Another series of honks. Another car with college boys hanging out the windows.

I should have called a Lyft, but by the time I was calm enough to think, I was only half a mile from Triple Pier, and I wanted to see it.

We—the youths of Longview—called it Triple Pier because it’s where we went to mess around. The “Triple” refers to third base, or at least it did when I was younger.

Its real name is Clayton Pier, named after Halford Clayton, Longview’s second most-important son. Halford made a fortune in the first half of the twentieth century with the second-largest chain of vacuum stores in the southeast. He wanted to give back to the town where it all began, so he donated two million dollars to the construction of a pier.

When Clayton Pier opened in 1953, it was the seventh-longest pier in America, and it remained a big draw until about twenty years ago, when some sort of engineering problem caused a chunk of it near the middle to collapse.

The pier was condemned by the state, but it hasn’t been torn down; the city and the Longview Historical Society immediately sued, and two decades later, they’re still hashing it out.

I remember coming to the pier as a kid, when it was still open. It’s as wide as three lanes of traffic, and it was filled with all kinds of fun, family-friendly things: food stands, balloons, clowns, caricaturists.

I had a different kind of fun here in high school, but I haven’t been back since…the summer after my sophomore year of college? I’ve driven by a few times, but it’s been that long since I stood where I’m standing right now.

It still looks the same: ghostly, and long. It juts into the gulf in a straight line that in the night seems to go on forever.

There’s a ten-foot-tall, chain-link fence that spans the width of the pier’s mouth. There are also several large, prominent warning signs. These things have been here for twenty years. It’s still super easy to jump over the rail on the pier’s side and walk the length of it.

Which is exactly what I feel like doing.

I hop over the rail and move quickly from the fence, like I’m sixteen and terrified of getting caught.

I slow my pace, and soon I’m swept up in memories. The warm breeze and the steadily breaking waves remind me of thousands of other nights, some of them spent on this pier.

I’m happy to see the kids are still making memories here. I spy one young couple tucked into a corner where the thick, concrete rail meets a bathroom. I spot a second behind a bench. I try not to let my eyes linger, and I try not to feel stupid. They’re not wondering what kind of weird thirty-four-year-old is walking the pier alone at night. Because it’s dark, and they can’t tell I’m thirty-four, and they’re into what they’re doing.

And that—that I definitely remember. Coming here with Dylan Preston. He’s an orthodontist in Tampa now, but in high school he was our class idol. He used Elmer’s Glue to spike up his hair because he wanted to be like the boys on the WB.

I wonder what Tripp would have been like, if we’d gone to school together.

It’s a pointless thought. Just as pointless as wondering what other Bobbys are doing right now.

However, since there are probably other Bobbys walking slowly down this dark and slightly-creepier-than-I-remembered pier with me, I’m going to talk to them.

“What’s the plan, Bobbys?”

My voice sounds loud and desperate, and I shiver. It occurs to me that the other Bobbys—parallel universe Bobbys—probably said the exact same thing exactly when I did, or a moment after, or a moment before.

At first the thought creeps me out, but then I decide I like it. We’re a sisterhood of Bobbys. We’re all on this pier right now, together, and we’re all wondering what to do, and we’re all aware that there are other Bobbys, and I’m getting goosebumps, but the good kind.

We’re going to figure it out. And I think we should start by putting things in perspective.

Mom—she cares, she loves us, but she married Dad when she was twenty-three. Of course she thinks our lives are going nowhere. When she was our age, she had two kids. Also, she’s always been the queen of overreacting. Of course they rushed home. Remember when she called an ambulance because we sprained our ankle playing soccer?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the time we’ve spent with Tripp. We had fun—lots of it. And if we want to keep spending time with Tripp, there’s nothing wrong with that.

The problem is that we’re catching the feels.

I am, at least.

I was the same way with Kevin: instantly smitten. He was a few years older than me, and from Seattle, and I thought he was charming and sophisticated. I imagined us living in Fraiser’s apartment in the city, and going to cocktail parties and museum openings and eating at a different restaurant every night. And our actual life wasn’t too different from that. Except the part I didn’t see coming.

If it didn’t work out with Kevin, my husband—if even he didn’t stick it out with me—why would I think Tripp would? He’s…he’s hot. Not just his body, although, yes, definitely. But his everything. His humor. His attitude. His life. He’s basically a celebrity. He’s got hot friends. They do hot things.

What we have, it’s not sustainable. I think there’s a decent chance he has feelings for me. But his life is going to parties and posting on Instagram, selling out bathing suits and partying with drug dealers. That’s his life, and it’s not mine. Of course, I don’t know what my life is…

The moon is small tonight, but there are lots of stars. To my right are two miles of Three Mile Beach, and another four of five miles of state beach. To my left is another mile of beach before the first of the hotels—and on this end, they’re the older, smaller places. Meaning: I’m at the best star-gazing spot in town.

One thing that is nice about Longview, compared to Seattle, is the night sky. I’m trying to enjoy it.

I’m close to the halfway point on the pier, and I can see the hole now. It’s about the size of two school buses, and jagged like a wound. One of the pier’s support columns collapsed, the hole opened up, and Jared Fischer, a Longview native and recent graduate of the Tampa College of Clowns and Balloon Artistry, fell to his death.

I walk around the hole, giving it as much space as possible—the way I used to.

Thinking about the way things used to be brings me back to that dangerous place where I think longingly about my life with Kevin.

Except I don’t think longingly about Kevin anymore. I don’t have feelings for him the way I used to. It would be impossible for me to. I’m “over” him. But I miss the certainty I had, and I miss something I can’t get back. Something that isn’t Kevin, but something that Kevin took with him. Or someone—me. Who I was before him. Who I would have been without him.

I’m thirty-four. Thirty-four years old. I’m—in six months I’ll be thirty-five, and then, a year after that, thirty-six. I mean, I’m practically forty. I spent eight years with Kevin. Dating or married. Eight years. Almost a fourth of my life. And I can’t help but feel like it was a waste.

How am I supposed to make meaning out of any of this? Our life together, how it ended…If there had been kids, maybe I could at least tell myself that something good came out of our marriage, but as it is, what was the point?

Also, what on earth do I do now? I thought my life with Kevin would be my life forever. My mind had pruned all the branches of possibility, and suddenly I’m in a forest again. Or suddenly I was in a forest a year ago. Our divorce was final seven months ago, I moved home six, and I haven’t made my way out yet, I don’t think.

I’m starting over, and Tripp was right—maybe I’m lucky I don’t have kids, but dammit, maybe I want kids? I used to want them, and then I thought what I wanted was Kevin, so I didn’t even think about kids, and now? I have no idea.

What kind of career do I want? Where do I want to live? Where do I want to be in five years? Or ten?

It’s overwhelming. Completely overwhelming.

Even the small things, like what do I like to do with my time? What hobbies am I interested in? Television shows, music, movies—all things I did with Kevin. Sure, I had shows he didn’t watch, and I listened to music he didn’t listen to, and I went to see movies with my girlfriends that he rolled his eyes at. But most of the things I did—wine tastings and ski weekends with friends and trying a new beer every Saturday—I did with Kevin.

The more I think about it, the more upset I get. I still don’t understand what wasn’t enough for him. Our whole lives revolved around him. I’ve never understood, and he didn’t even try to give me an explanation.

“The heart wants what it wants.” That was his idea of an explanation.

Fuck you, asshole.

And fuck me.

I think immediately of Tripp. It’s true I’m older, and maybe we’re at different places in our lives, but…truthfully? He makes me feel good. Wanted. When I’m with him, I feel kinder. Funnier. Happier. Maybe he drinks too much sometimes, and yeah, he’s a fan of marijuana, but he’s also successful in his own right. Even during our fight earlier, he never made me feel like Kevin did: unimportant.

Of course, if I couldn’t even keep Kevin’s attention, how could I ever keep Tripp interested for a longer haul? He’s what my mom would call the bachelor type. He doesn’t want something serious with me…does he?

I’m at the end of the pier. The gulf is dark and moody beneath me, and I try not to shiver when I glance back and see how far I am from Beach Boulevard.

There are three coin-operated sets of binoculars at the end. The right one used to be rigged…ah, it still is. Someone jammed it so you don’t need quarters. I step up to it and peer through the lenses.

I don’t see anything, except Rubble Island.

It’s maybe a hundred feet off the end of the pier. A couple of years after the pier collapsed, a big storm surge washed the rubble out, into a pile. It juts out of the water sometimes during low tide. And people still run into it on occasion, usually on jet skis.

When I was younger I used to sit on the thick rail at this end of the pier and dangle my feet over the water.

I content myself with leaning on it tonight….

I’m chilly in my bathing suit and shorts. Again, I feel a surge of shame. Ridiculousness. Jumping out of Tripp’s car like I did. Running from my parents’ house. I should be less emotional. But…I’m not. And hell, maybe I shouldn’t be. Maybe I just need to be the way I am and try to…I don’t know. Move forward. People get through issues worse than divorce all the time. So I can do it. I can. I just need to change my outlook from wondering if things will get better to believing that they will. And I can do that.

I blink, and I see a boat. No, two boats. God, I must have zoned out, because I didn’t see these guys coming until now, and they’re close. Like, too close. A hundred yards to my right, maybe, and moving fast.

Directly toward the pier.

I back up slowly, not believing what I’m seeing, and before I realize it, there’s a boat like six seconds from crashing into Triple Pier right where I’m standing.

Things slow down like an action movie. I see someone leap from the boat that’s speeding toward me. I turn and run, but I’m only moving at half speed. I get six, maybe seven steps before I feel the impact of the crash vibrate up my legs. I stumble and fall, and I hear the screeching crunch of fiberglass or aluminum.

I pick myself up and scramble a few dozen feet before turning around to survey the damage. Which doesn’t seem that great, given the magnitude of the crash.

Unlike movies, there’s no fireball. Although I do see smoke. And Triple Pier is clearly still standing. Although there’s no way I’m going to investigate. I stick to the left side and run back toward the beach. When I get to the end of the pier, I look over the rail and to my right. I can see the boat that crashed, pieces of it bobbing up and down.

I see the second boat take form in shadow, drifting slowly, maybe stopped, and then a yellow cone of light—a spotlight pointed at the water—at someone swimming. I guess the guy who leaped off the crashing boat. As he swims to this second boat, the spotlight moves to the wreckage, and the bridge’s underbelly. It does a sweep, and jerks to a stop on me.

I shade my eyes with my arm and wait for the light to move…but it doesn’t. Seconds pass—long, unnerving seconds in which I’m still in the spotlight. I back away slowly, and the light moves with me.

I turn and walk quickly away. I try to walk fast but confidently, until I can tell the light has moved away, and then I run.

I tell myself it’s probably just drunks. That wouldn’t be the first time someone hit the pier. But I feel creeped out—and sad and tired—as I step into the dim glow of the empty parking lot.