"#TwilightChildren or #TwilightofTheChildren? ... Band Name … with the hashtag and everything,” she said. “#TwilightChildren … Esquire!"

She was on a roll tonight, picking up handfuls of sand. It was past two in the morning. The sand spilled out of her long, delicate fingers partly on to my face.

"I like it.” I said with forced enthusiasm. “How about: ‘#ChickenOfTheSea’ — with the hashtag like you said?"

She looked at me with that scorn I had never managed to get used to or be able to brush off.

I began plucking on the nylon strings with gusto trying to conjure up some melody that might pass as part of that gaddamned demo she obsessed about getting together. Late night, “networking,” she said, for, “her career,” she said.

“Twilight children,” I howled a few times over the bar chords I strummed, back-peddling to that “good listener,” she and the couples’ counselor had been trying to make of me these last few months. The passion had drained away long ago, though; so, no matter what “good listener” I might become, I would, nonetheless, just be part of her band, and nothing more.

I had already found out about that producer she kept going on about — Ricky. I hadn’t mentioned that I knew because, fuck …. what would it matter anyway at this point.

She put her arm on my shoulder. I just wanted to stay on that for a while. Her arm around my shoulder — the warmth on the back of my neck; a whiff of her floral, French cologne infused with the oils her skin, alone, made.

I drifted into humming. My strumming played the chords slower and more sloppy. I couldn't tell if the breeze I felt along my arms was stillness. It was stillness, but moving. I just couldn’t tell if it was my arm or the ocean breeze that was moving or still. Then, I noticed the salty breeze and the mist from the sea-spray landing on my lips; a moving stillness, I thought — alive, the ocean's sea-shell song. And then, there were the whales out there in the distance; the breeze brushing past my arm while making a hollow sound in the guitar's body; I watched the navigation lights from the tankers in the distance — both solid and blinking — miles away … in the shipping lanes ... decorating the horizon. The light chop, dotted by the waxing moon, trying to feverishly reconstitute its shape for my gaze on it into that straight and unswerving road to heaven.

All of this happened in an instant.

“Be a good listener,” I thought, turning my attention back to her — to her arm over my shoulder and to the pitch, deep violet of the horizon. I wanted to stay on that — all of it — forever, but the scorn on her face — this one — finally broke my heart.

My soul just fell out of me. I couldn't tell if I had shit in my pants — the heartbreak washing over me so fast like an ancient memory washed ashore.

“This ain’t gonna work out,” I thought, and like the wet sand that the surf had made bubble before retreating back into the deep, I felt the hatred that bubbled in me for her.

I had always imagined myself to be a “great” listener. I wasn’t wrong about that; just wrong about her.

I considered whether or not I had ever taken a good look at her these past couple of years; that I hadn’t understood a goddamned thing that had come out of her mouth in all time we’d been together. All the bickering. For what?

God! I hated myself for wanting her still. I hated her for being so beautiful to me. I was disgusted, thoroughly, by my wanting her still ‘cause I knew I could only be a jerk to her from now on. Those last few months ... so full of contempt from her; it all landed on me like a pile of bricks, and my heart shattered.

I guess this shit happens all the time. It all happened, like I said, in a split second.

My chest heaved once. A sob came out of me in one, lurching heave, and then it was gone. I wiped the moisture that had pooled on my face from the last few gusts of cold mist.

“Shit,” I sighed. I used the guitar like a cane to stand up. I felt old and feeble. I walked through the sand towards the promenade’s lights. There was part of me that hoped I would hear her calling out to me. I was certain, though, that she wouldn’t. I should know her by now, after all.

I didn’t look back, but, probably, she watched me walk off from the beach-blanket, dumbfounded, thinking, “What the fuck, dude!?!”

I always wondered what happened to that beach-blanket — if she gathered it up and kept it or abandoned it right there and then. I liked that beach-blanket.

I cursed myself being a fool that night — a cold-hearted fool. I knew I was making a mistake, but, at the same time, I knew I wouldn’t regret it.

We didn’t ever talk again — not really. Sure, we exchanged pleasantries, and we took care of whatever business we had with each other, but we never strayed beyond that.

I still don’t regret it, but every night since, I’ve had a momentary, passing feeling that I hadn’t had a very good day today — not a very good one at all.