The sun yawns over snowcapped mountains in the distance as golden early evening rays peek into the studio I’ve set up camp in. The building is emptying as I mentally prepare for another all-nighter with “The Prince Who Captured Lightning.”

The thing is, I still can’t figure out how I want to end it.

Do the Prince and the Knight end up together?

Is that their destiny?

If art mirrors life, then the answer would be no. Jack and Chase do not end up together and live happily ever after. Not after the showdown at the mountain.

Yet the thought of these two characters who decidedly look an awful lot like Jack and me not ending up together makes me undeniably, overwhelmingly sad. So sad that my body feels numb.

I stare out the window until the sun disappears and darkness sets in. I watch clusters of people walk and laugh together across campus, all bundled up in their jackets as they brave salted paths for dinner in the dining halls. I wonder what Benny and Rhett are doing. At least their saga ended happily.

My chest pangs, yearning for that.

For Jack.

For something I can’t have.

A fairy tale that was never meant to have a happy ending.

I try to shake it off because closure happened at the ski mountain. Even Dr. Sweatervest agrees it’s time to work on letting go. But for me, love doesn’t die so quickly.

Or does it?

Rae has gotten distant lately. She’s trying to work through her feelings about her current boyfriend. Last we spoke, she told me Harry resented me and our friendship because apparently I “gave her things he couldn’t,” and that she always dropped whatever she was doing to talk to me or come see me. She wanted to snap his fingers back when he told her that. But then he pointed out that she never even told him she was going home with me for Taylor’s birthday. And one night, a few weeks back, they were having sex and I called her, and she literally got up off his dick to talk to me. I had no idea.

“I need to figure out how I feel about him,” she said.

I told her, “Rae, please don’t think you have to choose one of us over the other. I don’t want to come between you two.”

She told me to shut up, that I was her best friend-sibling. But after that conversation, she went dark, and I know it’s because she’s trying to figure out if she loves him.

I wonder if those moments of clarity truly exist.

When I get like this, Dr. Sweatervest suggests I take a walk to clear my head, to see if I can process my feelings. Might as well try it.