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Elise isn’t really sure what she’s doing. She’d survived high school simply by skating by and yet a part of her—the same part of her that bought yellow designer heels—wants to stand out. Maybe it’s some sort of confirmation that she was just a visitor here—no hints that she had even been in high school at all.There is a sick satisfaction in that. Knowing that no one knows you or even has a memory of you to tie you to a place. She’s just another girl from a small town who exists on the periphery. There’s a part of her that lingers, if the light hits her right, but she’s a shadow on the wall, she can leave without a trace anytime she wants and no one will notice.Except this isn’t her story, as it turns out.No. In actuality, she’s got a million stories and lives that she hasn’t lived—all pieces of herself told through a funhouse mirror. Well, that’s not nice; through a radio, through a song.A song that she hadn’t even heard until an hour ago.Which is why, now that the sex is over and he’s doing that thing where he’s staring at her, trying to commit her face to memory, all she wants to do is run. Maybe another girl would find this sweet and not awkward, not creepy. But Elise is Elise and not just some girl in a song.They aren’t going to fall in love or whatever it is people do just because he gave her two bucks and a smile.“So,” Elise begins, tugging her shirt back onto her shoulders. It’s all perfunctory, matter of fact—she learned how to leave a one-night stand effortlessly years ago. People always leave, so she leaves them first. It’s why her situation with Mike works so well. He’s been divorced twice, she doesn’t want to be tied down. There are no expectations. It’s just two sad fucks against the world.And she likes it, most of the time.“So?” A smirk plays at the corner of Reeves’ mouth, and Elise can’t help but roll her eyes. She has a boyfriend—he has groupies.So she tries for honesty. This is not a fairytale, he’s going to leave and it’s better for both of them if it happens now, under the cover of night. Before either of them sober up enough to realize that in another life—the one where she dates boys from high school and he grows a pair and asks her for more than lunch money—that this could have been something else.“I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do here—““What do you mean?”Shit. Reeves wants to hang onto this fantasy. The one where Elise is the one with all that entails and his years of pining, of putting his hopes into words work out for the best.She was never that girl. There’s a reason that Cully called her a bitch—and now that the haze is fading the regret is seeping in under her skin. Cully, with his complete lack of social graces, knew her—Reeves only knows the fantasy of her.What the fuck is she doing?“You have a plane to catch. And I have a boyfriend.”“Don’t do this.” Reeves’ voice hitches, there’s a wetness in his gaze that wasn’t there before. Maybe he really did believe in this storyline, the one where her funny yellow shoes would one day walk back to where this started and they’d bond over whatever it was that they bonded over.What did they even have in common? She listened to NPR and read Financial Times and traded stocks in foreign markets. He played a guitar and toured the world and probably couldn’t tell her the difference between NASDAQ and the S&P 500.“Don’t do what, Reeves?”No wonder so many girls from high school wanted his autograph tonight. Reeves is really good at this broken-boy-looking-for-a-girl-to-fix-him routine.“This thing where you push me away. You—you felt it, didn’t you?”Elise bites her lip as she mulls over his question. Of course she felt something for him tonight, she got in the car and had sex with him outside of Pretzels. But just because she felt something doesn’t mean that it eliminates the infinite obstacles that stand in the way of pursuing this.She isn’t just going to quit her job for him. She will not be that girl.If Reeves wouldn’t take it completely the wrong way, she’d laugh right now. For all the grandstanding about leaving New Mexico and making something of herself, she certainly is fighting like hell to stay.Maybe this is what it is to grow up. “Look. I just—we have lives outside of Pretzels, outside of high school.”“So what?”It’s not just reliving high school memories, but high school logic with him, how fortune for her. Time to switch to a more blunt approach.“This was a mistake.”“Don’t say that, don’t—““What do you even know about me? Not about seventeen-year-old Elise with her yellow shoes, not what you think you know about me but actually about me.”“Elise, come on.”“You can’t answer, can you?”“No, but I can learn! It’s been ten years of buildup and then tonight was fucking magical.“Magical. That was hyperbole at its finest—the sex was good, but they were in the back of a Land Rover outside of a dive bar that took any ID with a picture and a name. Hell, in his song they were at least in a motel room.“Look Reeves, I just—never mind.”“What? What is it you’re trying to say, Elise—you obviously want to say something so fucking say it!” He grits out the last two words so loudly, so desperately that she jumps back and away from him until she opens the door and climbs back into the front seat.She knows she has to take him home, but that doesn’t mean she has to wait until this conversation is over to do it.“I’m sorry. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I was drunk, okay? And it just felt right and maybe if we had sex I would you know maybe want to be somebody’s wife someday.”She hates herself for admitting the truth aloud. But that is the truth—she’d gotten so caught up in the moment, the nostalgia that she couldn’t help but wonder if this distorted version of her life might be better than the one she’s living. “Elise.”“But I don’t want to be somebody’s wife someday. I don’t—not yours, not Mike’s. I like my life, I’m happy.”And she is happy. Elise wasn’t sure before this, before tonight, which is probably why she wound up at that stupid high school reunion in the first place, but after everything she’d seen and experienced and heard Elise knows that her life is pretty great, even if it’s unconventional.“No, no.”“Would you listen to yourself?“ She interrupts him before he can say anything else. Before he can throw the fact that she willfully cheated on her boyfriend back in her face. She’s not perfect, she’s not, but Reeves will not judge her for that, especially since that’s what he’d been hoping for since the second they’d run into one another.They hit a stoplight and Elise spins around to look at him, barely contained fury running through her veins. Who she’s madder at she can’t say—him for holding her on a pedestal or herself for giving into her curiosity, but it doesn’t truly matter. She’s furious either way.“You are so in love with the fantasy of me that you can’t actually see me. And I’m the idiot who made it worse for both of us!”Reeves is quiet for a long time and Elise is pretty sure that he’s crying in the back seat. She should feel bad, but she’s so pissed that she is just grateful for the silence as she turns onto side streets and gets closer to closing this chapter of her life and moving on.“You’re not an idiot. I’m the idiot. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. If I just loved you more back then—“She shuts off the car and exhales, refusing to acknowledge his Hail Mary at all because it will just make it worse. They’re in Cully’s driveway because that’s where Reeves’ is staying—she’d made sure to get the address from Sam before they left—and yet she feels more trapped than ever. Elise makes a move to help him get out of her car, more motivated by a desire to get home than it is by kindness, and Reeves takes it as an invitation. He leans into her and she steps backward, ignoring the hurt on his face.“No, Reeves.”“But—““Thank you for the song. I hope one day you find what you’re looking for.” She fumbles over her words, but Reeves finally gets it and he nods his head as the spell is broken. Maybe it’s the cool air sobering him up or maybe it’s that she’s just a girl again, but either way it’s enough. “I hope you do too, Elise. I hope you do too.”He takes her hand in his and kisses it before heading to the door and out of her life. She won’t see him again, she’s sure of it and Elise tries to ignore that small part of her, the same part that thought this was a good idea, the same one that saved up for months to buy those stupid yellow heels, that is heartbroken at the notion of a life without Reeves.In another life, they could have been happy together, with three kids and a white picket fence. But that is not this life, and they are not those people, and that’s okay.