Chapter 1

Two Hundred Pictures and Twenty Apps…

NOW

(Leith)

My phone buzzed on the bar as the screen lit up with a message from Amy.

I saw it was a picture but I didn't reach for my phone right away.

The guy next to me though was very interested in my message.

I swatted my phone toward him. "Go ahead, check it."

"Excuse me?"

"You seem interested in it. Look then."

The guy put up his right hand, backed away from the bar and walked away.

"Asshole," I whispered to myself.

I rubbed my jaw and saw Jessie locked on me as she walked with her classic jumpy walk. Forever dressed in black, forever behind the bar, her favorite low-cut shirt made her favorite friends jump up and down as she walked.

There wasn't a guy that didn't look.

She said that's what kept her in business.

I wasn't looking the way the others were though.

Jessie and I were too close.

We knew each other from college. She had wanted to become a psychologist but after an unexpected pregnancy, she dropped out and fought hard to work things out with Eva's father. But it never worked out. So now Jessie was a single mother, working crazy hours, and said cliché things about her daughter not being allowed to date until she was thirty-five.

"You picking fights in my bar?" Jessie asked.

"Never."

"Bad enough you have to hide here for a drink, I don't think you want the attention."

"I don't care."

"Yes, you do," Jessie said. She swiped my empty glass off the bar. "You love teaching. You're a giant nerd, Leith. I don't care how big your muscles are or how much you try to grow a messy beard like a tough biker dude."

It was true.

I didn't exactly look the part of a third grade teacher.

Most parents saw me and quickly clutched their kids' hands, thinking I was a bad guy. At least until they got to know me. Even the kids were a little intimidated by me when they first saw me. I looked more the part of a cop than I did a teacher. Which was kind of funny in a lot of ways. But I had a way to break the ice easily. All the kids needed to do was see me trying to sit on one of the small desk chairs. That got a few chuckles. Then a few seconds into one of my teacher speeches, I would lean back and fall out of the chair. There wasn't a single person who couldn't resist laughing at the sight of a teacher falling to the floor.

I would then get them to quiet down by just standing back up.

Then we'd move on.

And by the end of the school year, there wasn't one kid who didn't write me a letter or buy me some kind of cliché teacher gift.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think teaching would become my career.

At least for the moment…

My phone buzzed again with a reminder that I had yet to open the picture from Amy.

"You're not going to look?" Jessie asked.

She refilled my beer and put the glass down.

My favorite cheap beer from college was only three bucks a glass tonight.

And there was no chance of me being seen since I was three towns over. Not that I was out to do anything stupid. A couple beers, some hot wings, and I'd get back home to work on tomorrow's lesson plan.

Which was stupid because it was Friday.

There was no focus on a Friday.

Hell, there was no focus on a Thursday either.

At least for me.

"I'm enjoying my night," I said to Jessie.

She raised an eyebrow. "Something I need to know?"

"Amy's in New York again. Getting things in order for herself."

"And you, right?"

"Yeah. Right."

"You sure about that, Leith?" Jessie asked.

"You know, I came here for a cold beer or two. Not to be picked on."

"I'm not picking on you," Jessie said. "If I was, I'd point out that your undershirt doesn't match the attempted flannel you're wearing."

I laughed. "And you're a fashion woman? What's the color of choice… black or black?"

Jessie leaned forward and squished her breasts together. "I know what they all like. And I do just fine with it."

"I'm sure you do," I said. "How's Eva?"

"Driving me crazy."

"That's what they do."

"You get paid to be driven crazy."

"Not paid enough," I said.

"Oh, hush," Jessie said. "Don't be such a grown up."

"Hey, I tried to start a bar fight. The guy walked away and you told me to stop."

My phone buzzed one more time.

"You better get that," Jessie said. "And tell Amy I said hey. I need to get in touch with her. Maybe soon."

Jessie walked away.

I laughed in my head.

Maybe soon? How about maybe never…

Amy had slowly cut ties with so many people. She called it personal growth but I thought it was personal judgement. Just because Jessie ended up as a bartender didn't make her any less than anyone else in the world. And, yeah, Amy was super smart. She had degrees in teaching, psychology, and even Spanish. She overachieved and thrived when her plate was more than full. I was always the one that reminded her to have a little fun and she was always the one who reminded me that you needed more than a job in life.

We worked well together.

I looked down at my phone.

I shrugged my shoulders and still refused to look at the messages from her.

We used to work well together…

The pictures were of Amy in front of buildings and statues around the city.

She would know everything about them. She loved to find the things that nobody else knew about a town or a city. And a place like New York City was like the mecca to her. While everyone was staring at the cliché landmarks, she would find little things that nobody else knew and seek them out.

In one picture she stood on a park bench with one leg up in a yoga position - a fucking tree or bush or redwood thing? - and smiled big with the sunset right behind her head. It was a really cool looking picture. Obviously planned for the pose. And knowing Amy she probably had someone take about two hundred pictures to get the right one. And then she probably ran it through twenty filters or apps or whatever to get the right colors.

I shut my eyes and put my phone down.

Am I doing this? Am I really going to pick through a picture of Amy and find everything I think is wrong?

I opened my eyes and looked at the other pictures.

Amy was in her element in the city.

She had been like me only in the sense of growing up in a small town. She had always talked about moving. It wasn't anything new or different. Even on our first date - which felt like a lifetime ago - she talked about someday moving to the city.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise to me when she had been applying for jobs and finally got a couple interviews. She quickly resigned from her job at the school we worked at and decided to make the right decision for herself.

Well, for ourselves.

Because she wanted me to go with her.

The plan was for her to land a lucrative job and then I would follow. I could find the perfect job in the perfect school. No matter what the pay was, it would be okay.

On paper, it sounded amazing.

In reality, it was two different stories.

The story Amy was currently living. In New York with some friends, exploring the depths of the city, getting ready for interviews and waiting to field job offers. Playfully looking at apartments far too expensive just for fun. Enjoying the sights, the sounds, the food. Forever missing me, or at least that's what she always said.

The other side of the story was darker. Different.

It was me sitting at the bar, working on my second beer.

Rubbing my jaw as something that felt like guilt tore through me like it always did. Even when I was in bed at night and I would place my hand to Amy's fluffy pillow, I would swallow hard and feel like hell.

Because she thought I had given my resignation from the school too. She thought I was finishing out this year and that was it. She assumed that on her own and I never said anything to contradict it, waiting to see what she really wanted to do in her life.

I looked at the pictures one more time and knew I needed to respond.

Forcing yourself to respond? This is the woman you say you love.

I hit the screen, giving her two thumbs up emojis.

That was it.

Knowing Amy she would just assume I was busy reading papers or grading work or working on a lesson plan.

Or she thought I was working on a story or a book.

Which had been the original plan all along.

Things sometimes just didn't work out that way though.

Life ebbed and flowed in whatever direction it felt like going.

If you resisted, you grew tired.

If you went with it too much, you'd get lost.

Or, if you were like me, you knew where you were but you didn't know why.

I stood up and laughed to myself as I dug some cash out of my pocket.

It was for the beer, the wings, and a large enough tip for Jessie.

I looked for her and she was at the other end of the bar, talking to some guy.

That was just Jessie.

She loved to flirt.

But she was a good person at heart.

If it weren't for Jessie, I wouldn't have met Amy. And yet in some strange way I was better friends with Jessie than Amy was.

I turned and walked away from the bar.

My mind had already begun to shift gears back to fractions, thinking of a way to use pizza to explain the basics to the kids. Best case, they'd learn something new. Worst case, they'd get pissed off and we'd all eat pizza on a Friday.

I put my hand to the door and pushed.

That's when I heard a voice and a laugh so familiar that I turned so fast I heard a pop in my shoulder.

Like a kid on a hot summer day, hearing the first jingle of the ice cream truck, my eyes scanned the bar, thinking there was no way in hell the voice and laugh could have been who I thought.

But it was.

She was standing just feet away.

And she had probably been there the entire time I was there.

"Coming or going, man?" a voice asked.

I stepped away from the door without saying a word to the stranger that I had been blocking to get out of the bar.

I folded my arms and leaned against a pillar.

I just stared.

I watched her as alive and as vibrant as ever. Talking with a jump in her step. Her jet-black hair just below her shoulders, never anything fancy or some crazy hairstyle. In a short-sleeved shirt with the tattoo on the back of her left arm.

The one I was there for when she got it done.

Holding her hand as she laughed and cried at the same time.

The one I got in trouble with and for so many times.

The one I swore I was going to marry.

The one I had gotten pregnant and then left.