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Amara.
I hadn’t needed the approval of strangers to know my worth, hadn’t needed endless likes and follows to make me happy.
But I did have an Instagram account that I used only to keep tabs on the lives and growing families of my college friends—and, ironically, my parents. My mom used hers to grow her business, and my father used his as a way to display his woodworking projects, which, even I could admit, had grown more complex and impressive with each passing day. And I also had a TikTok that I created at the beginning of summer to keep an eye on the new marketing strategies Amara wanted to roll out, though I couldn’t tell you the last time I checked it.
Up to that point, I’d studiously avoided Amara’s profiles. She was the kind of woman so comfortable in her own skin, who knew she was beautiful, and didn’t mind showing off her assets for her followers. Before we’d gotten together, I hadn’t needed the temptation, hadn’t needed to be clued in on what her lush body looked like beneath her sexy work clothes.
And after we had gotten together, the real thing was much better than getting my rocks off looking at a picture of her.
But now, I navigated to her Instagram profile, scrolling endlessly through her pictures until I came to the posts from five years ago when she’d first moved to London.
And right there, in full technicolor, was a photo of her posing outside her new university, participating in that classic “first day of school” picture in front of the London School of Business.
Why had I never looked before? It was all right there, carefully edited photos in beautifully curated snapshots, detailing her travels, her studies, her work for her family’s company.
What is that old saying about the pride coming before the fall? Yeah, I’d fallen alright. In love with Amara and flat on my fucking face when I lost her.
Wondering what else I’d remained so willfully—stupidly—ignorant of, I moved to TikTok, where I located her profile—and another gasp left me.
Endless videos of us. Of our hands linked, Skye’s leash wrapped around mine as the pup trotted in front of us on one of our sunset beach walks. Of the curve of my shoulder, in bed next to her while she filled her followers in on her plans for the day. My back to the camera as I stood at the kitchen counter, chopping something, with a suggestive caption about getting you a man who could do both—whatever that meant.
I clicked on the one pinned to the top of her profile, and my heart clenched painfully in my chest. It started as a montage of the two of us, quick snippets of video and photos flashing by, set to some Taylor Swift song. At the end was a longer clip of us dancing on the beach at sunset, me swinging her in my arms, her head thrown back in laughter.
She was always laughing.
We had been happy, hadn’t we?
She’d love me so much—it was plain as day on her face.
My God, I was such an idiot. What the fuck had I done?
Without a job—for now—I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. Instead of holing up in my apartment and wallowing in self-pity until I concocted a plan to get my job and my girl back—although I’d settle for just the girl—I decided to hit the open road.
I packed up a couple weeks’ worth of clothes and food for Skye, loaded my camping supplies and the dog into the truck, and set off for Wisconsin.
For all their years of wandering, and the nearly twenty-five years they spent in Green Bay, my parents had at last settled in Door County about ten years ago. They liked being near the water but away from the big city, and had lucked out when a younger couple was selling their starter home. Upgrading it was a new adventure for them, and they’d loved every second.
There wasn’t an easy way to get to Sturgeon Bay, short of taking a boat straight across Lake Michigan—which was an option but not one I was interested in—so I chose to make an adventure out of it, traveling through the Upper Peninsula and stopping at all the nature hot spots on the way.
I worked my way along M-28, skirting up to Tahquamenon Falls, then on to Grand Marais and the log slide. There, I met a woman who owned a fine wine and goods shop that stocked CD products, which made my chest puff up with pride. I gave her my card, telling her to call if she was ever in TC.
Yeah, I was studiously ignoring the fact that I no longer had a job, sue me.
Then I went through Munising, taking a day to kayak along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and another to hike the Chapel Loop, spending the nights on a sandy Lake Superior beach. The disconnect from reality, from my entire life, was exactly the reset I needed before facing my parents.
After all, I’d been so wrong about Amara, so the chances were high I’d been wrong about them too. I owed it to myself to find out.
Five days later, I pulled up to their cottage front door.
“Calvin!” my mother said, throwing her arms around me when she found me standing on their porch, Skye jumping excitedly against the leash dangling from my hand. “What a pleasant surprise!”
“Sorry to show up uninvited,” I said with a wince. “I should’ve called, but I had some free time, and I wanted to see you guys.”
“Psh,” my mother said, waving a hand. “This is your home too, honey. Come on in. I’ll get the guest bed outfitted while your dad brings your stuff inside.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary—” I started to protest, but she was already shouting down the hall.
“Clint! Calvin’s here! Go out and get his things, would ya?”
