The line for the wine tasting is so long it extends from the bar, out along the glass walls enclosing this area from the rest of the market, and snakes around the glass until it reaches the sidewalk outside. The grand opening of Zucker’s Café & Wine Bar looks like it’s going to be a huge success. After the stress of the past seven weeks, I should be excited for all the preparation to finally be over. But I can’t think of anything else right now except the guy staring at me from where he stands at the front of the line of customers.

He looks a little nervous, with his hands tucked in his pockets and a bashful smile lighting up his boyish good looks. I smile at him as Bella and I walk in and take our place behind the bar. He beams and I shake my head as I wonder how someone can be born with such a perfect smile.

“I’ll take the first person in line,” I say, looking straight at him. He steps forward as Bella takes the customer behind him. “What can I help you with, sir?”

He scratches his beard as he reads the options on the menu board on the wall behind me. “I’ll take a bottle of Lagunitas IPA and”—he cocks an eyebrow and I wait for him to finish—“a date to my brother’s annual Hipster Halloween party next Saturday.”

I raise my eyebrows. “That’s a tall order. Let me get your beer first.” I grab his beer out of the cooler behind me, then I pop the top off and set it down in front of him on top of a cocktail napkin. “That will be $7.50.”

He hands me a ten-dollar bill and tells me to keep the change. “And the party?”

“Who’s going to be there?”

“Just a bunch of people wearing irony as if it didn’t go out of style last year.”

“Irony is so over!”

He laughs at my reference to Portlandia. “Looks like you’ll fit right in.”

I sigh as I look at the impatient line of thirsty patrons waiting behind him. “Okay, but you have to promise not to leave my side. I’m terrible at parties. I’m… way out of practice.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll stick to you like a beard on a hipster.”

He winks at me as he sets off to sit at a small table in the corner. I steal glances at him every few customers and every once in a while I catch him looking in my direction. His presence is making me a little nervous. I keep wondering if either Houston or Troy are going to show up for the grand opening.

I haven’t seen Houston since he brought Hallie’s letter to me seven weeks ago. Troy has been handling the setup of the beer taps. I don’t know if this is because Houston is trying to respect my desire to not see him or because he’s the one who doesn’t want to see me. But seeing Troy six times in the past seven weeks has been more than enough reminders.

Every time Troy walked into the bar, I practically held my breath the entire time he was here. I was just waiting for him to say something about Houston. Sometimes, I’d try to guess what he might say, but that became too painful a game to play. What if Troy broke his silence only to tell me that Houston and his wife were now living happily ever after?

Just imagining this scenario makes me sick with emotional agony. And the nausea only worsens when I realize how deeply I’m still in love with Houston. And how, no matter how toxic things got between us, the good still outweighs the bad in my lovesick recollection.

After three hours and forty minutes without a break in the line of customers, Bella and I are relieved by Benji and Hernando, the only person at the grand opening with actual bartending experience. Bella makes herself a skinny latte and I grab an iced green tea before heading over to join Liam at his table.

“Those are some impressive beer pouring skills,” he remarks.

“It’s all in the wrist.” I sigh as my aching feet tingle with relief when I sit down. “I’m sorry I haven’t been answering your calls.”

“Or texts, but who’s keeping track?” He smiles as he stares at the empty beer bottle on the table. “I figured you had a lot on your mind, and you did respond that one time to tell me you were okay, so I probably should have taken the hint. I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.”

“It’s been a weird seven weeks.”

“Want to talk about it?”

I look up from my iced tea, and the inquisitive expression on his face makes me want to tell him everything, but I don’t want to scare him away. Plus, my coffee break is nowhere near long enough to explain how I fell in love with a boy thirteen years ago and he, along with my best friend, proceeded to smash my heart into a billion pieces. Or how I looked up to my father as a role model most of my life and how, until seven weeks ago, I was unable to comprehend why he’s hardly spoken to me in the past five years. Or how my mother could possibly think I didn’t want to know her suspicions about Hallie. Basically, I don’t have enough time to tell Liam how everyone I’ve ever given my heart to managed to stomp all over it.

“I think that conversation should be saved for a moment when you have about ninety-two hours to spare.”

He chuckles. “I’ll have to check my calendar, but I think I can fit you in next month.”

“Lucky you.” I take another sip from my tea, then I sit back in my wooden chair. “Why do you like me?”

He laughs and I realize how weird that must sound to him.

“I’m serious,” I insist. “I’m a hot mess.”

“That’s probably why I like you,” he replies. “I like my girls like I like my… girls: hot and messy.”

“That’s an amazing analogy.”

“What can I say? When I was in college, I was partnered up with this really smart girl who taught me how to construct the perfect sentence.”

“Really? So what’s the perfect sentence?”

He smiles and leans forward as if he’s about to divulge a secret. “Then, she let it go.”

I don’t know if it was his intention, but these five simple words stir a newfound energy inside me. A sudden awareness that I don’t have to tell Liam anything about Houston. Liam can be my fresh start. All I have to do is let it go.

I smile as I rise from the table. “Sounds like a triumphant last line in a book.”

“Feel free to use it.”

I nod as I turn to leave. “I just might.”

As I walk back to the bar, I glance at Liam over my shoulder, but he’s already out of his chair and heading toward the recycling bins near the coffee prep station. I turn back toward the bar, but something I see out of the corner of my eye makes my heart stop. I whip my head around to get a better look, but no one’s there.

I shake my head in disbelief. A half a second ago Houston was standing right there near the entrance. I can still see the green Barley Legal hoodie and the soft light bouncing off his golden-brown hair. But now he’s gone.

Am I going crazy?

I rush back to the bar before anyone realizes how disturbed I am. Liam leaves the store and I spend the rest of the night trying not to sweat as I slide glass after glass of beer and wine across the bar. Bella and Benji offer to give me a ride when we leave the store at eleven p.m., but I decline their offer and set off on my own.

I don’t mind walking the streets of Goose Hollow late at night. Besides, it gives me a chance to walk off some of the leftover anxiety from seeing Houston’s ghost.

I stroll casually through the misty rain, inhaling deep breaths of cleansing Oregon air as I contemplate how much of the truth I should share with Liam and where this new adventure may take me. Maybe Liam will be the equivalent of Houston’s PTSD therapy. Perhaps he’ll help me forget everything I’ve lost and found.

I was eighteen when I got lost in Houston, and in him I found myself. They say love is just two souls recognizing each other. With Houston and me it was more like two souls staring into a mirror, my left hand aligned with his right, our hearts skipping a beat at the same moment, our lungs choking on the same noxious air, our scars as perfectly aligned as mountains and fault lines. If ever two souls were perfectly right and perfectly wrong for each other, it would be us.

Us.

I guess the story of us ends here.

But Hallie’s story continues. And I won’t rest until I know her truth inside and out.

Right now, all I know is that Hallie was drowning, but she was too afraid to reach for a lifeline. As heartbroken as I am that she didn’t give me the opportunity to understand her, I’m even more grateful to her for loving me enough to try to protect me in her last moments. And for teaching me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned.

You can’t erase love without erasing yourself.

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