Mara left me. I’d now faced one of my biggest fears twice and lived to tell the tale. Not that you could call my current state living. I’d stopped going home, instead slept on the couch in the office. Even Penny, who feared sharing her opinions with me, told me I needed get myself together.

They didn’t understand. The woman I’d loved for over a decade just packed up and left without a word.

Well, she’d mailed a letter the day she departed, and it sat unopened on my desk. I hadn’t gotten balls enough to read it.

The letter had become a little dingy around the corners from my handling it for the past three weeks.

I knew I pushed her away. Replaying everything in my mind on a loop, I could see me screwing things up and pushing her, only to have her finally push me back. Over and over, I watched in my head.

In my anger, I never saw her tears. I never saw her embarrassment of me. I never saw the way she pleaded with me to listen.

It came down to me being a dick, and her leaving accordingly. I deserved this life now. How many times does a man get a second chance with the girl of his dreams only to screw it up?

I cleaned up, exited to the bar, and started organizing glasses by height and wetness. Not a very efficient mechanism for cleaning, but it kept me busy, and a busy Murphy meant I didn’t go off making stupid decisions.

The bar door slammed shut, and a lean, mid-forties blonde lady in a black business suit took a seat at the bar.

“Can I help you?”

“Just a water please. Are you the owner?”

I nodded, plunked a glass of ice on the counter, and filled it from the spout. She took it before I could put a napkin down. “I actually came to see you.”

I tilted my head to get a better look at her. For some reason, the last few weeks, I felt older, and my eyes and body responded accordingly with aches and pains, blurry vision, fuzzy hearing. “What do you want?”

I internally winced at the gruffness in my tone. She didn’t seem to notice and flipped open a folder on the counter. “We have an offer to buy this place. You could be a very rich man, Mr. Wilcox.”

“Why would anyone want to buy a bar in a crap hole town like this one?”

She hedged with a cute little shrug probably practiced over years of wheeling and dealing people and their properties.

“When you get an answer to that question, maybe I’ll consider it.”

Suddenly, she seemed more open to talk, flipping the pages in the packet she laid on the counter. “The buyer is interested because this is a profitable route for the truck driving industry. Turning your bar into a restaurant is smart business sense, especially with the attached motel. Which we already acquired.” She made a circle motion with her hand. “We like to keep things in the family.”

I let her statement go. “And how much are they offering?”

She preferred the packet again. “It’s all right here. You can read it for yourself.”

I leaned into the counter and caught a whiff of her perfume, something floral and likely French. She didn’t smell like Mara’s clean soap.

She leaned down too, putting her assets on display above the low neckline of here camisole. “If you wanted, we could go somewhere more private.”

All my brain said was: not Mara.

While this lady was considerably older than me, there was something attractive about her.

Again. Not Mara.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m going to decline.”

“The deal?” She surged up from the stool.

“I’ll think about the deal. You can come back tomorrow and ask me then.”

Relief sunk deep into her face, and she sat back down. More relieved to have saved the deal than to have been rejected. Interesting business model.

I took the packet to the other end of the bar so I could think outside of her cloud of perfume. She left her business card on the bar and exited the way she came a few minutes after I vacated her presence.

I scanned the pages. They wanted to offer me two million dollars for my dumpy bar. It seemed obscene and not enough all at once.

I sat on the stool in the corner and stared at the empty room. Business had been down for a while, and every time I walked in the door, I thought of Mara. She haunted me by her absence.

I picked up the pen attached and scrawled my illegible signature on the line. Then I grabbed the keys, her card, Mara’s letter, a few things from the back, and left out the front door. Real estate lady sat in her Mercedes and climbed out when I approached. I tossed her the keys, the paperwork, and went straight to my truck.

Would I regret this tomorrow? Probably, but for now, something like hope lit inside my chest. I sat in my truck and opened her letter.

Her tiny cursive in long even lines on thick white paper. She poured out the details of how she felt about me, and how much I’d hurt her by assuming she’d take her own life.

I scanned the page three or four times. What had made me think she was going to kill herself.

The line flashed in my head. See you on the other side.

The words felt familiar. I headed home and continued reading on my couch. It took me a long time before I got up, snagged my high school yearbook off the shelf, and found her entry on the last page in the far bottom corner.

We’ll be adults soon. Don’t let the man get you down.

See you on the other side,

Mara

It hit me all over again, and I folded myself on the couch. She’d lost her memories of us and clung to one she thought meant something from before. It did. Her message had finally given me the courage to actually talk to her. Maybe she’d known that too.

Now, I’d blown my chances for good.

Or had I?

I sat up on the couch and checked the postmark on her envelope. Heartsville. About three miles up the road.

If I went after her, would I regret it? She might throw me back under the bus, where I admittedly deserved to stay. I didn’t let myself think about it too long. I packed a bag and headed to my truck at a jog. The Heartsville post office also housed the bus station. Maybe they could tell me where to find her.

I pulled up and parked quickly, barely getting in the door before they locked it. The lady in the ticket booth appeared to be in her nineties, and I had to yell to get through the glass pane.

“I’m looking for a woman who might have been here a few weeks ago. She has short hair, a scar on her head.”

The woman smiled broadly and stuffed a piece of paper under the window. It read Millennium.

If she headed toward Millennium, I was in for a drive. Ten hours at least. I waved at the woman and backed out the door. Ten long hours to think about all the ways I screwed this up and all the ways I’d make it up to her if she’d let me.

I drove straight through until two in the morning and parked outside the bus terminal unit. It opened at 5 a.m. On only a few hours of uncomfortable sleep, I probably looked like a bum entered the building. I talked to every ticketing agent available and asked about Mara. No one remembers seeing her. And they likely wouldn’t, being the biggest bus hub in the area.

I spun in circles until I got back to my truck. For the nine-hundredth time, I tried to text her cell phone number. No answer and no read receipt either.

No phone calls. There was a creeper line I refused to cross. She left. She didn’t want me back. Finding her to plead my side of the story was one thing. Stalking the women via her phone was another.

I tossed the device on the seat next to me and found the nearest hotel which didn’t appear to house rats. The night caught up to me in a haze, and I succumbed to a dreamless sleep.

When I woke, the bright light beat through the partially closed curtains. My entire body ached from the drive and from not having moved from one spot the entire time slept.

A knock brought me out of the daze, and a short yell of housekeeping altered me to a woman entering. “No thanks,” I called, and she retreated easily.

I could sleep for another day, go home, and see if I could get my bar back. I could run off to Peru, or California. While I’d never considered myself outside of our hometown, the prospect of freedom intrigued me. If only Mara were there to share it with me.

I didn’t do pity parties. Well, at least this week, I was trying to go straight.

Instead of wallowing, I hauled myself in the shower, and even there, I kept thinking about her. So many regrets. Would this be my life from now on? Turning thirty and spending all my time mourning the one who got away?

It could be, unless I made it more interesting.

Once I dressed, I went back to my truck and started driving west. Along the way, I stopped at any place that looked good or fascinating. Taking pictures on my phone. If I ever got the chance to see her again, I wanted to show her…if I could find myself after losing her, then she could find herself again too.

For the next year, I travelled back and forth across the mid-west, staying in hotels, eating bad food, running outside when the weather permitted to help stave off the effects of an awful diet and long driving stints. Without the bar to keep me in shape, I needed to make an actual effort toward health.

On the road, many women offered me hotel room keys with a drink and a smile. Mostly older, married women. And still my brain refused to consider anyone but her.

Weeks began to merge together, and all I seemed to do was eat, sleep, run, and read. Anything I could carry in my pocket while I wandered little town after little town. I told myself I wasn’t looking for her. Over and over, I repeated it in my head, all the while scanning the horizon for black leather and beat up boots. Even in one-hundred-degree heat.

Once the urge to wander settled, I sat at my worn out map I acquired in Millennium. I kept it in my glove box and used it to find my way instead of my phone’s GPS. I circled the paper with my finger and closed my eyes before laying it down. A spot with a name: Ridgley Pines.

It sounded like a soap opera name, but the map gods spoke, so I heeded. The drive would take about seven hours. Maybe this time, I’d find a reason to stay.

The town looked exactly how I imagined on the trip. Matching brick, pruned and groomed trees everywhere. A movie set was less well tended than this sleepy little town apparently known for its antiques.

I parked in a lot near a hotel and stretched my legs as best I could. Once I showered and slept, another run would help ease the ache in my thighs from being stuck up under the steering wheel so long. I hated the driving most when it came to the longer treks.

I couldn’t see myself stopping anytime soon. The hotel had plenty of room, and I booked a suite for a week. Plenty of time to see what Ridgley Pines had to offer a tourist.

As I walked down the sidewalks, I noted all the couples. Two by two everywhere I went. This had to be some Stepford thing. It creeped me out, and I hightailed it over to the farmers market to get some food before returning to my hotel to hide.

The fruit stands were great. Fresh, locally grown, and organic. I stopped at the exit and stared into space. What kind of man had I become? Someone worried about their mile time and fresh organic fruit. Damn.

Maybe I did need to go home. At the same time, I’d never had a hobby outside the bar, and running fell into the exercise/hobby category. Runner’s needed to eat healthy. I tried to reason with myself, trading in lies to keep from breaking down from one day to the next. Keep my eye on the road and don’t look back, the motto I adopted and attempted to stick to.

I went straight to my truck, avoiding the sundress wearing, husband wielding moms eyeing me from across the street. The lock stuck, and I cursed this old beast. She had 300,000 miles on her. In actual reality, I probably needed to get a newer model. Something with better gas mileage. It seemed obscene to junk her while she still sputtered to life at the turn of the key. The rust in the door locks…an entirely different story.

As I fought with the lock, trying not to break the key, a tingle went down my spine. I glanced up and looked around. Nothing out of the ordinary, but the lock gave in, and I threw myself in the truck and locked the door.

I wasn’t a superstitious man, but I also didn’t take unnecessary chances.