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Benji had to admit that despite everything, including the loneliness of it all that she still couldn't shake, life in the last few years had been treating her surprisingly well. It had been a long time since Kia had died on her, and she knew it had been a long time even though she still woke up screaming once or twice a week, drenched in a cold sweat and gripped by despair everytime she rolled over to tell Kia about her nightmare, finding the bed empty again and realizing it was never a false nightmare at all. It was a lot to get over, even in five long years, but she had come a long way from the borderline comatose shock she had been in for the first couple of months, the whole turbulent first year even, even the refusal to eat, trying to take her own life. She had been so numb then, and she was numb now but she was learning how to deal with it and to try to experience other things despite it, to explore the world even if it she had to do it alone. There was still good in the world, there had to be, and she wasn't totally alone anyway. She had her sister, and even her relationship with her mothers had improved in the last six months. Sera and Hunter hadn't had a drink all night long, not tonight or at all since Taylor and Eddie had their second baby. And there was Izzy by her side, always, and that did help. He kept her grounded, reminding her they were only twenty-six and there was still a whole world out there, and they were going to explore it, her and her best friend.

Things were finally looking up for the two of them, and that was why she had agreed to come here, to this bar that she had told herself she would never go back to again. She had even started driving around it, taking routes to avoid it, to avoid even looking at it. But that past was gone and done and over, tonight they were celebrating the future. When they had been younger, before all of this, the three of them had dreamed over moving away from Texas, dreamed of doing big things. But Kia had been the special one, and now it was just her and Iz alone, but opportunity still came knocking. Surfing had been painful at first, it was something she did while Kia laid on the beach, and the disappointment of going alone kept her out of the water. But she had really thrown herself back in over the last two years, it was dangerous and distracting two things that Benji craved now, and it had finally paid off. She was kind of old, even if she didn't feel it, past her prime surfing years for most people. But she was reckless and that was how she surfed, and people were almost always impressed. She took risks even young guns didn't dare try, mostly because dying didn't seem so scary anymore. Kia always told her to be careful, so without her warnings, Benji did as she pleased on the waves. What did it matter? She didn't want to die, not really, but she wasn't afraid to anymore. Everyone went whenever it was their time, she had come to terms with that five years ago. Your time was up whenever some greater power decided to end it, so why not have fun with it in the meantime?

Someone had taken notice of her having fun, and that was how they had ended up celebrating. It had been a little over a month ago that she had been approached by a woman on these very dunes, and asked to come to California and do some work with Roxy. Demos, commercials, modeling their clothes, she didn't really care. It was the first thing she had been excited about since that night Kia left her. The girl that had been nothing, that had aspired to nothing, and had wanted to kill herself just a few years ago, was going somewhere. She had a major surfing company interested in taking her on as a rep, and she was going to take it. She and Izzy were leaving in two days, just before her birthday. She wondered what the December surfing in California would be like. Her whole family, even some that had only recently started talking to her again, were inside the bar celebrating. It had been a favorite place for her, before it was tainted. Izzy had set the whole thing up for her, and though she had been drinking a little, she was barely buzzed and just not feeling it. She wanted to be happy, she surfed down on the beach all the time and said she was fine with the venue, but she wasn't.