She kissed me! I felt higher than the top of the Ferris wheel! Then something dropped behind me, as she ended our embrace. I turned around to see what it was.
It was the swan. It had fallen from her gentle grasp while we were kissing, into a puddle. I wiped the stains from its pink fur. But when I rose to hand it back to her, she was gone.
Where could she have gone so quickly?
My heart sank as I searched the arcade, Starbucks, and the rest of the pier.
Candy—I mean Lilly—had left me again, as if she had mysteriously swum off like the day she had saved my life.
I leaned on the railing for several minutes, the swan dangling from my hand, and stared out at the waves splashing up against the shoreline.
I realized I still had some tokens left. Might as well crash some speedboats while waiting for Chainsaw. I reached into my pocket, but I found an infinitely more valuable token. The necklace! I had forgotten to give it back. But more importantly, and mysteriously, she had forgotten to take it.
I walked into the dark arcade in high spirits. I was still in the game.