Jet lag is a cruel beast. I was dragging when I went to work that Friday. I’d been back for a week, but I’m a firm believer jet lag takes forever to get over.

Margaret walked out of the hospital and waved. “Dr. Henley is in a chipper mood today.”

“When is he not?”

“Very true.” She laughed as we passed each other.

The distinct, high-pitched ring of Facebook Messenger came from my purse. I knew it was Meg, she was the only one that called on that thing. I stopped underneath the palm tree right by the hospital entrance to dig my phone out. I only had five minutes before I had to clock in, but, I rarely got to talk to her because she refused to acknowledge I was in a time zone seventeen hours ahead of her.

“Hey,” I said as I walked into the lobby.

“Don’t get on the internet!” she blurted.

“What?”

“Don’t check the internet for…”—she huffed—“maybe the rest of your life.”

“What in the hell?”

“Where are you?”

The automatic doors that led to the ER whirred opened. “About to clock in.”

“What? What fucking time is it there? Isn’t it night?”

“No, it’s six in the morning.”

“Oh my God, I thought it was night there when it was day here.”

“Basically, but it’s already Friday here.”

“What the… you’re a day ahead!”

“I have told you this a thousand times.”

“Well, just don’t get on your phone at work. Wait until you’re at home for that shit.”

“Meg…”

“Just trust me.”

I swiped my badge and waved at Dr. Henley. “Why would you do this to me.”

“Because I don’t want you to have a meltdown in public.”

“A meltdown…” I sighed. “Look, if it’s another song. I’m used to it; besides, does he even write his own songs?”

“Yes, he does. We’ve checked that three times now, and it’s not a song.”

My curiosity had been piqued. “Okay, well, whatever it is. I’m fine.”

“Nope. You won’t be.” She sighed. “Call me when you get off, okay?”

“It’ll be two in the morning there.”

“It’s fine.” She groaned. “Just call me.”

“Alright.”

I hung up and stared at my phone. I’d like to say that after a year I’d gotten over Noah, but I hadn’t. I thought about that abstinence video they showed us in high school, the one where a girl is holding a clay heart in her hand and all these guys come up and take a piece from it until she’s left holding a tiny little shred of what the heart once was. He didn’t take a piece of my heart; I gave it to him.

Some things you never get over, you just learn to live with. Or ignore.

Patient after patient came in, and soon enough, the fact I was to avoid the internet indefinitely slipped my mind. After a case of heatstroke, an allergic reaction to shellfish, and a motorbike accident, I went to grab a water from the employee lounge. A group of nurses surrounded one of the break room tables, Jill Makenzie smack dab in the middle, holding up a phone. She grinned, her red lipstick making her teeth look about as white as a Colgate commercial while everyone anxiously watched the screen over her shoulder.

I grabbed a water from the fridge and started toward the table. One of the nurses nudged Jill while clearing her throat. Jill glanced up and dropped the phone to her side, her cheeks turning bright red. “Hey, Hannah!” she said loudly.

“Hey…” I narrowed my eyes when I stepped up to the table. Every girl stared at me with ridiculous grins. “What’s going on?” I asked cautiously.

“You never told us you knew Noah Greyson, Hannah.” Jill smiled.

My stomach flip-flopped. I was pretty sure whatever this was had to do with why Meg warned me to stay off the internet. Whatever this was. “Well.” I pursed my lips and exhaled through my nose. “Yeah… just um, kinda…” I could feel my cheeks heating, so I took a large gulp of water.

“Mate, he’s looking for you.”

My heart pounded. “I mean, um, I don’t know what you’re talking about, so…” I took a step back, then another with everyone’s eyes in the break room glued to me.

“He just posted a video that has over two million views asking people to help him find you.”

I froze in the middle of the room and closed my eyes. “Shit,” I whispered. “I come all the way around the world, and I still can’t get away from him.”

“Why in the world would you want to get away from him?”

“It’s uh…” I swallowed, unable to get any more words out. He was looking for me… why? Why in the world, a year and a half later…

She stepped up beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder before she leaned in and whispered, “You should watch the video when you get off.”

I didn’t call Meg when I got off. One it was late in the US and two, I didn’t want to listen to it. Instead, I headed straight to the beach and stripped out of my sneakers on the way to the shore. I hiked the legs of my scrubs up as far as they would go. The warm, wet sand formed under my feet, creeping between my toes before a wave sent clear water rushing midway up my calves. My phone felt like a nuclear reactor in my pocket, dangerous and deadly. It was a portal to a black hole I’d only recently dug myself out of. Regardless of that, I still shoved my hand into my pocket, wrapped my fingers around my phone, and pulled it out. The setting sun caught on the screen. What’s on that video? Do I really do this to myself?

I naively thought moving away from Rockford would solve everything. It didn’t, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make it easier to forget.

Everything in Rockford reminded me of Momma, of Noah. Everywhere I went reminded me of the two people I’d lost, and why do that to yourself? There was a whole world out there. It made no sense for me to stay in a place that wouldn’t allow me to let go. And someone once told me Australia was as far away from Rockford as you could get… but, evidently, it still wasn’t far enough.

As hard as it was for me to leave Daddy and Bo, I just couldn’t stay. Momma told me to live my life, but still, sometimes, when I looked out over the crystal blue waters and found myself smiling, I felt guilty, worried about whether they’re able to smile too.

Sighing, I took a few steps back and sat in the sand with my phone in hand. I typed in the first three letters of his name before “Noah Greyson” popped up in all its glory. I may have blocked him from my life, but still, I’d had enough moments of weakness and regret in the past that my smartphone knew what I was doing.

The first headline: Noah Greyson Pleads with Fans to Help Him Find His Lost Love.

The phone dropped from my hand to the sand. My pulse hammered in my ears. It was as though, for the briefest of moments, the world stopped spinning. Like a moment in a movie where everything was freeze-framed. “You’re kidding me. His lost love?” I mumbled.

He walked away from me that day at my parents’ house. He never called or texted. We may as well have been strangers after that day. He didn’t love me!

I’d spent the better half of a year trying to convince myself he didn’t care. Replaying and rehashing every moment we shared that I could remember. I just didn’t want to believe I could have been so gullible.

I closed my eyes. I remembered what he felt like against me, how his big hands felt on my waist. The tickle of the stubble on his face against my thighs. But…how many girls knew what those things felt like too? Dear friends. I wasn’t just a friend, but I wasn’t his lover, I was something in-between.

Before I knew it, I allowed all the emotions I kept under lock and key to surface. First came the hurt, followed by the anger. The regret. The wish that I had kept myself guarded. But above all, the thing that absolutely devastated me was that I couldn’t let him go. No matter how hard I tried, no matter what I told myself. I could dig up as many lies as I wanted. A hundred girls could tell me he said the exact same lines to them and it wouldn’t matter. There would always be a piece of me that held on to the belief that even if he’d told a hundred girls the same thing, he only meant them with me. I would never forget the bliss of having him inside me, that pull that existed between us. My heart bore scars from letting myself belong to someone I didn’t even know. But in my defense, for those few weeks, I believed he was my fate.

How could one person be so destructive without even trying?

My Messenger rang, the bubble picture of Meg’s pageant queen smile popped up on the screen, and I swallowed back the emotions, focusing on the whitecaps rushing to the shore. “Hey!” I tried so hard to sound upbeat.

“Shit, you looked, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t have to. I walked to the break room and a group of nurses had some video pulled up. They all stared at me like I had two heads.”

“Damn. So… what did you think?”

“I didn’t actually watch it, but one of the girls said he was looking for me.”

“Yep. Something like that.” The line fell silent. “You should watch it.”

“Nope! That ship has sailed.” I drew a line in the sand with my toe.

“Watch it, Hannah. I’m not gonna lie, I cried, and you know how I feel about the fuckface.”

I rolled my eyes. “I just don’t get why, after all this time, he would pull some crap like that.”

“Who knows, he’s a guy. They lack all sense of logic.”

“I don’t know…” I leaned over and wrote his name in the sand before swiping my hand over it. I dredged up the hate I’d taught myself to harbor against him, because there are some people in life you must learn to hate simply because it hurts too much not to. “It’s probably some dumb PR stunt.”

“At your expense?” She laughed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think he’s an asshole, but he’s not that kind of asshole.”

“We don’t even know who he is anymore.”

“This is true…” She yawned.

“Go to bed.”

“You promise you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded even though she couldn’t see me.

“I miss you, Hannah Banana.”

I smiled. “I miss you, too.”

Somehow, I made it home without watching that video.

I laid down on my bed without reading one article, but I couldn’t fall asleep. The time ticked by. One AM. Two AM.

I paced my room.

I opened the doors to my balcony and listened to the tide rush in.

I watched the sunrise over the ocean, recalling how Noah told me we only had so many to see. And that’s when I realized, no matter how far I ran, I couldn’t escape the sunrise. I’d always have one thing that reminded me of how it felt when I believed he loved me.