I call it soupy, that feeling when you're blue, and add a splash of red for anger, and a dash of avocado-green for fear. Mix it all together, and you get: soupy.
This season brought me Finn, this fantastic guy who seemed to enter my life at the right moment and be leaving at the worst possible time. An unexpected invitation had come to ex-boyfriend Ryan Green's over-the-top wedding, which loomed closer, just like the end of another summer.
Grady, on the sly, found himself down at the shore every evening till sunrise, with his heart and lips entangled in a very sticky situation with one of Luke's very past, and very short-lived romances. Will gave himself this summer to get to know life and regain his single-self spirit, after sprinting off from California and out of a damaged relationship.
Every year, Luke managed to pull his weight and ego to get us another summer on Fire Island. With a corner office in a very prominent New York advertising firm, Luke made all the connections that worked for him, and lucky for us, a few of his best friends. Underneath all those one-niters and sexy talk, Luke did believed in love, maybe not for himself, but would not allow his true friend, me, to let it get away.
"You know that this beach is haunted"
"Haunted? Finn asked.
"Yea. All the relationships that come with the summer and end with Labor Day, are left here-in the dunes, on the beach, all around us-the ghosts of relationships past," I whispered.
"Joey-"
I threw my hand over his mouth, blocking any sound and the words of him leaving. Finn gently took my hand into his.
"Can't we just stay like this forever and ever?" I pleaded. I kept talking. If I could just keep talking, I would never have to face it. Keep talking. Forever. "I was going to ask you to marry me. We could find an apartment close to base. You could do your writing and have Zuni and Jinx to come home to. We can even save a little each week and, next year, get a place for ourselves out here." His eyes were childlike and wide. He seemed to weaken.
"It would be perfect," I mouthed touching my lips to his. It was like a scene from a movie, ending the way it should, preferably with a kiss and moonlight. We played the characters we became this summer, never truly facing the inevitable.
Willingly and without fight, I chose to release the ghost that haunted this relationship: the wishing for a better ending, the fear of losing him to the last days of summer. I'd battle those nights alone, with him, gone from me, on a Navy carrier. I fell in love and left it here, on this hallowed stretch of beach, like so many of the rest.
At 1300 hours, the next afternoon, Finn reported to the United States Navel Station in Norfolk, Virginia .....
