"It doesn't," she says, shaking her head, looking down at her mug for a long moment before she raises it to take a sip. "That's the cruelest part of all. I had so many things I wanted to say, or...needed to, and now I never have the chance."

On the worst days, the times she's been as low as she felt that night on the beach--or lower--Rosie's wondered if any of them would have been worth saying at all. If it would have changed anything for the better, or only shifted the pain to some other bit of her heart. She'll never know, and even now Rosie can't tell if that's a good thing or not.

"Even if he came back, and almost no one ever comes back, it's not..." She sniffles. "There's no guarantee he'd remember having been here before."