Conner opened his eyes, realizing he was at a sandy beach. He stood up, dusting the sand off his pants. It was a cold fall morning, with dark grey clouds covering up most of the sky. He gazed around the sandy dunes, trying to figure out where and when he was. He trudged through the sand, looking for any sign of civilization.

"I don't remember ever going here." Conner mused.

He ambled along the dunes until he found a small wooden path. He cautiously climbed up onto the platform, walking across the wooden structure until he reached concrete. He quickly followed the concrete path to a set of stairs that he quickly made his way up, searching for the source of his memory. Conner reached the top of the stairs, pausing as he saw the abandoned building that he remembered so distinctly. He turned and looked down at the empty beach, recalling his memory.

This was the day they had met. It was a school picnic, something Conner wasn't too excited about. He'd never liked large parties. Bree was down by the surf. He could just barely see her off in the distance. He remembered being drawn to her, even then. She was wearing that purple beanie that he'd come to know so well and even hate eventually. At the time he'd thought how cool, a purple beanie.

"Hi there." Bree said.

She was suddenly sitting next to Conner on the steps, a wooden handrail separating them, eyeing his plate of chicken.

"Hi." Conner replied, not looking away from his plate.

"I saw you sitting over here by yourself. And I thought thank god, someone normal who doesn't know how to interact at these things either." Bree said, smiling.

"Yeah. I don't ever know what to say." Conner admitted, shrugging his shoulders.

"I'm Breanne Clementine Campbell. Can I borrow a piece of your chicken?" Bree asked, tugging off one of her gloves.

She reached over and grabbed a chicken leg off of his plate and took a bite.

"And then you just took it, without waiting for an answer." Conner chuckled.

"I'm Conner." Conner said, tilting his head.

"Hi Conner. So, no jokes about my name." Bree said.

"You mean like, oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine. Huckleberry Hound, that sort of thing?" Conner asked.

"Yeah, like that. You can call me Bree." Bree said, gazing down at the party below them.

"No, no jokes. One of my favorite things as a kid was my Huckleberry Hound doll. I think your name is magical." Conner said.

Bree turned and stared directly into Conner's eyes. Her eyes were deadly serious and filled with a mixture of determination and despair.

"This is it, Conner. It's going to be gone soon." Bree said.

There was a long moment of silence as they both looked out at the beach.

"I know." Conner said.

"What do we do?" Bree worriedly asked.

Conner stared down at his feet, watching the wind blow the loose shoelaces to and fro. He looked back up at Bree, completely calm.

"Enjoy it." Conner said, staring into Bree's eyes.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

It was a dark and cloudy night. The wind blew leaves and hats alike across the beach. Conner and Bree ran along the beach. By some miracle, her purple beanie stayed on her head. They walked towards the bonfire that some teachers had set up for after the school picnic had ended. There was a horde of teenagers surrounding the small fire pit, more than the chaperones could handle. Bree spotted a few of them sneaking off, only to be caught by oncoming teachers. Conner led her to the bonfire, grabbing two sticks and a few marshmallows for them to roast over the fire. The teachers had set up a table where they could make s'mores to the right of the firepit. Conner started to roast a marshmallow over the fire when Bree tugged on his arm.

"Follow me." Bree whispered, smacking the stick out of Conner's hand.

She pulled him through the crowd of teenagers and waited by the edge of the chaperone's perimeter.

"On my mark. 3, 2, 1, go!" Bree whispered.

They bolted away from the perimeter, quickly soaring past the chaperones at full speed. Only one chaperone ran after them, a high school math teacher named Mr. Fiddleford. Bree shoved Conner inside an indent in the rocks, where they hid until Mr. Fiddleford had rumbled past them. They cautiously peeked out from the rocks, waiting to see if the teacher was still there. When there was no sign of him, Bree stealthily crept out from their precarious hiding spot. Conner slowly stood up and clumsily stepped off the rock, tripping on the slippery rock face and falling into a puddle of water. Bree chuckled at his antics and helped him up. They ran up the beach until they reached a wooden platform. They climbed up onto the wooden walkway until they reached the concrete steps where they had first met earlier that day.

Bree led Conner to the door of the high school.

"Why are we here?" Conner whispered.

"I thought we could have more fun in here than outside with a million teenage pigs." Bree whispered.

"How are you going to get inside?" Conner asked, tugging on the locked front door.

"I snagged this off of one of the teachers in the crowd. He didn't notice a thing." Bree said, holding up a key.

Bree put the key into the lock, opening the door. They walked inside the main hallway, staring at the long row of classrooms. Bree pushed Conner inside the nearest one, which was already full of desks.

"Here, you fix up the place while I go find us some food in the teacher's lounge." Bree said.

"I really should go!" Conner called, but she had already left.

A crash sounded in the distance, shaking the school. Parts of the classroom began to crumble, knocking a few of the desks over.

"I need to catch my ride." Conner said.

"So go." Bree called from the hallway.

Conner turned around and walked to the door. He put his hand on the cold door handle and stopped, his eyes widening. He looked back at the hallway with a fresh perspective.

"I did. I thought you were maybe a nut, but you were exciting." Conner recalled.

The floor of the school turned into sand and sea water gently drifted in, soaking Conner's feet.

"I wish you'd stayed." Bree said, following him.

"I wish I'd stayed too. Now I wish I'd stayed. I wish I'd done a lot of things." Conner replied.

The water grew higher, splashing Conner's knees.

"I wish I'd..." Conner began, shaking his head and looking at his feet, now completely submerged.

"I wish I'd stayed. I do." Conner confessed, looking back up at Bree.

"Well I came back from the lounge and you were gone." Bree said.

"I walked out. I walked out the door." Conner said, with a humorless laugh.

"Why?" Bree asked.

The wallpaper began to shred off the walls as walls collapsed around them, revealing the sandy beach and the frothy waves crashing onto the dunes.

"I don't know. I felt like a scared little kid. It was like i-it was above my head, I don't know." Conner stammered, kicking the water.

"You were scared?" Bree asked, surprised.

Conner let out a dry chuckle.

"I thought you knew that about me." Conner said.

He sat down on a nearby couch, the water still splashing at his feet.

"I ran back to the bonfire, trying to outrun my humiliation, I think." Conner admitted.

He stared out the window, watching the waves flow onto the beach.

"Was it something I said?" Bree said.

"Yeah." Conner replied.

He could hear the pitter-patter of rain falling on the crumbling roof of the school as well as the roaring sound of the waves.

"You said, so go with such disdain, you know?" Conner said.

"Aw, I'm sorry." Bree apologized.

"It's okay." Conner answered, shrugging his shoulders.

He walked out the door and closed it behind him. He started to run down the pathway, his footsteps echoing across the street.

"Conner?" Bree called.

He turned to see that the doors had collapsed, leaving Bree standing there alone, the wind blowing her blonde hair in the wind, her purple beanie stubbornly hanging on for dear life.

"What if you stayed this time?" Bree asked.

"I walked out the door." Conner said, nodding at the remains of the door on the ground.

He aimlessly walked back towards the crumbling school building.

"There's no memory left." Conner said.

"Come back and make up a goodbye at least. Pretend we had one." Bree called.

Conner walked back inside the school as the white void followed him, swallowing everything in its path. Bree met him in the hallway with a sad smile.

"Bye, Conner." Bree said, her voice a mixture of hope and despair.

She leaned in towards Conner as he held her in his arms.

"I love you." Conner said, a tear rolling down his face.

"Meet me at the beach." Bree whispered, closing her eyes.

The white void enveloped them both one last time.

Conner was in a car, looking out the window. His parents were driving him away from the bonfire, but as he looked out the windows, all he saw were flashes of his memories. Conner and Bree on their flight to Germany, the two of them sitting on a grassy hill in Munich in the shadow of Neuschwanstein Castle, Bree and Conner at their senior prom. They all flashed by the car, quickly erased from Conner's mind.

"Conner, I saw you talking to somebody pretty!" Charlotte exclaimed.

"She was nice." Conner said, blankly gazing out the window.

"Yeah, man. Who was she?" Bob asked.

Their fight, their first date, their first kiss, and the day they met all flashed by the car, erased forever. Conner turned back toward his parents with a shrug.

"She was just some girl." Conner said.