. All he saw in his head was a rerun of what he had seen earlier that night.
	His mate had called and said he wouldn’t be home tonight because of a delayed flight home. He had known he would call and say that, he always did. The flight had not been delayed at all, but he knew that as he sat in his rental car in his beloved’s business’s trip city. He was watching as his mate called him and told him that before the dolphin had got into his own vehicle. As his mate drove by, he u-turned and began to follow a little ways behind. He drove for what felt like hours in this dark and cold night, but only a half an hour had gone by. When the dolphin had finally stopped outside a house, his mate got out and walked up there.
	He had left his car a few minutes later after he heard a door shut. Sneaking through the hedges, he came upon a bedroom with a balcony like window. He saw his mate, bare of clothing, lying on the bed with a sheet covering his entire groin with it falling off his leg farther down. Soon after that, a feline, tiger he thought, came into view, his form bare as well. He crawled up his mate before slowly kissing him, shifting the covers to fall away.
	He had watched his mate and the unknown feline until they had both finished, by which time he moved back to his car and got in. He put his head on the wheel and sobbed for a minute before turning on the vehicle and driving away, aimlessly wondering for a while until he stopped at this bar. Getting in, he ordered a drink before breaking down. So now here he was, in a foreign place and seeing his world dying around him.
	Looking at his left hand, he thought of the day they had married. They were both young, having been dating for the last two years of college and had fallen heavily for each other. He had been the one to go down to a knee and pull the ring out. He was smitten with the dolphin, the love of his life. The ceremony had been small, with mostly friends and some family there. Forever was their pledge to each other, never to partake with anyone else. That vow to him was to be broken, forever.
	He twirled the ring on his finger before slowly slipping it off. The feathers under it had been flattened by the band he always wore. He watched it gleam as he turned it in the fluorescent lights. It was his choice, to stay and know what he did or leave it all behind and find someone new. He thought of all the things he knew and of his former love of his mate. Sighing through his beak, he tossed the drink back and put the wedding band, the symbol of eternal love, in the now empty glass and turned to leave.