Colin worked on a lobster boat. His tall, thin frame had slowly built up muscle in his arms and neck. He had a perfect farmers tan from his time on the boat and he always had a perpetual white line at the very top of his forehead from his Red Sox hat he used to keep the sun off the spot he knows he is thinning on the top of his head. He didn't talk as much as he had back in high school. Losing his college scholarship and having to come back to this town a failure stood in too stark of a contrast to how he left as a hero. He didn't want to be a boat captain, was happy to be part of a team. Contributing when he needed to but filling the day hauling and setting traps. At the end of the week he would tuck his earnings into a Folgers Crystals can. A slit cut into the cop of the plastic lid.
He rented an apartment made from the converted hay loft of a barn that one of his friend's parents owned. He spent the summer months with no shirt on and the winter months wearing a ski cap, but it was cheap and no one bothered him and it was home. In the mirror he did not recognize the man who looked back at him. He couldn't trace the path of his wrinkles from yesterday to today. He would hang up his ball cap and rub the salt water out of his eyes and look again. But the image never changed.
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