About twenty minutes from my parents’ house in eastern Long Island sits the most perfect hole-in-the-wall mom and pop restaurant, a white clapboard farmhouse turned eatery. Everything inside is black and white; knick-knacks and tablecloths all paying homage to cows in some way or another, not in an Indian way, but in a New England farmhouse kinda way. On weekdays and weekends both, people stand on the porch outside or cluster in groups in the gravel parking lot, sometimes waiting over an hour for a table.

The morning of my brother’s wedding, we all ventured out to breakfast there. It was the last time we would be together as a family of six, instead of seven. The day was warm but cloudy and my sneakers crunched on the pebbles in the parking lot as I shifted my weight back and forth, waiting. My stomach ached every time the door opened and the smell of bacon wafted through the air. I stared absentmindedly at cars speeding by on the neighboring highway as I pondered eggs or pancakes and that is when I spotted him.

He was wearing a blue baseball cap and jeans, dark hair but sparkling blue eyes which met mine and held them. He was with his family, I assumed and looked to be a few years older than me. I managed a smile and then became distracted as our last name was called and we headed inside. I peeked over my menu a few times throughout the meal, attempting to locate him, wondering what he was eating and why I found him so amazingly cute.

I was home from college in between my sophomore and junior year, involved in a near two year relationship of my own which was dissipating slowly, painfully. I had decided to spend the summer away from him, living back home with my parents, waiting tables and scooping ice cream, taking a ballet class at Barnard. I didn’t miss him as much as I wanted to, didn’t feel the tug to visit the way that I needed to.

I had traveled the eight hours to see him a few months back, in May, for his friend’s wedding. It started off harmless enough but once Jagermeister had entered the picture, the night had turned sour, fast. My boyfriend had too much to drink and when I suggested we get a cab and go home, he had thrown money at me and called me a string of horrible names. I dissolved into mortified tears but still sat with him in the lobby of the banquet hall as he slurred his speech and told me he was secretly brilliant, a fucking genius.

We had gone out to a diner afterwards with mutual friends, my boyfriend carrying on loudly in public, making inappropriate jokes. He passed out next to me when we were back at his apartment and I spent the early morning hours staring at the ceiling, knowing that I wanted out, feeling paralyzed about what to do next. He awoke to find me sitting on the couch, exhausted and unhappy.

He didn’t remember any of the events of the previous night and a wave of guilt washed over him. Apologizing profusely, I’m sorry’s spewing out through genuine tears, he grabbed my hands and begged my forgiveness. I told him it was alright, that he was drunk, that he didn’t know what he was doing, that it happens to everyone. In my head, I told myself that it wasn’t really okay actually, not at all. I wanted to go home, I wanted my family, I needed a break. And so we took one.

The blue hat boy disappeared that day as the morning turned into an afternoon that turned into a wedding beneath a chuppah. A fierce love jumped up into my throat as my brother and his wife walked each other down the aisle, the gentle whistle of my aunt’s flute leading the way. I sat in my folding chair on a lawn, next to a lake and witnessed two people deeply in love, high on the very thought of each other, swear their loyalty forever. My brother stepped on the glass to end the ceremony but it didn’t break until the second try and by that point, everyone was laughing.

A few weeks later, I was scooping ice cream at my second job, elbow deep into a tub of cookie dough when my heart skipped a beat. It was the boy in the blue hat, waiting in line at the ice cream parlor with someone else. But who? His mom? His…oh. A girl. His girlfriend. My stomach dropped and I didn’t know why.

He smiled brightly when he saw me.

“Hey! I know you!”

“Yeah! I saw you at, that place…a few weeks ago, for breakfast…”

“Yeah! Oh how weird! You work here?”

I was suddenly embarrassed, certain there was a smear of hot fudge on my forehead, a stray sprinkle or two nestled in my ponytail.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Cool, cool! Well have a good summer.”

“Yeah, you too.”

I called my best friend from college later on that evening.

“I just don’t understand why he appeared twice in my life if he’s already DATING SOMEONE. He’s probably totally in love, wah wah wah.”

“You are missing the point,” my friend assured me. “You do not need another relationship right now. Maybe what you needed was to get that feeling in your stomach, to meet someone who made you feel that way. Maybe he just represents the something better you deserve.”

I never saw the blue hat boy again. I don’t know where he lives or where he works or what his name is. Sometimes if I close my eyes, I can picture the cap on his head or the startling paleness of eyes. But that is about all.

Months later, I sat on the curb in a college parking lot, breaking up with my boyfriend. After we hugged for the millionth time, he got into his packed up car and headed towards a new job, a new town, a new life far away from mine. I hugged my knees to my chest and cried into my sleeve as he drove away.

My best friend was waiting for me at his apartment when I finally got up the energy to walk across campus and through his front door. I crawled up into his bed and sobbed because I was sad and had lost my security blanket. But more than that, I cried because the overpowering emotion was not grief but relief. He was gone. I could be me. And that me would wait for the Something Better, a boy who made me nervous, a boy who smiled with his eyes, a boy, dare I even wish it, a boy with a blue hat.