Chapter 28 - Chase Me, Cowboy

August falls into the first week of September, and the weather cools on the East Coast. I don’t like the seasons changing without her around like they did last year. I’ve had this house on the Maine coast for a bit, but now that she’s been here, it’s stained. I smell her on my sheets, in my shower. I taste her on the rims of my coffee cups. Sometimes, I watch the storms roll in and see a quick flash of her in the darkness of my living room.

It shouldn’t be this way. We barely know each other. But it makes me wonder if soulmates are more than just a romantic idea. Because it’s not normal to miss someone I barely know so badly I see visions of them through the foggy shower door.

It’s a relief when I have to travel for work again. I have some business in Canada early in the month. It takes me through the airport in New York, and I stand at the luggage claim, holding my bag, but not leaving, because this is where she stood when she flew to see me in Maine.

A hundred people go by. A thousand, maybe.

A thousand people who aren’t her.

Someone lays on their horn outside, and it rouses me. There’s no point waiting here all day. If I stay moving, I won’t pick up my phone and call her, asking for just one more night. One more morning with her sleeping beside me.

I sit in the back of the Uber, numb to the world.

This isn’t a crush. It’s not a normal way to feel about someone who was supposed to be a hookup.

No, I have a big fucking problem, and its name is Serena Maxwell.