I'm sitting here in the shadow of a rusting Cavco trailer, built back in 1978. It’s a real junk king, corrugated rust and crooked skirts holding court in the wild weeds and dead leaves and a wind that smells like rotting rubber.

I remember the promise you made me, after our first kiss. I remember hearing your heartbeat, the shine in your eyes, your beautiful smile. You called me your vixen, and your paw found mine, and the warmth of your touch killed the cold of a long and bitter life that until then had been empty of love or trust.

Destiny wasn’t a force of destruction in that moment, fate wasn't a foe. I thought I saw summer, there with you.

Of course it wasn’t to be. It wasn’t in the cards, see. My deck tried to tell me so, yet I wouldn’t listen. I wanted to believe, to be more than just a shadow of this forgotten place. In your arms I wasn’t just a gas station clerk who cleaned toilets and worked a register…I was someone who meant something to someone, I was…I don’t know, special I guess. That’s the word.

You’ve moved on now, I get that. It’s the way of the world, right, and it’s all in fair play in the end. Even if it’s not fair, and it’s not right, it is what it is.

I won ten K off the lottery yesterday, by the way. My deck told it true, for once. I’m going to fix up my dad’s old Thunderbird and go to Vegas. Fortune favors the brave, that’s the old adage, and I’m going to test that dubious wisdom out. I’ll keep your lucky card up my sleeve just in case.

I don’t really have anything to lose now that you’re gone, and besides…you taught me to live for the moment. You’d tell me to just go for it, I know, so…