“Graphic designers don’t get special weeks at restaurants and appreciation weeks. Teaching is a noble cause.”
“Look, I’ll give you the health insurance reason, but that one is…” I shake my head and finish my drink.
“What?” she presses, a hint of defensiveness rising in her tone.
“No, I just…I get it. I see why you’re stuck.”
She raises her eyebrows at me, waiting for the rest of what I want to say.
“Yeah, you’ve created an airtight argument about why you can’t leave. So you’ll stay forever whether or not you actually want to.”
“Miles,” she groans. “It’s not that easy.”
“What does Hazel think?”
Abby’s eyes stay fixed on her empty glass. She skates her finger along the top edge of the glass, avoiding my gaze. “Hazel…doesn’t know.”
“Wait, what? You haven’t told your best friend that you applied to a graphic design program and you’re thinking about changing careers?”
Abby presses her lips together in a thin line. “When you say it like that…”
“I’m just surprised. Hazel seems like the perfect person to tell.”
Not to mention, I’m reeling that she toldmebefore telling her best friend. Either she thinks I’m that trustworthy, or she doesn’t expect to talk to me again after this and is confessing to me the way one might confess to a person on an airplane as it’s going down—out of desperation to get it off your chest.
“Why? Why keep it from her?” I ask.
She’s quiet for so long, I’m not sure if she’ll answer.
“Because I…” She sighs. “If I say it out loud to her, that makes it real. And I don’t know if it’s real yet.”
“If what is real?”
“The wanting.”
I’m about to say something else, but she inhales deeply, like she might say more, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from talking.
“When I was a kid, I wanted to get better so bad. I didn’t want to be sick as often as I was. I saw how tired my parents were. And wanting didn’t get me anywhere, so I…just stopped. I don’t always trust myself to know what I want, and sometimes even when I do know, it feels silly to say it out loud because wanting only made my life harder then. Things got easier whenI accepted that I would always have migraines and have to deal with being sick.
“So I’m trying to figure out if this—going to a graphic design program—is something I really want or if I’m just hoping it will fix something that can’t be fixed. Like, maybe I’m just burned out and all I needed was a vacation, some time off to clear my head, and then I can get back to it.”
She gestures vaguely, indicating that this vacation might be the thing she needs to keep soldiering on as a teacher. To keep putting her body on the line for the noble cause of teaching.
I can hear the wanting in her voice. It’s real, but it’s as real as the fear there, too. Abby knows what she wants to do, but she lacks the confidence to do it.
I wish she could see herself the way I see her. She’d never doubt herself again.
I would tell her, but I’ve pushed enough tonight. I don’t want her to run away again.
“Well, I hope however many days you have left here give you the clarity you need. Another drink?” I point to her empty glass.
“Actually, would you get me some water?”
“Just water?”
She thinks for a beat. “No, I’ll do a margarita on the rocks, please.”
I don’t want her to go yet; I’m not ready for this conversation to end. Sleep schedule be damned—I’ll stay out here all night if it means I get to spend time with her. I just have to not fuck things up tonight, and then I can take it one day at a time. I need to find out how much time she has left here.
