It was noon, and the light was merciless. The Mississippi lay wide and silvery, barges moving as though they were hauling whole centuries behind them. I steered off the road, the tires grinding on gravel, and for a moment I thought the sun might burn straight through the glass. My eyes stung, though I couldn’t say if it was from the glare or from crying.

She was beside me, hair spilling with gold where the light caught it. And I kept thinking—this is the last time. No night to fold us into secrecy, no shadows to soften the edges. Just the pitiless glare of day, stripping everything bare. I reached for her, awkward, frantic, as though my hands could invent a language my mouth couldn’t find. The car was hot, the air thick. Sweat and tears blurred together until I couldn’t tell one from the other.

I knew then it wasn’t love. It was ruin. A final collision of skin against skin, as though we could press hard enough to turn back clocks, to stop the collapse. She tried to speak, but all I remember is the shape of her mouth, the silence of it. A goodbye too fragile to make a sound.

After, we sat still. Our breathing shallow, our eyes turned toward the river. The sunlight struck the water with such brilliance it seemed cruel. I wanted to leave. I wanted never to leave. The river went on. I did not.