He was leaving me, really leaving me, and there was nothing I could do about it. In less than a week, he’d be free of Poxton Beach — of me. But I would never be free of him.

I was getting a crash course in love and loss and I knew in my heart I wouldn’t be able to survive the wreckage without Rhodes to help me find the rest of my missing pieces. But he wasn’t giving me that choice.

I either had to pull myself together on my own or stay broken.

I hated both options.

It was interesting to compare my break-up with Mason to the one I was having with Rhodes. Even though we hadn’t technically been in an official relationship, I felt more for him in two months than I had ever felt with Mason in the two years we’d dated.

Still, it’s like my mind wouldn’t let me pout the way I did with Mason. I could almost hear Rhodes in my head, yelling at me not to wallow, screaming for me to be strong and pick myself up. Move forward. Forget. Leave it behind.

I didn’t try reaching out to Rhodes again. Instead, I threw all of my focus into myself. For two days, I just thought. I would run to think, take an ice bath to think, sit outside by our pool to think, call Willow to think out loud, dream with what little sleep I was getting. I was asking myself all the tough questions I had let myself ignore all summer. What did I want to do next? Where did I want to go? What mattered to me?

In a way, I was avoiding making any moves because Rhodes was here — in Poxton Beach — and so, that’s where I wanted to be. And before I met him, before he was the anchor, I just hadn’t thought about what I truly wanted aside from the fact that I didn’t want to go to Appalachian State and be like everyone else in my class.

So, after swallowing back all the fear and self-doubt, I put in my application to the Savannah College of Art and Design. I didn’t tell Mom or Dale, not that I was talking to them at all anyway, but I did tell Willow, who screamed over video chat for a solid sixty seconds. She was half-screaming because she was excited for me and half-screaming because I wasn’t going to be anywhere near her if I got in. All I could think while we talked was that I really wanted to tell Rhodes. I wanted to see the wide grin spread across his face and watch as his eyes sparkled with pride. I wanted him to pull me in for a long kiss. I wanted him to be there.

But he just wasn’t.

Still, I felt him all around me. A part of me wondered if maybe I would always have that sensation. It was strangely comforting just as much as it was terribly agonizing.

My mom always told me that before I could love anyone else, I’d have to learn to love myself. But I didn’t believe that anymore. I was beginning to realize it takes a special heart — one stronger than our own — loving us for us to realize that maybe there’s something there worth loving, after all. Maybe it was about finding love in the one person who loved you before you had the chance to love yourself.

For me, that someone was William Rhodes.

And I was forever changed by his love, regardless of the fact that I wouldn’t get to keep it.

I couldn’t sit still the night before Rhodes was supposed to leave town.

I had woken up that morning with a sickening weight in my stomach. Looking back, it’s like I could feel what was coming — almost as if I knew that day, July twenty-third, was going to be the last day I would ever be the person I was. Something was brewing, but I didn’t know what.

In my desperate attempt to keep myself busy and not thinking about Rhodes and the fact that he was leaving in less than twenty-four hours, I had decided to watch the last three episodes of Lost. But when the final episode ended, I simply clicked off the television and stared at the dark screen, thinking back to the beginning of the summer.

Dale was right. I shouldn’t have watched it.

Feeling even more lost than before, I strapped on my running sneakers and watch. Mom popped her head into my room just as I was piling my hair into a messy bun on top of my head.

“Going for a run?”

I nodded, pulling my hair tight and checking my watch battery.

“I’m not feeling very well, so I think I’m just going to go to bed.” She waited for me to acknowledge her words. Maybe she wanted me to wish her better. Maybe she just wanted me to understand her “wise” view of the world. I didn’t do either.

She sighed.

“I love you, baby girl. I know you hate me right now, and I wish I could tell you how much that breaks my heart.” Her eyes welled with tears and I felt that familiar sting and tingle in my nose. Mom and I had always been close, and we’d never fought like this before. Still, I couldn’t find it in myself to forgive her without an apology, first. “Just know I’m always here for you. No matter what. And I really do care about your best interest.”

At that last line, I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Well I’m just going to run a couple of miles. I’ll be back soon.”

One single tear dropped straight from her high cheek bone to my floor and she hastily wiped at the trail it left behind. “Goodnight, sweetie.”

I ducked out of my room right behind her. She went left toward the master bedroom and I went right, jogging quickly down the stairs and out into the warm evening air. The sun was beginning to set, streaking the sky with bright, fiery oranges and pinks. Thumbing through my phone for the right playlist, I strapped it to my arm and tapped a few settings on my watch. Then, I ran.

Each step struck every nerve in my body. I felt myself tearing at the seams and being reborn all at once. I was in such an unfamiliar place mentally, the only way I knew how to get out of my head was to get into my body.

So, I focused on each foot hitting the pavement. I tried counting the steps as my watch counted the calories, but when I clicked over to voice mode, every word that left my lips was about Rhodes. Some of what I spoke into my watch made sense, some of it was just a string of broken sentences about memories and feelings I would never understand nor forget. I ran and ran until my chest ached and sweat leaked into my eyes to replace the salt lost in the tears I’d shed. It wasn’t that I was sad, but it wasn’t that I was okay, either. I was stuck in a confusing limbo, a sort of healing purgatory.

When I couldn’t run anymore, I walked. When I could barely walk, I hobbled. Blisters were forming on my heels and my legs burned fiercely, but I kept going. I spilled my thoughts to the watch and my sweat to the road. Finally, at just past eleven, I limped up the drive, into the house, and up the stairs to my room. Sprawling out on the floor, I stared up at the ceiling, but my eyes quickly lost focus.