6:27 PM

I'd be bold-faced lying if I said I didn't spend at least 97.5% of the day thinking about *dreaming of* Brooks's proposal. Like, what'd he use for source material? Because the more I daydream about it, the more I can't believe its utter perfection. You know, besides the timing, the fact we weren't even dating, etc.

Post-walk, I went to lunch with my mom and dad. We tried some new bistro on the town strip and made tentative plans for their next visit to Seattle. The whole time I could feel them side-stepping the questions they really wanted to ask. Post-lunch, I dropped into a barre class, got a coffee, and hit my favorite boutique in town. Retail therapy, amirite?

I prop open my Macbook, ready to dig into some online website work and approve the GO ZEN YOURSELF baseball cap design Zoë emailed me, when a flurry of banners slide down my screen. It's texts from all day, from everyone. I didn't even realize my phone had been on DND.

Trix. Meg. Brooks. Mom. Demi. Brooks. Bebs.

Missed call. Notification. Banner. Missed FaceTime.

I scroll down and open Brooks's text first (yes, against my better judgement).

Ems, I'm so sorry. Yesterday did... not go as I planned. I need to see you. When do you fly home?

All one text, which is very 2010 of him, back when people didn't have unlimited plans and put everything in one text and still knew T9 like the back of their hands.

I ponder if it's wise to respond, and albeit he rudely announced to everyone we fucked after rehearsal, I suppose for the most part we had an amicable departure. Now that I've come down from my emotional roller-coaster zenith a bit.

Big deep breath, Emmy.

It's OK. Pretty sure everyone knows we spent the night together. You just confirmed it.

I hit send before I change my mind. Nothing about the engagement or answering about when I go back home. Almost immediately, before I have time to text Trix, he answers.

Are you home already?

Ugh! Shit.

I close his thread and instead read Bebs's, which tells me that Trix and Meg are on their way back (as of 3 hours ago) and want to see me tonight. They also tell me about a get-together T&T are hosting at Back Bay tomorrow before Brooks heads home.

The next group text that comes in is the invite to the Back Bay party.

"Fucking fuck," I sigh, tossing my phone on the couch next to me.

I fill my glass at the water cooler and grab a plum from the fruit bowl. My parents met their friends for dinner, so I'm fending for myself tonight. A plum is more than enough after lunch. Plus, I don't have much of an appetite right now.

I hear the ding-alerts chime on my laptop, promises of more texts. It's only when I start walking back into the family room that I realize it's actually the doorbell.

"Coming!" I shout at my mystery guest.

A square of golden hour foliage sways in the front door's windowpane as I cross the floor towards it.

Trix. Meg. Maybe the McGrath's, the next-door neighbors.

I pull the door open to discover Brooks on the other side.

"Hey, Emmy." Brooks half smiles in the doorway.

"You –are –here? On my doorstep," I say slowly, awkwardly, tasting each word.

"Wasn't sure you'd answer," he frowns, his hands in his Edge hoodie pocket. "You didn't answer my text."

"I –My phone was on do not disturb all day and I didn't realize." It's an off-white lie. "Plus, I did answer. Just now."

"A half answer," he says. "Can I come in? Or you come out? Or can we just–"

"You're quite relentless, you know that?"

"I prefer hopeful," Brooks laughs softly. "But I'll take what I can get."

I sigh, but can't help giving him what he wants.

"Let me grab a sweater," I tell him, stepping back to let him cross the threshold.

Brooks waits for me in the foyer and three minutes later we are traipsing around my lawn.

"I've always loved it this time of year," he says.

"Here?" I ask, looking up at the dusky sky.

"Home."

It's the way he looks at me. The way all girls want to be looked at. "What did you want to say this time, Brooks?"

"I wanted to apologize in person," he begins.

"It's fine," I say quickly. "I already said it was fine. Rude, maybe."

"It was. I was just –upset. But that's no excuse. And you didn't deserve it."

"I know," I admit.

"Do you think we could –You know –Forget it?" He asks.

"You want me to forget you proposing to me?" I almost laugh when I say it. "As if I could ever forget–"

"No, not that," he says, shaking his head. "Just the ending."

"We sort of can't keep doing this," I blurt out in a way that makes it plainly obviously I'm not talking about our backyard jaunt.

"I know," he says quietly.

"It's –exhausting," I sigh.

He stops walking and I find myself remaining still beside him. I lose myself in his eyes, his face, his smell.

"I know. And I won't push you. Or make you–"

"Chivalrous," I joke. I spin to look at him, arms-folded, dying to ask what I really want to know. "Why didn't you tell me you asked my parents?"

"Would that have changed your answer?" He raises an eyebrow.

I don't say anything, which I suppose is saying something.

"Are you going to Travis's tomorrow?" He asks suddenly.

"I –What?"

"The party," he says.

"Oh, no, I'm flying home at 2 PM."

"Can't you push it? Please push it."

"Brooks," I mumble, shaking my head.

"Just come tomorrow," Brooks almost begs. "Just come and we can figure out our shit. However long it takes."

"Brooks." I only say his name.

I snap myself out of Brooks's hypnotic presence. I focus on the arm hem on my cardigan to keep my mind concentrated away from Brooks.

For a minute, beneath this setting sky, nestled between gold-dusted foliage, we share an inexplicably perfect moment. No words. Just silence. The kind of silence that speaks for you. And never did anyone scream so loudly with no words.

I think he may shatter this silence and say something, like he knows this is the last time we'll share space together. But he doesn't.

Brooks steps towards me, his smile faltering slightly, and leans in to brush his lips against mine. He backs up, surveying the sky and then me.

"I wish you had believed me."

And he exits stage left –through the side gate –out of my line of sight. Out of my life.

...

Desperation calls for CVS bubble bath that expired sometime around the downfall of Clinton's administration. That's all I can dig out from beneath the sink. My parents are still out and drawing a bath seems like the only thing that will wash away the last 24 hours.

Trix calls right when I turn the faucet off, so I swiftly fill her in on my little surprise guest.

"Oh my -Just showed up?" She asks.

"Yes. I mean, he knocked. But may as well have thrown rocks at my window." I laugh into my phone.

"And let's circle back to him speaking to your parents, please." Trix insists.

"Your guess is as good as mine. No clue when he did it," I say.

I glide my fingers across the bath surface, cutting through the lavender buds and sea salt. The candle in the corner flickers with my voice.

"I can't," I groan for the third time. "But maybe we can get breakfast early? You'll be up at 7 AM, right?"

"—Still think you should pop by. And it's my job to–"

I roll my eyes as she keeps talking. I stifle a yawn, poorly, and she's soon hanging up with the promise that she'll see me off tomorrow.

Water drips from my towel all the way to my room. I pause for one second to allow myself the typical moment of vanity via staring in my mirror. And I look... old. For maybe the first time in my life.

I mean, I've never thought I looked old old. Maybe it's because of yoga and being in decent shape, plus my skin's always been above average-glowy, and let's not forget that thirty is the new twenty. But right now, the woman staring back at me is some adult ass motherfucker.

My vision becomes unfocused on my reflection, and instead turns its attention to a square polaroid wedged in the frame of the mirror. I reach to pull it out, my eyes falling over it. Over my blue triangle-bikini, Trix's White Claw dangling over Brooks's shoulder, Meg on Alex's shoulders, and Travis and Nate crouched on the sand. The neon cooler-radio sits front and center, and the net is in the background.

Pier volleyball. My first day back on the beach with the group. The day comes back to me like yesterday. So does after volleyball at the bar. And after the bar at the cabana.

It's the first night I kissed Brooks in almost a decade. Looking back, it's the same night this last leg of my life started. That bonfire on the beach was more a catalyst than I ever could have known. The memory of that night brings along a welling to my eyes and a lump to my throat.

I blink my tears away until they've dug grooves into my bare skin. The headache from crying is enough to push me over the edge.

The dream comes and goes.

It's a happy one, filled with laughter and tranquility, but it's also marred by a deep sadness. I'm younger and wearing a blue bikini and playing chicken on Alex's shoulders. Then I'm almost high school young, and walking across the football field with Brooks, asking him where baby Isla is. He looks at me confusedly, his head hung with concern. His moon phases tattoo starts to roll down his arm and I try to catch it, crying.

Then we're old again –like mirror-old –and we're sitting in a 1920s garden, shrouded in silence and snow. We are planning Tenfire, but I'm worried about studying for exams and it smells like rain and then Brooks offers me hot fries.

Then the dream changes, morphs once again into something entirely different. I'm me, but the old me. Well, the old new me, before I returned home. And this dream plays out like a video reel, flashes of color and feeling and song, right before my eyes.

I'm on the floor in my loft, telling my mom I can't come home for the summer. I hang up the phone and go out with Zoë that night, take too many shots, and watch myself stumble home with Trevor (RIP, not actually, I mean he's alive and well, but you get it). There's no bonfire. I don't reconnect with Trix or Meg beyond the occasional Instagram like or random birthday text. We slowly drift even more apart. I start dating a Chad, which honestly, was never a low I wanted for myself.

I find out Alex is engaged via group text, but I don't respond. I make an excuse for ignoring Trix and Travis's wedding, which I suspect I was invited to out of obligation. Instead, I see T&T day through pictures only. With no Josh comes no sailing. But Chad and I mini-golf with champagne splits I hide in my purse.

My mom calls me on a Friday to tell me about Brooks's athletic clothing line, Edge. I read about it online and see him and his gorgeous model girlfriend at the grand opening, and at countless movie premieres. I watch her become his fiancée and get married. Love her dress.

I have the OG Go Zen, Zoë, and now no Chad. I never met Lauren. Never watched my best friend become a mother. Never saw any of them again.

There was no château. No pineapples & diamonds. No anything. Except one thing remained. Heartbreak.

But not of the same romantic grade. It's heartbreak for myself. Because who I became is not who I am.

If I had stayed, everything would be different.

Different and wrong.

...lifetime I want...