You’d think he couldn’t fit into that car. I was concerned that we’d park in Hoosick Falls and he‘d all but eject out of the powder blue Mini Cooper like a loaded spring. Ironically, he slid out like drugstore shampoo, and I was so spouting with feeling that I frightened myself.

I’d never heard of the village but recognized the relics of 19th-century Upstate New York: two-story brick buildings, gold leaf window lettering, rounded streetlamps, a general provisions shop with a mansard roof, and a local credit union whose vertical neon still read Drugs.

“Recognize” is the wrong verb; I was indexing. We had twenty-four hours before we had to be back at camp, and had spent over an hour driving. It was our single chance to be bona fide alone that summer, and I felt like I was already watching us pull our bags out of the trunk from the future, admiring the moment through time. When I’m too aware that my motions will become memories, it’s tough to move.

And I knew he wasn’t just hungry but starving. I was supposed to find food on the way, but kept getting distracted by opportunities to make him laugh. He was starving but still smiling to himself as he locked the car. I memorized him smiling because I knew eventually I’d try to convince myself that he’d been bored with me, and that I never made a dent. I remembered that, so I could tell you now.

I followed him up an external staircase at the back of the building and waited while he wrestled our key out of a lockbox. He was following some instructions I hadn’t read; he picked the Airbnb because I picked the activity for our day off. The museum was a short drive from here, and I’d only been once, but I knew he’d like it. I hoped so. Whirlwind romance is always knowing someone intimately while not at all; I knew his secrets more than his preferences.

I was surprised by the inside. It was a spacious, decorated loft, with prints and paintings, lengths of fairy lights drifting like mobiles, and curated collections of antique things tucked into all the corners: lanterns on chests, toolboxes on stools. The wooden floors and network of visible pipes weren’t just endearing but unmistakably evocative of the museum. It was as if he’d clicked through Mass MoCA’s website for inspiration for our lodging – like he wanted all twenty-four hours to fit the theme. Like something would go so wrong tonight that we’d never make it there tomorrow. Like, tomorrow, we might collect too many moments together, though we had already spent his allowance. Her allowance. He and I tilted our heads at each other.

I remember a few other daylit moments, like him insisting we not use the overhead lighting and proceeding to drag the lamps around and experiment with all the sockets. I had sat on the bed and enjoyed the circus of it. I remember pointing at the freestanding bathtub and him saying, “We should take one.” There was no obvious pattern to the things he paid attention to.

Finally, I remember being on our backs when he insisted that pre-party sex was systematically underrated – that it’s more fun to walk into a party with a secret than out of it. I had wanted to point out that after-party sex is for one-night stands and pre-party sex is for the people you’re in love with, but I didn’t. We had just finished before-dinner sex, and I didn’t want to ponder that implication together, in silence. And by then, we both had that past-starving ache.

Google Maps said The Sand Bar was the only open restaurant within walking distance. We walked curiously through the dark, away from the main street. The air was warm, delicately illuminated, and carried only the sounds of our sneakers and distant cars. The edges of the village approached fast, even though we walked slowly, like it were desperate to reveal its smallness and loneliness to us.

His guilt about Her always emerged at night, like a vampire. I’d only witnessed it the few times I slept over in his cabin. There would come a moment right after a bout of giggling, but before he fell asleep, when he’d seem annoyed at me. It was that particular flavor of agitation that men parade around to muffle their shame. Shame was one of his secrets because I was one of his preferences. But he didn’t seem annoyed on our walk. Just hungry. Still, I began to brace for it. I truly wondered if we were the only two people in that village – until we were finally in view of the sand.

The front lot was full of sand. Obviously? Even in the dark, I could sense that the sand had been trucked in at least ten years ago, was now significantly cut with dirt, and had never been replenished. The bar’s concept was surely someone’s step-uncle’s best idea, and he was probably dead already. There was also a ratty volleyball net and a couple of beach chairs around a glass table with an ashtray centerpiece. The tray was empty, and its previous contents, plus a volleyball, were strewn across one of the chairs like an abandoned crime scene. When that many cigarette butts are in one place, they look like packing peanuts.

More than disgusted, amused, or starving, I was suddenly so embarrassed that I could feel some neural cortex or another start to smoke and backfire. Everything after that was in flashes, recorded at a lower frame rate.

I had landed us there, in that disintegration, to sit on the cigarettes and eat beer for dinner. He thought he drove us here, but I did, through two months' worth of actions and inactions: comforting his guilt, ignoring his resentment, descending those treacherous stairs in the woods to spend an hour awake with him in his musty cabin. I had yanked him down to the Hoosick Falls layer of Hell so that I could definitively reveal myself to him. My smallness and loneliness. He had a girlfriend, and I couldn’t even pause being a passenger princess for long enough to find a restaurant off the highway. 

Maybe he smirked at the sand. Maybe he grimaced. I was focused on the fact that everyone inside the bar was a middle-aged man sporting a half-mesh cap and a beard, apart from the woman behind the counter.

“Are you still serving dinner?” I actually said that. To a half-asleep woman in a stained t-shirt who worked at The Sand Bar. I might as well have asked if she’d accompany me to the symphony.

“I can only do the stuff that doesn’t use the stove. I can do the potato. Or put wings in the oven.” When she opened her mouth, I counted two pieces of gum.

“I’ll do the wings,” he said, “Medium.”

“I’ll do the wings too,” I said because my entire personality had floated away. Everyone was staring at me except for him.

The waitress escorted us back outside and lifted the sooty cushion into the air so the detritus would fall into the dirty sand. The volleyball didn’t bounce when it landed. She shook the cushion once for good measure and motioned for me to sit. Before she returned with our food, the peaceful quiet had grown deafening. I was slumping, the darkness was glowering, and the sandbox was rolling its eyes at me. And the wings were soggy. I could only bring myself to eat the carrots dipped in ranch like an attention-seeking high schooler, like how I used to be. I was regressing. Was he bored with me? In all this time, had I even made a dent?

Did She know I existed?

The walk back was brisk and unsatisfying. We didn’t use any of his re-decorated lighting, just crawled into bed in the blackness. I asked if he still wanted to take a bath, even though I didn’t want to, and I knew he’d say no. He didn’t say no, but he did open his eyes one last time before falling asleep, gazing at me like I was the biggest moron in the world – definitely in Hoosick Falls. He’d spent his allowance. I had soot on my pants.