I wonder what was on her mind. She seemed awfully depressed, sitting at the bar by herself. She finished three drinks in the span of fifteen minutes.

She came in by herself. Sat down and ordered a Cosmopolitan. Stared off into space and drank her cocktail, without a glance to anyone else in the bar.

Drinking alone. That's a sign of depression if I ever saw one.

She got up and left after her third drink. Quite abruptly.

We were near NYU. She could have been a college student. Maybe a graduate student; she didn't look like an undergrad.

She wasn't ugly at all; fairly pretty, in fact. So it couldn't have been that she couldn't find someone to be with.

Maybe it was something from New Years Eve. It was only two days after New Years. Maybe her boyfriend cheated on her. Maybe he dumped her. Maybe she dumped him, and was having second thoughts.

Though she didn't order straight alcohol, she chugged her cocktails pretty quickly. She must have wanted to get drunk, but couldn't handle doing straight shots.

Wanting to get drunk. Alone. For some people, something's got to upset you pretty badly to push you to that brink.

She didn't look like the type who was a lush and would get drunk for the hell of it. So she definitely had to have a purpose.

In some local bars, the bartender would offer a sympathetic ear. This wasn't that kind of bar though. It was a college student haunt and the bartenders there had their hands full of eager college kids.

She must not have wanted to talk. No glances at anyone else, no sympathetic bartender. Probably wanted to be left alone to her alcohol.

It could have been family trouble instead. Or school trouble. But something told me that it was romantic trouble. People take on a certain look when they're heartbroken.

Military veterans call it the hundred-yard stare. After seeing combat, they have that stare where their eyes are always looking off in a distance, even when they're looking at you.

That's the kind of look she had in her eyes.

After her third Cosmopolitan, she tossed her money at the bar and left. Didn't want to stay and linger.

Maybe the alcohol helped.

Alcohol rarely does that, but let's give her the benefit of the doubt. The Cosmopolitans helped her realize that her problem wasn't that bad.

She'll get through this. The world wasn't over. She'd find another man. There are plenty of fish in the sea.

I felt proud of her when she got up to leave. There you go girl, I thought to myself. Get out of this bar and back on your feet again.

But then again, maybe I'm totally wrong. Maybe she was thinking of something totally different. Maybe she was just having some car trouble.

Gosh, I sure wonder what was on her mind.

. . .

What do you think was on her mind?