As I make my way to my room, I pass by hers. The door is closed and the lights off. I hope we can leave this little secret here and wake up to forget it ever happened.

When my head finally hits my pillow, I’m only awake long enough to replay the whole thing in my head once before a heavy sleep carries me under.

It was another nightmare about Hugo that kept me up last night, like it does almost every night. This time, he was holding my face under the water, only letting me come up for enough air to keep me alive, but suffocating me until I wanted to die. It’s not like he ever actually did that, very metaphorical my dreams. But that’s exactly what he did when we were together. He only ever let me have enough freedom so that I didn’t leave him. But for every other moment, he kept me in hell.

There is no recovering from a dream like that. His cruel, spitting voice in my ear wouldn’t let me just roll over and go back to sleep, hoping for a more pleasant dream. Instead, I had to get out of bed. Sometimes I walked down to the beach. Other times, I got drunk on Hazel’s bourbon.

Tonight was one of those nights.

It wasn’t only my cruel ex haunting me tonight but also the image of my name printed on that paper, sealing my fate and damning me altogether. There was no room in my brain to contemplate what this meant for Murph or his friends, and there certainly wasn’t any room to predict what this would do to our strange and charged relationship.

The only thing I could contemplate was how this would work out for me. This equation was too easy, it practically solved itself. I could sell the shop to whoever those douchebags from city council wanted to replace it with—and at a competitive, desperate price.

With that money, I’d be free. More free than I’ve ever been before. I’d fly across the country, start up somewhere new, maybe enroll in art school, start my life. Never look back. Never dream about Hugo almost drowning me again.

This vision of a happier version of myself was exactly what I was picturing in my bourbon-soaked mind when Murph approached, his strong arms framing me like the walls of a house, welcoming me, keeping me safe.

And just like on that first day, I clung to him because somewhere deep down, I figured that if I could touch him without seeing him, my body would find its mark without my heart getting involved. I wanted to let him touch me without letting him get to know me.

But the closer he pushed my body toward ecstasy, the farther away my future felt.

I hope we can wake up and pretend it never happened.