22. Jayden
— ? —
Jayden
I pay a teenager named Josh forty dollars to set up a blanket on the beach.
“You want flowers too?” Josh asks, clearly thinking I’m insane.
“Wildflowers. In a jar. And a cooler with two beers and s’mores supplies.”
“S’mores supplies? Like… marshmallows and stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Are you allowed to have fires on this beach?”
“No.”
“Then how are you gonna make s’mores?”
“I’m not. It’s symbolic.”
Josh stares at me. I am clearly the weirdest adult he’s ever encountered. He’s got sandy hair that needs cutting and a sunburn across his nose, and he’s looking at me like I might need professional help.
“Fifty bucks,” he says finally. “Weird tax.”
I give him sixty. He’s earned it.
After he leaves, I stand on the beach alone.
Millbrook Beach. The same beach where I held her hand for the first time.
Where I promised her the moon and meant it with every cell in my body.
Where we carved our initials into the old lifeguard stand that’s probably been replaced three times since then.
The waves roll in the same way they always have. The sand is the same pale gold. The sky is starting to streak with color as the sun drops toward the horizon.
I’m terrified.
Not of the date. Not of the beach. I’m terrified that I’ll do everything right - the flowers, the memories, the grand gestures - and it still won’t be enough. That I broke something so fundamental that no amount of wildflowers can fix it.
My phone buzzes. Zak.
“You doing okay?”
“I’m standing on a beach at sunset because I paid a teenager to put s’mores on a blanket.”
Silence.
“That sentence has a lot of moving parts,” Zak says finally.
“I know.”
“You want to tell me what’s actually going on?”
I sit down on the sand. Watch the waves roll in. The water is cold this time of year - I can feel the chill even from here, carried on the salt breeze.
“I’m trying to win my wife back. And I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if anything I do will ever be enough to undo what I did.”
“What did you do?”
“I made her invisible. For years. I looked right through her like she was furniture.” My voice cracks, and I don’t try to stop it.
Zak has seen me at my worst. He can handle this.
“And then when someone tried to destroy her, I let them. I stood there and let them because some part of me had already stopped seeing her as someone worth defending.”
Zak is quiet for a long moment. I can hear him breathing, can picture him in his office or his car or wherever he is, weighing his words the way he always does.
“Do you love her?”
“More than anything.”
“Then show up. Keep showing up. That’s all you can do.” He pauses. “And maybe stop with the symbolic s’mores. That’s a little unhinged.”
“The s’mores are staying.”
“Your funeral, man.”
I hang up. Look at the ocean.
That’s all I know how to do anymore. That’s all I have left. The company is gone. The empire is gone. The version of myself that knew how to conquer the world - he’s gone too, and I don’t miss him.
What’s left is just a man on a beach, hoping the woman he loves will give him one more chance.
I check my phone. No message from her yet.
The blanket is set up perfectly - Josh did good work.
The wildflowers are already catching the light, purple and white and yellow against the faded blue of the blanket.
The cooler sits beside them, two cheap beers inside, the kind we used to drink when we were kids pretending to be adults.
She might say no. She might not come. She might decide that all of this - the therapy, the resignation, the daily flowers - is too little, too late.
I’d understand. I would.
But God, I hope she doesn’t.