I went searching for him.

I drove all the way out to Montauk chasing a picture on Instagram and a hunch.

My jeep bounced along the ruddy backwood trails to reach the deserted beach. He wasn’t there.

Why would he be? Summer had passed. The leaves were already changing color and my flip flops would soon have to be packed away. I walked the shore line, anyway.

I followed the tracks left in the sand by some other truck. I tried to read these marks like braille, or Morse Code. I imagined the tracks were from his tires,and that he had left them there for me to find.

I missed him and that was the impetus for creating such beautiful fictions.

The entire drive to Montauk, I believed I would find him. I would say, “hi” as if simplicity could fix anything.

I wished I could follow the tire tracks to where he was but they only made lazy circles that lead nowhere.

I had lost him.

I never had him in the first place.

He was young. 32 and beautiful, a perpetual traveler, a free-spirit, a happy go lucky boy who wandered the world in search of fun. I am not that woman.

I am tied down, to a career, and a mortgage, to a life that roots me concretely to home.

There are bills to pay, two tiny mouths to feed, homework to be done and squishy hugs to be had when I walk in the door.

I am lucky, that way.

His home is a backpack, a nylon tent, a trailer parked on the beach, but only for the summer.

He was never mine.

He belonged to nothing, to no one.

I went searching for him, anyway.

I walked the shoreline.

There were sad nets cast out and left abandoned on the driftwood, catching nothing but forlorn seaweed. There were large white gulls that scavenged on the dunes.

There were smooth rocks the color of tangerines.

I picked one up and placed it in my pocket. I wanted something to bring back home with me, a keepsake. I wanted to remember that once we had stood on this same beach and watched the sun go down.

The sky exploded into color and he reached for me. There was a time when he was reaching for me. I remembered it vividly, even though I was now bereft of his arms.

The ocean was calm and blue. I sat on the warm sand and watched the sun go down. The light threw itself across the small undulating ripples that wanted to be waves.

I was plagued by thoughts.

Why couldn’t I make him stay?

Was I not young enough, attractive enough, graceful enough, secure enough to make him fall in love with me?

A truck filled with surfers drove past. They had their windows rolled down and their bodies bounced lightly across the terrain. They had the air of youth and carefree restraint. I envied them.

You are beautiful, one of them called out.

I wiped tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. I smiled as they drove past. I waved.

I did not feel particularly beautiful.

I simply felt alone, but it felt cruel to disappoint them. It was time to go.

My phone rang. Did you find him? My best friend said. No, I answered. He is gone.

Let him go, Kelly. It’s time. And, it was.

I took the small orange stone from my pocket.

I ran the tips of my fingers against its curve spine. I remembered his wet mouth in the thick dark night underneath a blanket of stars.

I did not need anything tangible to conjure him. He was salty skin, and suntanned. He was summer but the leaves were already changing. It was fall. I placed the rock between my fingers and hurled it into the ocean.

It plunked down into the sea, leaving nothing but ripples emanating in a concentric pattern, spreading outward only to be swallowed up by the vastness of water.

It felt right, somehow, to give this up.

I walked back to my jeep.

The tire tracks I had studied were no longer visible. They had been run over by the surfer’s truck. There was now a new pattern in the sand, one I could actually follow all the way to my car, waiting like a small red flame on the dusky beach, I got inside, turned the engine over and made the drive back home.  
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Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: courtesy of the author