Rolling down the window as they drove past gorgeous dark green coniferous edging the roadside and the winding Yorgrim river sneaking alongside them brought back memories of my life before Bernado.

Until Bernado entered my life, I had been planning to leave behind Crystal Cove. It was my hometown but, in the end, just like everyone else, it turned its back on me and found nothing worth staying for. The only reason I stayed was because I lacked the money to move elsewhere. My deadbeat parents kicked me out at the young age of fifteen once they found out and the only place, I was welcome was the occasional city bench. Life was a living hell and that was all.

And one day, I met Bernado. He showed me the other half, a different side of his hometown. He showed him that the dark day would pass, the family he made in the apartment building, and the places that the townsfolk didn’t even know about. Every town in America has a community that hates queer folk like them, and Crystal Cove was no exception, but Bernado showed me how to find things to keep me going. He showed me the queer parts of town, places that thrived in the shadow and accepted who I was, and only then did I find comfort in a world that hated me for who I was.

But everything fell apart when he collapsed. In a short period, I became a sailor without a ship, lost in a storm that swallowed my lighthouse. I was hit by waves of depression, each one worse than the next with my only comfort being my cigars and the hoodie he wore that I kept at my bedside that was lost when my stuff was removed.

The screeching halt of Bernardo’s truck snapped me back to reality. I’ve been to the beaches surrounding Emerald Bay many times throughout my life, from a kid taken on family picnic tricks to being home for a few years. Yet, despite all the time I’ve spent here, the mile-long crescent pebble stretches of land the locals call a beach still impressed me with its illusion of grandeur. The water was a sparkling shade of emerald, even as the sun peeked behind the horizon, as frosty white waves crested and broke against the rocky shoreline. It was breathtaking as they stepped out of the car, each one letting the silence soak into their souls as they breathed in the crisp sting of brackish water.

“Are you ready for our next location,” Bernado shouted over the roaring waves, his hair stuck in a perpetual cycle of bedhead. He reached out his hand and I grabbed it, following him down to the shore.

Up close, the shoreline was even more breathtaking, a million smooth, large stones that looked uniformly gray at a distance but were a kaleidoscope of colors imaginable. Broken sea glass added to the illusion, refracting light onto a myriad of colors that splashed across the stones. They came in every possible shade of color, terra-cotta, sea green, lavender, and milky white and I couldn’t help myself as I pocketed a few as we scrambled over a huge, bleached bone white piece of driftwood.

There was a brisk wind that ruffled up our thin summer jacket, bringing with it the salty scent of the bay and the shrill shrieks of gulls that circled above. It was a beautiful day, cloudy except for a thin patch in the sky that was surrounded by a pale halo of blue. Up ahead, the stone-wrought arch of the Kissing Bridge loomed, and we both disappeared into the thicket, leaving behind the beach.

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Bernado gripped my hand, leading me further into the thicket until we finally reached just beneath the Kissing Bridge. There was already a fire pit in place by the bridge, small flame flickering weakly in the breeze, clinging to life in their bed of black ash. My brownish-yellow tent was tucked underneath a huge birch tree, tattered and worn from the elements that battered it. It was just like I had left it and it felt strangely peaceful.

“This is where we first met,” Bernado exclaimed, stepping into the cool creek to point to the beginning of the trail where they had first laid eyes.

Tears glistened in my eyes as I listened to his sweet words unlock the flood of memory that I had so desperately tried to push away. He was right of course; it was a July evening and he was kicked out of his parent’s home. And just like me, he thought that Kissing Bridge was the ideal location for a temporary home for only stoners who came out this far anymore. I remember it was like yesterday, his golden auburn hair shining brightly in the summer evening as he asked me if he could join me for dinner. That was the beginning of our budding friendship, both of us teaming up to take the world one step at a time.

“Hey wait up Bernado!” I shouted, jumping into the creek as Bernado disappeared around the bend.

The familiar outline of his mousy hair popped back up on the bridge and Bernado waved down at me, a huge Cheshire smile laid across his worn face. His laugh bounced across the tiny ravine, shocking a few birds from their perch as he disappeared again, stepping back down to meet me in the middle of the ravine. Brandishing his arm, he held a bag of Panda Express and taking my hand, led me to the tiny fire pit.

We eat together in silence, wolfing down a steamy serving of Lo-Mein and Chicken as the fire crackles, warming our soaked clothing. Warm memory flickered across my mind as I thought back to the time we found out that we were successful in buying an apartment. Bernado used some of the funds we saved up to buy us Panda Express, our favorite fast-food restaurant, and we sat together by the fire, watching the little flaking ball of flames curl up and die on the brisk summer breeze. Then I pulled out my stereo and Bernado grabbed my hand and reluctantly I joined him as we splashed around in the creek. We were trying to dance but I had two left feet so it seemed as if they were splashing water on each other.

It was one of the best moments of my life when everything seemed impossible. But just like the fire embers, their life was filled with only a fleeting moment of enjoyment before they crumbled away into black ash, swept up by the wind to be scattered across the world.

Bernado grinned at me, weaving his finger through mine, “Looking up at the stars reminds me of the possibility that we had.” I nodded silently, unsure of what to say as he continued, “But our pain Rhy was not ourselves, it was the stars.”

“You know that whenever I was lonely, I would look up at the stars because I knew that you were finally among them,” I whispered, gripping his hand as I laid back to watch a circle of stars surrounded by green.

Breathlessly, Bernado gripped my hand once we were tired of dancing and led me to the dark, vaguely unpleasant-smelling shadow of the Kissing Bridge where he struck a match and showed me the cruel graffiti written on the wall. Taking me by my hand, he showed me how cruel people were, but they did not affect them anymore.

Maybe it was okay being a fire ember, to live life fleeting and short if every moment was spent like it was the last.

Exhausted, I close my eyes, letting sleep take me so that I could wake up to another adventure.