Where was the cove Riley had taken me to last night? I was overwhelmed by the sudden desire to find it again, but I didn’t know which direction to go. I burned to return to the place where I’d gone down with him, beneath the waves. Where he’d held me, and lent me his strength, and allowed me to conquer my greatest fear. I remembered, with the vividness of concrete reality, the hardness of him, the warmth of his body in the cool water, the movement of his muscles against mine.

My knees wanted to buckle, but I denied them their wish. Why should they be satisfied, if I couldn’t be? I did not know where the cove was, but the ocean before me now was the same one that had filled it. I began to walk toward the water.

I would never see Riley’s true face. We would never share in each other’s true, innermost secrets. I would never feel his arms around me again.

Oh god… I couldn’t go on, knowing that he was out there, living his insupposable life, walking in spaces between spaces, experiencing things the likes of which no mortal had ever experienced. Without me.

I reached the tideline, my toes inches from the ocean’s invading touch. My hand reached instinctively for the necklace at my throat. I hadn’t removed it since Riley clasped it around my neck that dreamlike day in New York. It seemed forever ago. I undid it, the silver chain pooling into my hand. My eyes dully examined the little heart-shaped pendant. ‘Please return to Tiffany & Co,’ it read hopefully.

With a rending sob, I threw the necklace into the surf, as far as my sick rage would send it. The black waters swallowed the heart, and it was no more.

No… more…

Salty mist scoured my face, my eyes. I hardly noticed. It was all so clear now. I’d known my whole life, somehow, that it would all end beneath the waves. I’d dreamed of it since before I could remember. All I had to do was close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then one step, and then another, and just keep walking…

And it made sense. Ultimately, wasn’t death everyone’s greatest fear? I had feared the sea since childhood because I knew in my bones that my death would be a wet one. But now… I feared the water—feared death—less than I feared living out an empty, hollow, meaningless existence separated from my one great love.

The Atlantic spread vast and violent before me; beneath it was the place where I had been closest to Riley. The place where I could be closest to the memory of him. It was all that was left for me.