Dad. The sea. The stars.

Aerin.

I felt my heart tighten at the memory of her. I was thinking about her every day now for the past six months or so, and I was becoming desperate that I still hadn’t figured out a way to move on from her, to let go of what we’d had, to forget the magic between us that I could still almost taste even after two years since we’d last seen and spoken to each other.

I closed my eyes and, in an instant, was transported to the night when we’d lain back while up in my roof deck and looked up at the stars together. I fought back tears as I remembered everything else that had happened before that, as well as after it.

Of course I was happy that she’d made it out of the van alive. And I was grateful beyond words that we’d been lucky to have made enough memories together that would stay with me forever. But — it still hurt my heart, my soul, that, in a very real sense, I’d lost her. I was destroyed when things had ended between us abruptly, and I poured myself into the new job that Matt had offered me. I worked feverishly, and non-stop, for two years straight, it seemed. Always, the thought floated to the top of my mind, “She wasn’t dead. But she wasn’t alive, either. At least not to me.”

“So, do you still like the sea?” I heard her voice from somewhere behind me.

I guess I’ve really lost it. I’ m now imagining her voice even. Katy would be so worried if I told her I was hearing her voice.

I shut my eyes and shook my head roughly from side to side, as if trying to wake myself.

I heard her chuckle and then ask, “And you still wear those big pashminas when you go to the beach, huh?”

Okay, I’ve had a long day, a long week, a long month. No … a long year … or two years. For sure, I am overdue for a vacation somewhere. I’ve earned it. I clearly need to go away. Where I can regain my sanity, and stop hearing her voice.

“Someone special told me once, quoting her dad, and who was quoting JFK, that …” it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came…” she added quietly.