Page 51 of Somewhere in the Sunset

Weston doesn’t miss a beat. He smiles and says, “I’d love to come with you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Fuck Luca. It’s definitely cool,” he says, and swallows another mouthful of breakfast. “But do you mind if I head home first? I’m not biking across that bridge in last night’s uniform.”

Weston agrees to meet me at the bike rental shop at noon. I hop on a trolley north toward the Marina District, bubbling with excitement. I’ve wanted to do this for years, but Luca never entertained the idea. I know it’s a cliché and touristy, but we are so lucky to live in such a gorgeous city and I’ll be damned if I don’t experience cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge justoncein my life. It’s a perfect August day, with the sun shining bright and warm, but I’m not an idiot. Crossing that bridge is going to be freezing, so I’ve pulled on a sweatshirt. I’ve filled a backpack with bottled water and granola bars, and I’ve brought my camera. I’m not sure why. I haven’t picked it up again since I attempted to vlog the day I went home to Santa Cruz, because the footage was a disaster and I scrapped the entire lot in frustration. Quite frankly, I’m not that interesting on my own without Luca.

I arrive at the rental shop a little early, so I find a sunny spot on the street and relax against the wall, letting the sun kiss my skin even though it’ll trigger more of my freckles. While I wait, I check in on mine and Luca’s accounts. I’ve postedonecarefullymanufactured video in a month, and I’m not sure it’s fooling anyone. Our viewers are still skeptical about our disappearance from social media. Although I’ve posted a couple more photos on Instagram, our most devoted followers keep outsmarting me. It seems the differing lengths of my hair between photos (by a mere inch, I might add) makes it obvious I’m using old pictures. At this point, I’ve stopped caring about seeming authentic and real. I don’t even care if the breakup gets out.

So why the hell am I still holding on to these accounts?

I pull up our YouTube account on my phone. Seven years of memories, over three hundred videos, six hundred thousand subscribers .?.?. I think of the ad revenue. The brand collaborations. It’s been fun, that’s for sure, and I’m so grateful for the life it’s given Luca and me, but I can’t be a fraud. I have more integrity than that. There’s nothing left of our relationship except this, and it’s time to shut it down.

I navigate to the account settings. A small tremor takes over my hands as I find the option to permanently deactivate the account. I give it approximately three seconds of consideration before the intrusive thoughts win. Just a couple of clicks, that’s all it takes for six hundred thousand subscribers to evaporate into thin air. A weight lifts from my shoulders and an unexpected joy radiates through me. I can’t stop now. I flip over to the Instagram app and delete our account on there too. It’s so easy, deleting everything we worked so hard for .?.?. But it was also so easy for Luca to leave.

I exhale a sigh of relief. Shutting down our accounts finally makes it all seem so real to me now. It’s like closing the final page of the book. Luca and I are done. It’s over. I will never let him walk back into my life, because Weston’s right: Idodeserve more than a man who picks and chooses when he wants me in the picture. I deserve someone who can’t bear the thought of ever living life without me.

“Gracie,” Weston calls.

I look up from my phone, beaming with a renewed sense of relief. Weston approaches and I can’t tell what’s more attractive: him this morning, naked in my bed with messy hair, or him right this second, wearing loose-fitting blue jeans that hang low on his hips and a plain white T-shirt that contrasts way too nicely against the black ink on his arm. I doubted I was capable of ever finding another man attractive after being so in love with Luca for seven years. The first time I saw Weston, I didn’t even register that he was good-looking. It’s taken time for him to come into focus, but now he’s in glorified high definition, and it’s making me weak.

“Guess what?” I say cheerfully, bouncing forward. “I just deleted everything. Mine and Luca’s accounts. All gone!”

Weston reaches for my wrists and holds me steady. “Nice. Did you agree to that with Luca?”

“No.”

Weston laughs and says, “You’re getting so good at this.”

I look down at his hands around my wrists and bite my lip. If I recall, he may have said something very similar last night. I glance up at him flirtatiously beneath my lashes, my gaze easing into a smolder. He sets it up so perfectly, I have to go ahead and say it. “I’m good at a lot of things.”

Weston’s laugh is gorgeous, but I catch him blushing. I know he remembers how I moved against him last night. “Well, I know for sure you’re about to be real good at riding this bike.”

Now I’m the one whose laughter echoes down the street.

We head inside the shop together and rent out two bikes for the day. We get kitted out with helmets, u-locks and a map which we instantly discard. We know San Francisco. It’s an easy route to the bridge from here, and once Weston and I finish snickering with laughter at each other wearing goofy helmets, we set off.

It’s around three miles from the rental shop to the bridge, but we take the Golden Gate Promenade. It’s a gorgeous gravel trail along the waterfront, packed with pedestrians and cyclists as the bridge sits in the distance. Even from here, the views are stunning and we have to constantly maneuver around tourists pausing to snap photographs. Alcatraz Island is visible out on the water. I’ve walked this path many times, yet never followed it all the way to the bridge, and my excitement builds the nearer we get. I take living in the Bay Area for granted a lot of the time.

Weston cycles a little ahead of me and I call out to him, “Do you ever do bike patrols? You’d look pretty good doing this in uniform.”

His laughter dances through the breeze and he abruptly turns, circling back and pulling up alongside me. “My quads are burning, I’m not gonna lie. This is yet another reminder that I need to hit the gym soon before my buddy Cameron kills me.”

“My legs started to hurt fifteen minutes ago, but I didn’t want to admit it,” I huff. “Can we stop up there for a photo op?”

We both lack some serious power as we battle our way up a gradual incline. The path is winding as it curves upward toward the bridge, and I honestly fear I’ll get to the other side and have no stamina left to make it back again, but there arekidsdoing this. When an elderly gentleman flies past us, I make a mental reminder to sign up to a spin class at the gym.

The path widens to create the perfect viewpoint of the bridge from below and others have seized the opportunity for (1) a great picture of the bridge in its entirety up close and (2) a break from the exertion of this hill. Weston and I pull over, leaning our bikes against a giant rock.

“Snack time,” I say enthusiastically, swinging my backpack off my shoulders and rummaging inside. I hand Weston some water and a granola bar and we sit on the edge of the rock together, looking out over the still waters of the bay, the red paint of the bridge vibrant in the sunlight. Honestly, I’m just amazed at how clear the skies are with only a few scattered clouds. This is the perfect spot to take some photographs, and Weston has no idea that I’m about to put him through a photoshoot.

Out of the corner of my sunglasses, I sense a pair of eyes on me. It’s a young girl, maybe around fifteen, who’s also stopped off for a quick break with her parents. She looks over once, twice, three times, and I know immediately that the gears are turning in her head. I recognize it all too well, the furtive glances while they pluck up the courage to approach. She nudges her mother, nods in my direction, and then shyly proceeds toward me.

“Hi,” she says, twisting her fingers together anxiously. “Sorry to bother you, but is your name Gracie?”

Weston leans back on his hands and watches with interest.

“Hi! Yes!” I say cheerfully, my tone pitching higher. I can’t help it. It’s the same chirpy, bubbly voice I always used when filming videos. Still my own, just emphasized. I push myself off the rock and nudge my sunglasses up into my hair, making a conscious effort to be polite and warm.

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