Before he left, we spent a night by the seaside. It was a weekend—the one where August finally surrenders to the steeliness of September. The sky and the sea were an indistinguishable shade of dishwater, waves slammed against the foundations of the pleasure pier, and the lights from the funfair rides eked out the last of their neon pink glow before the close of season. Overhead, seagulls the size of small cats circled an industrial bin.
I had wanted so badly for it to be romantic: hollowing out grooves in the pebbles to nestle our spines on the shoreline, a foil barbecue smoldering at our feet as we passed each other joints and sugared donuts, an orange sun slipping below the horizon. Instead, we gripped hands against the biting wind that doused us in sea spray and drove us into the nearest open pub where middle-aged women in leopard print blouses and clumpy mascara ordered 2-4-1 cocktail pitchers and the battered cod looked like the skin of a cracked heel. I watched him chew a mouthful of gluey peas, his eyes fixed on the televised snooker.
I had hoped we could cling onto the last burning embers of summer, but they were quickly greying to ash in front of me. I ordered one drink, then two, then four. I wanted to play pool, then darts, then request we sing Islands in the Stream on karaoke. I wanted to suck down cigarettes under a patio heater and stay for last orders until I slopped beer down my front and onto the floor, the heavily-patterned carpet making my head spin. I wanted to move onto the nightclub at the end of the pier until the pale light of the morning, the one with the sprung dancefloor that makes you feel like—with enough force—you might just break through the wooden decking and plummet into the sea below, but he reminds me that, too, has since been boarded up on account of structural damage.