The sun was just starting to set when you finished putting pen to paper. You folded up the pieces of paper and slid them into the envelope already labelled Rafe. Your finger lazily traced over his name, thinking this wasn’t how you’d thought your love story would end. With a whimper, months after the long drawn out argument where you’d stormed out of his house sobbing. You hadn’t wanted it to end that way, with him thinking you hated him. The letter was your way to correct that.

You’d sat down on the bench of your dock and tried to let the words pour out of you onto the page. Tried to put into words how much he had meant to you and how grateful you were that he had been such a big part of your life. It was the cowards way of saying goodbye though. You planned to stick the letter in his mailbox before you left for your early morning flight. By the time he saw it, you’d be headed to Boston. Far away from the Outer Banks and all its memories of him.

But life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. As you stretch your arms over your head, you catch a glimpse of him making his way down the dock to you, and he doesn’t look happy, he looks downright furious. He looks like he knows that you were planning to leave without a goodbye. Because of course Sarah would interfere and tell him. It’s what she did best.

“Boston? Boston?” He calls out to you before his long strides close the gap between the two of you. His hands are clenched into fists, his knuckles almost white. He can’t decide whether he wants to grab you and shake some sense into you, or wrap you up in his arms. He hadn’t really had much of a plan when he’d stormed over here, other than to make you talk to him.

“You didn’t think I deserved a goodbye?” His eyes flash with anger, and something else, hurt. He knew the two of you hadn’t spoken in months, but he couldn’t believe you’d leave and say nothing, not after everything.

“I wrote you a letter” you lift up the envelope with his name on it, holding it out to him with a shaky hand. “It’s all in here” He looks at the envelope with disgust.

“That’s it? That’s what I get? A goddamn letter?” He spits the words out, his tone bitter. His eyes flick from the envelope back to your face, and for the first time in his life he wishes he had never met you. This letter, this cowardly goodbye was not the girl he knew.