EPIC IS OVERRATED

7:02 PM

"Tonight, you saw her?"

"Yes, tonight. Yes, I just left." I tell him for the tenth time.

"Yea, but you just left? You're just going to let her go?" Travis looks at me sideways from his spot on the couch.

"What more can I do, man? She doesn't want me, want –us." I take another swig of my beer.

"So, she's not coming over tomorrow?" He asks. "For the party thing."

"Not unless Trix is in there convincing her," I frown.

"I'll have her work on it," Travis jokes.

The two of us are on the back deck, drinking beers and waiting for Alex and Nate. Trix is inside baking a dip or something for the little get together tomorrow. Evidently, a three-day wedding celebration wasn't enough, so here's to day #4.

I got back about an hour ago and went straight to Emmy's house to apologize for being a dick last night. In my head, it went differently. Then again, so did the proposal. So did a lot of things. I meant what I said about standing in the garden archway for a lifetime. I'd spend the rest of my life just trying to convince her to look at me again.

If that's what she wanted.

But it's not.

I don't want to get in the way of her life being exactly what she wants it to be. I mean, I do. But I won't. I polish off my second beer in 15 minutes, lungs filling with the cold night air as I tilt my head back and stare at the star-riddled sky.

"Grabbed you one," Travis says, coming back out from the kitchen and handing me another beer. "And Trix is making some buffalo chicken dip thing. If you're hungry."

"I'm all good, thanks."

After seeing Emmy tonight and my feeble attempt to see her again tomorrow, food just doesn't do it for me. The beer though...

"Any plans to come back again? I mean once you're back in Los Angeles?" Travis asks.

"Nothing. I think Brody and Lauren were going to come visit for Thanksgiving next month. My mom says she might come with them." I shrug.

I blink away the images of Thanksgiving in Seattle almost three years ago.

"How about Christmas?"

"Yea, maybe." I shrug.

I barely know what question I'm answering.

I can't seem to focus on anything now, not Travis or the beer or the stars anymore. Even the canal's usual symphony of rushing water tides, whistling cattail, and croaking frogs has faded.

I'm just thinking of why I'm leaving. And I realize not having an answer is an answer.

An hour later, after Alex and Nate bail, which low key thank god, I am hugging Trix as she pushes a Tupperware container into my hands on the porch.

"See you tomorrow, B." She shouts from the top step.

"See ya tomorrow." I wave.

I could make this walk in my sleep. Time passes slowly, as I take in each moment, grateful that I've walked a path so frequently I'm able to traverse it subconsciously. My feet remember exactly where to step, which ditches to hop and mounds of dune-grass to avoid. I spent summers running along these back canals, boating, biking, walking at countless midnights, sneaking beers and making out in the beachgrass.

I let my thoughts wander back to those nights.

In 12 hours, Emmy will be headed back to Seattle. In 36 hours, I will be...

It hits me that I have nothing keeping me here anymore, yet somehow this place still feels like my anchor. My reset.

I could catch the red-eye back to LA. Then again, I have nothing waiting for me there either. Miles could run Edge without me. He practically does already. All I'll get going home is a half-emptied apartment and memories of a life I walked away from.

Maybe I'll stay.

I breathe in the salty air again. But all I have here are memories of what could have been.

I find my favorite spot on my favorite dune and lie with my back flat on the sand.

I'm having a hard time believing this is real life right now. Like everything that's happened and everything I've done or haven't done -it's all led to me on this beach right now. Everything -including spending the night with Emmy post-rehearsal –it's all led to this.

Is this where I want to be tomorrow? In five years? In 10? I'm haunted by that creepy dream I had in Miami –the dream where I lived out all my birthdays in 10 minutes.

This isn't what I wanted.

I tell myself that whatever is meant to happen will happen. With Emmy or someone else.

The letter plays again, echoes really, in my head.

It takes just about everything I have to walk myself home, to not go to her house, to not text her, to not go on the socials and stalk her. My phone lights up with a text from Brody.

"Fuck," I whisper to myself.

It's more a sigh, but all my sighs feel like fucks lately. One more day of keeping up appearances.

I get home sometime after midnight. My body is exhausted but my mind restless. I think back to 48 hours ago, to sharing my hotel bed with Emmy. I let the memory envelop me. But it's not what you think. I'm not picturing her riding my face or my fingers digging into her hips as I kneel behind her.

I think about truth or strip dare. About having our phone call night, only in person. I think about 2006 mix-tapes and about prom. And the 1920s NYE and the 80s Baby. I think back to every single moment since the night I came home three years ago, thanking fucking God that she came home too.

Even if it led to this.

Even if she becomes a memory that fades into this town. She'll always be a part of me. A part of my story.