ELLIOT

I had been up pacing the floors all night long. Old memories I’d tried to wipe out of my head from long ago were attacking me. I honestly thought I’d purged her for good.

For some reason, last night, every time I closed my eyes, she appeared in my dreams. A mass of untamed, dark curls hiding part of her face and cascading over her shoulders, the sweat beading over her neck and into the valley between her breasts, making her skin glisten in the moonlight. Making love for hours at a time, she made tiny moans and gasps as my fingers explored every inch of her flesh.

I couldn’t shake the vision. After all these years, thoughts of her still made my body tremble and my dick rock hard. Finally, at six in the morning, I got up and grabbed my surfboard and headed down to the cove. The winds were up, and the ocean was wild as the waves crashed the shoreline. They would taunt me today and I wanted that. I needed to fight something and surfing the bitch of the Pacific would do just fine. I needed to use all my strength, and I wanted the ocean to exhaust me. I wanted to forget my dreams and forget Emily Golden.

After seven years I was fighting a losing battle. I had not seen her once in all those years, except the tortured picture I carried in my head and those hanging upon my bedroom wall to remind me of how I walked away.

I could have stalked her. I stayed in Phoenix for almost a year until I couldn’t stand it anymore and moved here to La Jolla, the place we’d both dreamed of moving.

I’d gone back a few times over the years. It would have been easy to drive by her house or call her, but fear stopped me. What if she was with someone? Married, a mom, happy? It would have broken me once and for all. At least not knowing gave me some kind of twisted hope.

I could have kept up with her on Facebook, but in a moment of anger, I blocked her. When I looked back I wasn’t sure why I did that. I was the one who left her. I couldn’t fight her demons or her fears any longer. Her insecurities that I was only temporary, because to Emily, life and everything in it was temporary and unjust. I was so afraid one day she would leave, just up and walk out. So I left first. It was the biggest mistake of my life.

Now I dreamed about her and created stories that made her come to life on paper. I rewrote the scenario a thousand different ways. A little piece of Emily was in every book I wrote.

I hoped she read them and recognized herself, and I prayed she still felt something. I was pathetic. After all this time, she still dominated my thoughts.

The water had a chilly bite to it, but my body was hot as I pushed myself, riding the waves into the beach over and over again, beating myself up. Every time the bitch tossed me in, I paddled back out and did it again, begging the universe to purge Emily from my soul. I’d gotten good at it—the surfing part, not the purging. When I finally quit, I was exhausted and crawled up onto the beach to watch the others.

An old man walked over to me and dropped to the sand. I saw him out here a lot, surfing and walking the beach. His hair was so bleached from the sun that it was almost white. His face and body were tanned and weathered. The lines in his face were deep canyons from a life outdoors. His arms and legs were solid from his years on his board.

“Still running from your own mind?” he asked, his voice raspy from a nicotine habit spanning a lifetime.

I nodded.

“Has to be a woman.”

I simply nodded again. There was no need to speak as he seemed to know the truth.

“Has anyone ever told you that those demons never go away? That once she has herself deep in your heart, she will always be there driving you crazy until you do something about it?”

I looked over at him. Am I that easy to read? I wondered.

He just chuckled at me with a knowing smile.

“I’ve been there. I understand what I see. I recognize the obsession.”

He reached over to the old canvas pack he had left on the beach. Pulling out a pack of smokes and a lighter, he placed a cigarette to his lips and lit it in one fluid, practiced motion. He exhaled slowly and offered me the pack. I helped myself to one. I rarely ever smoked anymore, but for some reason, I wanted one now.

“The name is Jake.” The stranger told me. “I’ve seen you out here abusing yourself on that pretty board of yours for a long time now. Always alone and deep in thought.”

Again I nodded. I wasn’t sure what to say to him, as I really didn’t even comprehend what I was doing myself most of the time.

“I figured it was a woman. Seems like it’s always a woman when a man seems so lost.”

“It’s … it’s been almost seven years.” I surprised myself by answering him.

“That’s a long time … where is she?” he asked.

“Back in Phoenix where I left her. At least she was. She could have moved on by now.”

He didn’t say anything. He just sat there smoking, thinking.

“Have you ever thought about going back and getting her? Maybe she’s just as lost as you are?”

“It's not that simple.”

We watched the other surfers dancing high upon the water, some of them wiping out in the ocean and others conquering it. Minutes went by as I thought about his question. There really was no easy answer. I was afraid Emily would slam the door in my face, that she hated me as much as I hated myself. Or worse yet, she had moved on and forgotten me. Forgotten what we shared. It was fear keeping me from trying, even though all I wanted was to have my arms around her again.

Jake broke into my thoughts.

“Sometimes it is that simple. At least then you would know for sure instead of being afraid of the what ifs.”

“Have you ever been too afraid to find out for sure?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I have been, but I think it’s worse never knowing the truth. You don’t know unless you try, and then, if it isn’t meant to be, at least in time, you move on. I lived with the wondering what ifs. I did it way too long. When I finally got the courage, it was too late.”

“She said no?”

“She died.”

His answer silenced me, sending a ripple of pain straight into my soul. The thought of something happening to Emily before I could get my damned courage up was terrifying. My mind raced with all kinds of scenarios. The fear must have been apparent on my face because Jake quickly jumped in and grabbed my arm.

“I didn’t say that to scare you. I told you because you asked. Don’t let fear stop you. If you love her, go after her. A lot of things can change in seven years. People grow and they look back and have regrets. If you still love her after all this time, maybe you’re supposed to go and find her. The world is a crazy place. People come and go in our lives, but sometimes you get lucky and a second chance steps in front of you. Only a fool ignores that.”

I watched this stranger sitting next to me. His sun-bleached shorts, his tattered flip-flops. Some would have called him a beach bum as he didn’t appear to have much, just his backpack and his board. Yet as his words sunk in, I realized this stranger had wisdom and insight. He had heart and he saw something in me he recognized.

His words gave me hope and made me think.

Jake finished his smoke, grounding the butt of it into the sand and then disposing it into the nearby can. He threw his pack over his shoulder and picked up his board. Turning to me, he waved and headed back up the path to the street. He turned once more.

“Just think about it, but don’t take too long. Life has a way of slipping away before we know it.”

I spent another hour watching the water and contemplating. Memories flooded me as they had the night before. Even the arguments we had made me miss her. Here I was, a bestselling author, a house on the beach, success in every way I could ever dream of. And I would give it all up just to have Emily back in my life. Nothing else mattered anymore. It was no longer a question of what to do—it was when and how. The what I already knew.

I needed to make a plan. I needed Emily Golden. And I needed to make her understand that we belonged together.