The coffee shop was called "The Daily Grind," which was a name so uninspired that Marcus found it almost charming.
He was working the afternoon shift—11 AM to 4 PM, five days a week—when David walked in for the third time that week. The first time, David had ordered an oat milk latte. The second time, he'd asked Marcus for a hiking recommendation. The third time, he was just there.
"Same drink?" Marcus asked, already moving to make the latte.
"Actually," David said, leaning against the counter, "I was hoping you might recommend somewhere to eat tonight. I don't know the town very well."
Marcus should have recognized the opening. He was thirty-four years old. He'd dated before. He knew what this was. But he'd been so numb for the past few months that he'd almost forgotten how to read another person's interest.
"There's a Thai place downtown," Marcus said. "Good pad thai. Reasonable prices."
"Have you been there?" David asked.
"Once or twice."
"Want to go tonight? After your shift?"
There it was. The direct question. The invitation. The possibility of something different.
Marcus looked at David properly for the first time. He was younger than Marcus—maybe late twenties. He had the kind of effortless attractiveness that came from good genetics and not caring too much about appearance. His clothes were deliberately casual but obviously expensive. He had the vibe of someone who'd left a structured life behind and was looking for authenticity upstate.
"Yeah," Marcus said. "Okay. I finish at 4."
David smiled. "I'll wait."
They went to the Thai place and it was fine. The food was good. David was easy to talk to. He asked questions and actually listened to the answers. He told stories about growing up in San Francisco and getting tired of the startup culture and deciding that what he really wanted was to travel and see America.
"I'm trying to do a road trip," David said, eating his pad thai. "West. I have a car. I have time. I don't have anywhere I need to be. It sounds romantic in theory, but honestly, I'm lonely doing it alone. I've been driving for two months and I'm tired of my own company."
"Where are you headed?" Marcus asked.
"LA eventually. But maybe longer—maybe all the way to the coast. Mexico if I feel like it. I don't know. It's the whole point—no plan."
Marcus thought about this. A road trip with no plan. A person who was also running but doing it with purpose. A person who seemed to think the future was something that could be shaped by choice rather than something that happened to you.
"That sounds nice," Marcus said.
"You should come," David said simply. "I know that's forward. I know we just met. But you seem like someone who needs to get out of here. And I need company. It could work."
Marcus should have said no. He should have explained that he had commitments. That he had friends depending on him. That James and Sarah needed him even if they didn't say it.
Instead, he said: "I'd have to think about it."
He thought about it for three days.
He thought about it while he was making lattes. He thought about it while he was walking through Ithaca. He thought about it while he watched James slowly emerge from his depression and Sarah coming home from work with her tired but determined energy.
The truth was: Marcus didn't want to be in Ithaca. He loved James and Sarah, but being here was like being trapped in amber. They were all stuck in the same loop—run, survive, repeat. None of them were moving forward. They were just postponing the inevitable dissolution.
David represented something different. David represented the possibility that you could leave and not feel guilty about it. That you could choose yourself and not be a bad person for doing so.
On the fourth day, Marcus went to David's motel room (a different motel, not where Blake was staying, though of course Marcus didn't know that) and said yes.
"We leave tomorrow morning," David said. "Early. Before dawn if you want."
"I need to tell them," Marcus said.
"Of course," David replied.
Marcus came back to the house that evening. James and Sarah were in the kitchen, making dinner together. It was the first time he'd seen them cooperate in weeks. The first time they seemed like they were actually connected rather than just sharing space.
"I'm leaving," Marcus said. He'd practiced this. He wanted it to sound clear and final and not guilty.
"Where?" Sarah asked.
"West. With David. The guy I've been seeing. He's driving to California. He asked me to come. I said yes."
He watched their faces change. Sarah's expression went through several iterations: surprise, then hurt, then something like resignation. James just looked sad in a way that suggested he'd been expecting this.
"When?" Sarah asked.
"Tomorrow morning."
"Just like that?" Sarah's voice wasn't angry. It was worse—it was disappointed. "You're just leaving?"
"I can't stay here," Marcus said. "I know that makes me a bad person. I know we came together and I'm breaking that. But I can't keep doing this. I can't keep pretending that living in a house in Ithaca is moving forward. We're all dying here. We're just dying slowly."
"We're not dying," James said quietly.
"We are," Marcus replied. "Look at us. We're three broken people sharing a house and pretending that's enough. It's not enough. I need more than this."
Sarah stood up. "Then go," she said. "But don't make this about the three of us. You're not leaving because we're broken. You're leaving because you're afraid."
"Maybe," Marcus said. "But I need to be afraid somewhere else."
He packed that night. His clothes, his vinyl records, his books. Everything he'd brought to the house. It didn't take long. He didn't have much.
He left a note: "I'm sorry. You'll be okay. Both of you. Better than okay. I just need to go."
At 6 AM, David's car pulled up to the house.
Marcus loaded his stuff in the trunk. He stood there for a moment, looking at the cottage. At the porch where he'd sat with James and Sarah, eating breakfast, pretending they had a plan. At the windows where he'd seen them both trying to figure out how to be alive.
He felt guilty. He felt relieved. He felt like he was abandoning people he cared about and saving his own life simultaneously.
David was asleep in the driver's seat. Marcus got in quietly and closed the door.
As they drove away from Ithaca, Marcus watched the town disappear in the rear-view mirror. The coffee shop where he'd worked. The bookstore where Sarah worked. The house that had been temporary shelter and trap both at once.
He thought about James in there, probably still asleep. He thought about Sarah waking up and finding the note. He thought about what they'd do next.
But mostly, he thought about the road ahead. About California. About the possibility that somewhere else, someone else, in a different time, Marcus could be a person who wasn't broken.
"You okay?" David asked from the driver's seat. He'd woken up.
"Yeah," Marcus said. "I think I am."
They drove west into the rising sun.
Behind them, in the house in Ithaca, James woke to the sound of a car leaving. He went downstairs and found Sarah in the kitchen, holding Marcus's note. She was crying, but quietly. Like she'd known this was coming and had been preparing for it.
"He's gone," she said.
"I know," James replied.
"We're alone now," Sarah said.
James looked at her. She looked small and tired and determined all at once. She looked like someone who'd survived things and was about to survive more.
"Not for long," James said. "We're leaving too."
Sarah looked at him. "Where?"
"West," James said. "Like Marcus. Like everyone else. We're going west."
She nodded like this made sense. Like the only direction left was away.
They started packing that afternoon.