As we closed everything down for the evening, I had hoped that the time that had passed would have been enough to calm me down, but I wasn't even mad about my realization that I deserved to live my life how I wanted, and anyone who told me that I shouldn't was wrong. It definitely wasn't anger. It was something different boiling inside me, like a sickness that wouldn't go away until I finally made myself throw up.

How dare he dull my sparkle? And how the hell did I let him for a while?

I had nothing but time in my office, and before Mason could leave, I called him in so we could discuss his job performance. I didn't know a damn thing about how well he was doing his job, but it wasn't anything I was interested in talking about in the first place.

"What's going on? Is there a problem?" he asked.

"Close the door," I said.

A small smile snuck upon his face as he shut the door behind him. Ha! Yeah right. What kind of girl did he take me for?

Well, he was right to a certain extent, but he had some explaining to do.

"What did you want to discuss, then?" Mason asked.

"I just wanted to ask you something real quick. Is there any reason you've been trying to convince me to give up on my dream to stay here in a job that I hate?"

He shrugged. "I just want you to live in the real world, Marigold."

"You're not the only one, but what makes you think you're allowed to have an opinion on my life? You don't want to mean anything to me. You made that clear," I said.

"I never said that—" he began, but I cut him off.

"Yes, you did. And I just want to know why you think you should have any influence in my life."

He didn't respond to that right away, and I let out a small laugh. Of course he didn't have an immediate answer. Because there was absolutely no reason.

"Fine. If you want to make the decisions of a fifteen-year-old girl, you go ahead," he said.

I shook my head. "If you don't know what I'm doing, how the hell do you know that I'm not good enough to make it?"

Once again, no response.

I took that as my cue to keep airing my grievances. "And now that we're on this, what's the deal with you not calling, texting, or anything? I've just wanted to talk to you, and you won't even do that. It's shitty."

"Oh, don't act like you're completely blameless in this. You only ever wanted to spend time around me because you like stuff. You're materialistic, and you know it."

"Look, I don't want anything casual. I'm not that type of person, even though I know I had sex with you after I got what I wanted," I said.

I played the game, and I played fairly. Besides, once upon a time, I thought I liked him for him. I thought he was more than just a red sailboat on Lake Erie.

He leaned in over my desk and said in a low voice, "Then that makes us even."

No, it just made us stupid.

I shook my head and looked past him at the door. How easy would it be to just walk right through there and never come back? I had my mostly finished resignation letter in the top drawer of my desk. Someone would find it and get the hint.

But if there was one thing people in a town like mine didn't care for, it was a spineless coward.

Instead of running out the door to my car and driving away, I sat down on my desk. "Well, where are we supposed to go from here? We both work here, and—"

"I'll leave if you want me to," he said. "It's not like there's any reason to stick around here in the first place. I have better places to be."

"And I don't?" I asked. "Look, I'm not going to ask or encourage that. If that's what you want, do it, but ultimately, the decision is only yours. I can handle myself."

Those words came out so easily, and I wondered why they didn't for a whole lot of other people.

He gave me a slow, thoughtful nod, and I wished I could read his mind. "I think it's time I move on with my life. This isn't LA or Seattle. It's not worth it."

I looked down at the floor. "Well, just let me know how you plan to proceed with this. I'll talk to George so you don't have to."

"Thanks, Marigold." Those were his last words to me before he headed out my office door. I wasn't sure if those were going to be the last ones I heard from him ever, since I wouldn't put it past a guy with no social media presence or home to just up and go without a word to anyone. But even if they were the last ones, I could live with them. They hurt, yes, but what was life without a little pain to remind me I was still alive?

Even with Mason having a plan to leave, it still didn't change my own, though. It was almost like I wanted to beat him out the door, even though I had much more of a life at the winery than he ever could. It wasn't his home like it was mine.

With home on my mind, I headed back to our little rented house that my roommates and I never really kept well. The grass was on the longer side for the cooler weather, and the inside hadn't been decorated up to my standards quite yet. How was anyone supposed to know it was fall when they were inside?

Blake always told me that pumpkin spice and everything nice was tacky and stupid, and he was allowed to have that wrong opinion, but it made me happy, so why couldn't I have just a few decorations around the house? And who the hell was he to tell me that my crafting dream was only making a mess when he never really kept the place clean either?

Alex usually minded her own business about what I liked, but we didn't have the same friendship history that Blake and I did. We were friends all the way back in high school, when people judged me for caring more about my artsy endeavors than class and him for seeming gay. Of course, he was definitely gay and we both knew it, but I figured those years of friendship and support should really start going in both directions, even if there was a little bit of a difference between being gay and being basic.

I opened up the front door, only to be greeted by Blake's complaints.

"Why the hell haven't you moved your shit out of the living room yet?"

I rolled my eyes and took in a breath. "My day was long but fine. How was your day today?"

I thought back to something Chris said the night my car broke down and I invited him inside for cookies: he talks to you like that? At the time, I just thought that was the way that it always was, so it was fine, but it was just what I was used to. That didn't make it fine.

"Well, Karen in HR called me to set up a meeting—" Blake began, but I didn't really care about the rest of the story, so I interrupted him.

"I decided that I'm not gonna give up my online craft shop. That's what I'm truly passionate about, and I have my whole life to make it work out for me."

He hesitated before responding. "But why?"

I didn't answer that. Instead, I changed the subject. "Do you ever think you'd be happier somewhere else besides Marblehead?"

"Only every day of my life," he said.

"Then don't you think you should let that take you somewhere else? Don't you think there's something worth following instead of complaining and waiting around in the same old town we grew up in for something to change when we all know it won't?"

This time, after a moment's hesitation, there was no response that followed.

I took that as my cue to keep talking. "There's a whole world out there that needs someone like you. You might as well do your job somewhere you like."

He left for college and came back with a new friend, Alex, but there was more to life than just four years in college and then being a boring, cynical adult until death. I would know. It was what made Lydia's life an enviable one. We all deserved it, whatever that kind of life meant to us.

"You'd be okay with that?" Blake finally said.

I nodded. "I'm always going to be okay with you living your best life. I mean, YOLO."

"Oh my god," he muttered to himself, and I laughed. Nothing made him cringe more than my outdated basic sayings.

Maybe he was a little bitter that I was chasing something, and he felt stuck, but now that the idea was out in the universe, hopefully he and I could get something manifesting for us both.

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Hello, friend! Thank you so much for supporting me by reading! I really appreciate it!

So for today's question, what is the best concert you have ever been to?

For me, the answer is easy. I'm a strong believer that Big Time Rush is incredibly underrated, and they are so much fun live. Ever since they've gotten back together in 2021 (I think?), I've seen them twice, and I had the time of my life both times. They're super talented and and energetic, and the atmosphere is electric.