Prologue

Andrew opened the can of beer, keeping the Tallboy of Tecate in the small, brown paper bag. It hissed when he pulled open the tab. He drank from it and then silently passed it over to me.

“Cheers,” I said as I raised the beer up towards the sky then took a sip and passed it over to Ben. It had been three hours since I arrived in San Francisco. It had been a week and a half since I walked across the stage to receive my college degree. And now I sat between the only two people I knew in San Francisco.

I believe passionately. I believe in the things so many of us are afraid to believe in. I believe in moments of Fate, in the eerie reality of Karma, in a good and loving God, in People- despite our many failures. And I believe in the fairy-tale idea of love at first sight because it happened to me in a park, on a warm, August night. In the distance, car headlights flooded over The Bay Bridge and into the city. An orange glow hung above the buildings of downtown. Branches of palm trees in the park swung with the breeze. A barge moved slowly through the dark water of the bay, under a clear sky of glowing stars, laughter from the playground floated up the hill as a few adults raced down a slide. Sitting in the cool grass at the top of the Dolores Park hill, I looked out over the lit-up cityscape, out over the moonlit grass, out from beyond where I was and where I had been, and I fell in love with San Francisco.

Maybe that was the night I gave up my hold on all those frantic plans I had made. Maybe that was when I walked away from what I wanted and tumbled into a life of what I unknowingly and desperately needed. But, that’s the kind of thing love makes you do.

My roommate, Patrick, once said, “Michelle moved here and took Ben's place after he lost his job, gave up and moved back to Alabama.” He dramatically emphasized the “gave up,” and said it as though there could be nothing waiting for Ben back in Auburn; as though Ben were a fool for leaving his life in San Francisco. But Ben left. He ran back home and did well, found happiness, found love, found God. He chased his dreams just like the rest of us were doing. 

He went where happiness beckoned him to go. His desires and opportunities just happened to be back in the place he grew up, while ours were leading us away from the places we had come from.