When the day came for me to load up my car with my possessions, I realized I possessed little more than I had when I had arrived.

A laptop, some better clothes, and a few framed photographs of Flynn I had sneakily taken over the course of our relationship.

And my sculptures.

They too had grown in number. I had left with only the sand castle. But Flynn had added to my collection steadily. He would send them in the mail with almost psychic precision. As if knowing exactly when I needed them.

He was sort of great like that.

Three days ago I had stood in the middle of my barren living room, boxing up the last of my belongings. The tiny apartment that I had lived in for the year had never felt like a home. Neither had the dorm before it. So it wasn’t the great accommodation that I would miss.

“You’re moving back to West Virginia, huh.” I looked over at a cute girl with brown hair and offset eyes. She was making a face that looked a lot like disgust.

Nadine Hardesty was a friend. An honest to goodness, text-at-least-twice-a-week, grab-coffee-after-class, drags-me-to-bars-I don’t-want-to-go-to-friend. She was a strange combination of perky and dark sense of humor. She would listen to Taylor Swift and then later watch The Evil Dead. She was an odd chick.

She had lived down the hall from me that first, uncomfortable year at school. When the old Ellie and the potential new one were fighting for supremacy. She had been pushy and direct and I liked her against my better judgment.

She was also an English major and it was over hours of dissecting Chaucer and Falkner that I finally figured I wasn’t going to get rid of her anytime soon.

She had been in complete disbelief when I said I was moving back to West Virginia. “Are you going to work in a coal mine?” she had asked, aghast when I had explained my plan. She had also graduated early, saying she was totally done with the college scene. Her parents, who were more than happy to finance their daughter’s quest to “find herself,” were chipping in to help her pay for a place in New York City.

“Nah. They shut it down years ago,” I had answered her without a trace of humor.

“What sort of job can you possible get there?” she had asked, pointing at her computer screen that showed a map of a town I knew all too well. She was right of course. Unless I had desires to pour coffee or wait tables, there weren’t many options. I was going to try really hard to avoid being crowned the new local beer wench.

I had shrugged. “I’ll find something.” Even I hadn’t really believed me.

“I think we need to re-evaluate your mental coherence,” Nadine had muttered.

“Yeah, I’m moving back to West Virginia,” I had said with a little more vehemence than I had intended. But she was only exacerbating my own misgivings.

On that final day as she helped me load my final boxes into my trunk, and put in one last ditched effort to get me to change my mind.

“I really wish you’d reconsider coming to New York with me. We could get a trendy place that is way too expensive with barely any room. We’ll sleep on crappy air mattresses and have to walk up too many flights of stairs. We can live off ramen noodles and drink great coffee for five bucks a cup while wondering if we’ll get shanked on the subway late at night. It’ll be great,” she laughed, already knowing my answer.

A part of me wanted to say fuck it and go. It was just wild and crazy enough to be appealing. I had worked hard to get my degree. It felt like such a waste to throw it away on a hick town in the middle of nowhere.

The thought of living in New York sounded like an incredible dream. One that I could almost envision being my own.

But then I’d be lying to myself.

Because in the end there was only dream worth having.

And it lived two hundred and sixty-nine miles away.

He had made sure I knew exactly how many miles separated us.

“It sounds awesome, Nadine. Seriously.” I slammed the trunk closed and leaned against the side of the newish Toyota I had been forced to get after my old clunker had called it quits. I sort of missed the comfortable familiarity of the banging engine and smoke billowing out of the exhaust pipe, and the adrenaline rush that only came from driving up a hill and not being entirely sure the brakes wouldn’t give out.

“Then come! I just don’t see why you’re so dead set on going back there. I thought you hated that place. I know Flynn’s great and all, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on what you want,” Nadine complained.

She was high on her fem lib rationale, not understanding why it was so important for me to go back to Flynn. He hadn’t made the best impression when he had come out for my graduation. He had been his typical rude and bluntly honest self. He had asked her whether she was aware that one of her eyes was bigger than the other and then proceeded to stare at her the entire time.

But I refused to justify my love for Flynn. Ever. Nor would I explain that while the thought of living in an exciting city was appealing, I could never turn my back on the only person who had ever offered me unconditional love and support. If it weren’t for Flynn Hendrick, I wouldn’t be standing there having the discussion in the first place.

“I’m not giving up anything. I’m getting everything I’ve ever wanted,” was all I told her. She didn’t seem happy about it and definitely more than a little confounded by my refusal but I really didn’t care.

Even if there was a twinge of bitterness at the thought of returning to Wellston, it was drowned out by the overwhelming desire to be with him.