As much as I’ll miss everyone, it’s killing me that we’re spending our last night with a billion other people. I keep trying to make eye contact with her, but every time I do, she’s swept away by someone wanting her to play flip cup, or I’m yanked into a selfie by Owen or Brea. I keep wanting to drag her close, to imprint the feeling of her skin on mine, but I don’t have any excuses. My mind can’t come up with a single justification for why I need to grab her hand right now, or how to pull her away for a walk along the water, just the two of us.

We’re all about the excuses, the setup, the ways we happen to fall onto each other’s mouths and hands. It’s just what happens when you’re hanging out alone and watching a movie, or swimming, or lying in the hammock together, or spreading out on the grass to watch the stars, or taking pictures of sunsets, or feeling lazy in a canoe.

It’s just what happens for us over and over again and it’s so good I can’t stop thinking about it, wanting to kiss that spot on her neck, wanting to touch the incredibly soft skin on her shoulder blades, wanting to feel her hands tracing my hipbone on a path to making me see stars.

How can I not have an excuse for our last night?

Watching her flirt with Carter certainly isn’t helping any, so I decide to give myself a little breathing room and take that walk on the beach myself. I have my phone to keep me company, and I scroll through pictures hoping the sight of Gia smiling hugely from a pyramid at cheer camp or Shannon posting a picture with yet another cute Parisian guy will get me excited enough about what I’m going back to that I’ll stop being sad about what I’m leaving behind.

But it’s Kiki’s latest post that stops me. She’s been working on her lettering, writing cheesy quotes in funky fonts and posting them to Instagram. Her newest is “Seize the Day,” written in swirly hot pink gothic letters, and it’s such an un-Kiki quote that it makes me laugh.

I’m still laughing when I take its completely cliché advice and retrace my steps on the beach right back to the party, to Jasmine, and whisper in her ear.

“Look, I don’t have a clever way to say this, but it’s my last night, so I’m going to set the bullshit aside. The only thing I want to do tonight is go back to your house and take our clothes off. Can I say that?”