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Fucking hell, it hurts.
It’s enough that a tear spills out from my eye.
“Ada?” Max asks softly.
I shake my head, facing away from him, angrily rubbing the tear away with the heel of my palm. “I’m fine. Just malfunctioning.”
He doesn’t say anything. Keeps driving. Lets me be, stewing in my heartbreak and frustration. Why isn’t this getting any easier? Why, when I think I’m finally getting over him, I’m pulled back into my feelings? How am I so easily undone?
“I don’t think I can say anything to make things make sense to you,” Max eventually says, voice low. “And I never knew Jay. But from what you told me, you need to take it easy on yourself. There’s nothing you could have done.”
I try to swallow but the tears are blocking my throat. I can only shake my head.
He goes on, gently, “You were his first. First everything, by the sounds of it. He’s just starting out. He doesn’t know what it’s like to…he has no experience with people, with love, with this world. And maybe, just maybe, he’s a fool, too. A fool with fear in his heart. Heaven knows he doesn’t want to end up like me.”
I lick my lips. “Were you afraid when you gave it all up for Rose?”
“No. And I would do it again.”
“For her?”
“For someone. If I loved them, I would.”
His words seem to float between us.
“Ugh, what a mess,” I say, searching my purse for tissues and bringing them out, dabbing my nose and under my eyes so I don’t ruin my makeup. “Sorry for being such a wet blanket.”
“Darlin’, if only you knew half the shit that goes on inside me. It’s not a pretty place. You’re handling things very well, and as only you can. None of this is linear. Life just doesn’t work that way. Neither do hearts.”
I exhale shakily, though the tears leave me feeling lighter. “I just want this over with. I want to stop caring and start moving on.”
“You are moving on,” he says. We zip past the towering forests. “Even when it feels like you’re standing still.”
We pull into Mendocino just before sunset, the journey having slowed down as soon as we turned off 101 and onto Highway 1, which is even more narrow and winding.
“Oh my god, this is so fucking cute,” I practically squeal as Max takes the Super B down the side roads, past rows of tiny claptrap houses with shutters and well-manicured gardens. The cypress trees are all bent from the constant wind from the Pacific that crashes on the shore below, there are tons of little shops, galleries, and restaurants, and, when I roll down the window, the air smells like eucalyptus.
When we drive past a dive bar called Dick’s Place with a dog inside, I’m practically wriggling in my seat. “We have to get drunk there.”
Max groans. “Not again.”
I ignore him. He seems fine, hangover forgotten.
We finally pull up in front of the hotel, a small building painted marigold yellow with white trim and I’m itching to document this all for Instagram and my blog. Maybe this will be my first foray into being a travel influencer.
We check in, and this time I insist Max leave the mind tricks out of it and just charge it to my card. This, plus the meal from last night, and I know I’m racking up the bill, but I also know tomorrow night we’re going to be in San Francisco which is stupidly expensive, so he can save his funny business for then.
Our room is small, but there are two beds at least and a view over the street and into Mendocino Bay. Though the sun is going down somewhere on the horizon, it’s been blanketed by a layer of incoming fog that lights up the world in a hazy orange.
“Hmmm,” Max muses, staring out the window. “I see this town has the Hell filter on.”
“Hey, no negative attitudes tonight,” I tell him, throwing my suitcase onto my bed. “We’re going to have fun.”
“I thought we had fun last night.”
“I’ll let you think that,” I tell him. “But you were brooding to the extreme, and then you were flat-out hammered. Not a lot of fun for me.”
“Guess I never did apologize.”
“No, you didn’t. And it’s fine. I get it. Maybe tonight is my turn.”
He grins at me. “I’ll keep an eye on you. Just remember that the road from here to San Francisco won’t be so friendly to a hangover.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, let’s go get something to eat.”
We end up eating at the restaurant in the hotel since it’s closest and they had space available for us. We both manage to behave ourselves, opting for a couple of beers each instead of bottles of wine.
But when dinner is done, I’m grabbing Max’s hand and dragging him down the street to where I saw the bar earlier.
