Waking up with a woman in your arms is a unique feeling indeed. It’s something they forget to tell you; it’s something you learn to forget. I hadn’t had anyone sleep alongside me since before Gracie came into my life, and I found sharing the space to be intimate, warm, inviting.

As I blinked awake, I allowed my eyes to trace Serena’s body, from her perfect, angelic face, down the crest of her breasts, along her flat tummy, and toward her thighs.

Yet, with a hammering heart, I remembered that she was meant to return to San Francisco that morning. Knowing that the unreality would break soon, I nudged her and kissed her, waking her as softly as I could.

“Hey, baby,” I whispered, watching as her eyelashes fluttered. “Good morning.”

She gave me a small smile and then thrust her hands upward, stretching against me. She tilted her breasts into me, drawing her body close to mine. Reaching forward, she kissed me slowly, drawing her tongue along mine, parting my lips. Again, I felt my cock begin to grow warm with excitement.

But I knew there wasn’t time. Trying to shush my nagging body, I took a deep breath.

“Gracie will be awake soon,” I said, nudging Serena. “We should probably be dressed before then.”

“Right,” she said, bowing her head. The sizzle of excitement we’d shared, waking alongside one another, was beginning to deflate. I watched as she eased her slender legs from the side of the bed and walked slowly toward the bedroom door. The beginning was over.

After peeking out, and seeing no sign of Gracie, she swept toward the couch and donned her clothes. I watched as she did it, marveling at the intimacy of seeing someone get dressed. It was never a particularly beautiful thing, getting dressed, closing yourself in. But Serena did it gracefully, flipping her hair back. When she appeared back in the doorway, she did so confidently, as if she were pretending to be much more fearless, much less lonely.

“I suppose I better get going, anyway,” she told me, her voice falsely bright. “I’ll get Gracie up to say goodbye.”

“She’ll want to walk you down to your cabin,” I told her, getting up from the bed. “But, Serena…” I paused, wanting to tell her everything I felt. Wanting to ensure she knew that we could build space for her in our lives. I’d never allowed a woman to come into mine and Gracie’s existence, and yet—here she was. After a sleepover, in the light of the morning.

“What is it?” Serena asked me, her eyebrows rising high. I heard a tinge in her voice, showing she was holding back tears.

“Nothing,” I murmured, running my fingers through my hair.

Placing my feet on the floor, I turned toward my chest of drawers and drew out a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. A traditional, grubby uniform for a Sunday. I joined Serena in the living room, watching as Gracie skirted from her bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“There you are,” I told her, sliding my hand over her curly blond hair. “Serena’s about to skedaddle. We have to say goodbye.”

Skedaddle. What a stupid word to say, when losing someone I could have loved.

Love? Did I mean it?

It didn’t matter.

Gracie stuck her bottom lip out, looking like a much younger version of herself. She brought her arms over her chest, looking close to a tantrum. “I thought you’d decide to stay with us,” she huffed.

“Baby, we talked about this…” I began, reaching toward her.

But Serena was faster, wrapping her arms around the girl, holding her against her legs. Gracie let a single, gut-wrenching sob into the air.

“I know,” Gracie whispered. “I’m sorry.”

After a long moment of silence, Serena piped up, trying to conceal her sadness.

“Do you think that snake has left yet?”

“We better go check it out,” Gracie said, her voice gaining strength. “Daddy, you know how to kill rattlesnakes, don’t you?”

I told her I did.

To assure her, I reached for a large shovel, which I held firmly in my right hand as we began our trek through the forest.

It was a gorgeous day, with the sunlight streaming in between the trees and lighting up Serena’s cheeks. She whistled quietly, asking the odd question. “What’s autumn like up here?” and “Do you ever get snow?” I could sense she was asking “stranger” questions, trying to reaffirm that there was a line between us. That she wouldn’t cross it again.

When we reached her cabin, I darted inside to hunt for signs of the rattlesnake. Bounding through it, I felt the floorboards creak beneath me. As I glanced down, I realized that part of the floor had begun to mold—due to lack of upkeep from the owners (an older couple I’d only met a few times). I felt that this was a dramatic metaphor: that even the place Serena had been staying in was decaying, telling her it was time to go home.

I heard a creak at the screen door. Looking back, I watched as Serena ducked her head in. She gave me a soft smile, before asking, “Do you think I can pick up my stuff?”

“No sign of him anywhere,” I told her, lifting her suitcase high, ensuring the snake wasn’t hiding away. “I think he’s gone.”

Serena entered, with Gracie scampering behind. Her blond hair bounced as she skipped. She leaped into me and gripped me around my waist. “Are you sure she needs to go?”

I eyed Serena as she busied herself, cleaning the countertop and tossing her things into the suitcase. She seemed to be working hurriedly, trying to avoid my eyes. I sensed there were a million things between us. A million words we were never allowed to say. As the minutes ticked along, we became more and more like strangers.

After she’d zipped up the suitcase and slotted it into the trunk of her car, along with the rest of her things, she stood at the porch, fiddling with her hair anxiously. After stuttering, she began. “I guess this is it.”

“You’ll make good time at this hour,” I said, hearing words that people were meant to say escape my mouth. Sensible talk. My thoughts murmured around my head, unable to escape.

“Wait.” Gracie’s voice was high-pitched and stark, compared to our adult ones. She reached into her small pocket, drawing out a small, white rectangular piece of paper. Frowning, I realized I knew what it was almost instantly: a polaroid photo.

“Gracie, when did you…?” I asked her, incredulous.

Since she’d been about four years old, I’d been teaching her to use the camera, training her artistic eye. I’d been hanging the photos she’d taken along the walls, directly beside the ones I’d taken over the years.

There was such a gorgeous art to taking a polaroid. No matter how unbelievable the situation, after you snapped a photo, it became real. And it would be real in the most unapologetic way. It would be blurry, wild, crooked—whatever. And so often, during her younger years, Gracie hadn’t been able to take anything except blurry photos, things that were inarticulate, without much artistry. I knew she’d grow into it.

But there, in her hand, she held a picture that I didn’t know she’d snapped, showing Serena and me from the night before. We were huddled together on the couch, our knees nearly touching. Serena was laughing at something I had said. Her eyes were alight, and her hands clutched her mug of cocoa.

The photo was slightly crooked, but not blurry. I looked handsome and alive, my skin tanned and my shoulders wide. I hadn’t seen a photograph of myself in a long time. I had hardly looked in the mirror in years.

“I wanted you to have this,” Gracie said, speaking to Serena. “So you can remember us.”

Serena reached for the photo. Her eyes twinkled with tears. After bringing it higher into the air, realizing what it captured—our budding love, something we were both throwing away—her lips parted. I sensed she was on the verge of saying something big. But I stepped forward, placing my hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

“A memento of our week together,” I told her, hugging her lightly. I made sure our bodies didn’t touch, that it was purely our arms patting backs. That we didn’t ignite more emotions, during this terrible, passionate time. Nothing could last forever. We both knew it.

“I’ll keep it with me always,” Serena told Gracie, now unable to look me in the eye.

After hugging Gracie tightly, kissing the top of her head, Serena ducked into the driver’s seat of her car and cranked up the engine. With a final, bleary-eyed wave, she drove toward the gravel road, then began her slow descent back into civilization.

I sensed her leaving my life, falling away. I could almost feel my life grow even and right-angled again. I began to remember things I needed to do around the house. I remembered that I needed to help Gracie with her penmanship that night, before school. I needed to think about the days, weeks, and months ahead, gearing up to winter.

I had to fill the space Serena had taken up in my brain.

Placing my hand on Gracie’s shoulder, I led her back toward our tiny cabin, alone. Her head was turned down; the light in her eyes continued to quiver with sadness.

“Sometimes,” I told Gracie, my voice low, “we only know people for a very small, blip of time. And sometimes those people mean the most to us.”

“She should have stayed,” Gracie said, not playing along with my game. “She should be here. With us.”

When we reached the cabin, I watched as Gracie darted into her bedroom, slamming the door closed behind her. I stood on the back porch, staring out over the lake. Clouds had begun to roll in over the top of us, growing heavy with rain. This was a shift in time, another era. The era without Serena.

Already, her laugh was a mere memory. The way she’d flipped her hair—it would be something I would forget, very soon. The mannerisms we remember about people, the things they say, it all falls away and becomes like a shadow. I knew that, and had always known it.

It was nearing lunch. I’d have to feed Gracie, even if she didn’t want to look at me. I trudged back into the kitchen, my shoulders hanging low.

Outside, a crackle of lightning swept across the darkening sky. Nature was taking its course on all of us. Serena was not coming back.