My heart is pounding like crazy, and not just at the surprise of seeing the last fucking thing I would expect to see right now.

WineBar is staring at us, almost an entire block away. Shit, why does this have to happen during the two minutes that I’m walking home with some guy?

Why me? I want to rage at the universe. FML.

I don’t want to look at Derek, but I nervously glance over for a split second. I look back at Kirk, and now he’s staring at the ground.

Is this for real? Because I’d be more than happy to find out this was all taking place in some alternate universe.

With the barbecue, Kirk never answering my calls, and with the rekindling of his thing with Miranda, I’d assumed the next time I’d see WineBar, it’d be at the fucking wine bar. He would be busy, and he would just brush me off or ignore me totally—that’s how I pictured it, anyway.

But now he’s here, maybe for his bar or something. But from where I’m standing, he looks dejected.

There’s a taxi idling in the street next to him. I have to find out what’s going on.

“Kirk, wait! What are you doing?” I’m screaming loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear, along with several surrounding neighborhoods. I don’t care. I just want WineBar to hear me.

He does hear and halts himself, with his hand on the taxi door. He looks back at me and shrugs. He’s too far away for me to get any kind of read on his expression. He starts getting into the taxi again.

“Nooooooo!” My yelling is super melodramatic, like something from a bad movie, but as I dash down the block toward Kirk, it just springs out of me. It’s like a stress dream where you just can’t get where you’re going, even when it’s right fucking there in front of you.

I’m running so fast that everything’s a blur. I hope that he stays, that he doesn’t just show up for a brief moment before vanishing from my life again.

If only I could talk to WineBar, to find out the truth, to hear it from his own lips, to explain myself...I want all these things, and I’m so close, but I can almost feel it slipping through my fingers.

Like at any minute he’s going to get in the cab and disappear again.

But then I stop, and there’s Kirk, still in the same spot. I want him to say something, to just give some acknowledgment to me, to the present moment. With the party and everything, I need for him to tell me how he feels.

“Hey, Emily.”

That’s a start.

“Hey. What are you doing here? Wait, I mean, I’m happy to see you.”

“I’m...”

Kirk looks down at the ground again. I probably don’t need to tell you that this is not like him. Like at all.

Something’s up, and it’s not good. My hopes of maybe shedding some light on the WineBar situation are evaporating—it’s only getting more elusive.

“I’m just checking in,” Kirk finally continues. “I want to make sure that you’re okay. You know, after the barbecue and that whole situation. It looks like you’re doing okay, though.”

I can’t take it anymore. I want to embrace WineBar tightly, I want to cry, and most importantly, I want to ask him what the fuck is going on.

What’s happening? Why are you checking on me now? This isn’t the next morning!

Why are you suddenly here after not taking my calls?

I also want to say that whatever it is, I forgive you. Please, don’t leave. I want you in my life.

I take a deep breath. While he’s here, I might as well ask him everything and tell him everything. I don’t know when I’ll get this chance again.

Time to put it all out there.

Then I hear Derek’s cross-trainers jogging up behind me.

“Hey, is everything okay?” I can’t fault Derek for asking this, but I wish he would see that this is a private fucking moment.

Kirk takes a brief yet hard look behind my shoulder at Derek.

“No, everything’s fine.”

WineBar looks at me with what feels like maybe one final time, his eyes connecting with mine in a brief, healing moment that makes everything that’s happened disappear, makes everything feel okay—but then it’s not.

Just as quickly, WineBar looks away, at the taxi door, ready to get in.

The moment is over. Lost. Maybe forever.

I can’t get myself to speak or try to stop Kirk in any way. I try to find the words, something to say, to yell out to express what I’m feeling, to change his mind.

“Kirk. Please.” The words sound soft and broken. I don’t know if he even hears them as he shuts the taxi door.

The vehicle pulls away into the empty street. I listen to it leave, the engine accelerating, the sound getting farther away until it’s indistinguishable from the ambient nothingness of this horrible night.

“Whoa. What was that all about?”

I slowly pivot around, trying to collect myself. I look straight at Derek. I try to make eye contact, to gauge what he’s thinking. All I see is a dumbly confused, irritated expression.

“It’s complicated.” That’s a start. Maybe he’ll want to hear about the whole thing. It might help for me to talk about it.

“Yeah, I’ll say. Good luck.”

Then again, maybe not. Derek hightails it down the block, walking fast around the next corner and disappearing.

The street is strangely quiet. It’s a warm night in the middle of a trendy neighborhood, yet there’s not another soul in sight. There’s just the low hum of traffic in the distance, and the sight of a plane far up in the sky, on its way to who knows where.

I feel paralyzed. Alone. I don’t know where to go—I don’t even know what to feel.

I don’t want to keep standing on this stupid street, and I certainly don’t want to go back to the wine bar...that fucking wine bar. Why does it even have to be there?

If it were anywhere else than right by my fucking apartment, my whole life would be much different right now. I could be having fun somewhere, blissfully ignorant of WineBar’s entire existence and everything else that’s happened because of it.

I start walking home again because it seems like the only option I have right now.

Drowsiness starts setting in as I make my way back up the block, probably from all the Cancun-related partying and traveling. And the pitcher of sangria, let’s not forget that.

Sleep, yes, sleep sounds like a decent idea. I want to just fall asleep and forget all the shit that’s happened.

Because then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so fucking badly.