“Well, I’ll keep my eye out for a newly renovated home in a few months.”
“Oh, it’ll take at least a year.”
“I’ll set a reminder on my phone,” she says and tilts her head up to offer me the sweetest smile.
There are so many ways I could respond. All of them imply that she and I are still seeing each other in a year or that maybe we’d reconnect again in a year’s time. I don’t want to make a casual joke about it now, though. I want to have a real conversation with her, but I want us both to be clear-minded. We’ve both had just enough alcohol that I decide the conversation should wait.
“Gray seemed to like your logos,” I say, offering a change of subject.
She takes the bait. “And I really liked sketching some ideas for him,” she says. I don’t have to see her face to know that she’s absolutely beaming.
“Did it make you rethink how ‘selfish’ graphic design is?”
She offers me a defeated grin. “Maybe a little.”
“Make you think about saying yes to the program?”
“Honestly, it did. I haven’t felt that excited about art in a long time. Not like that anyway. I’m always excited to teach new students a new skill or to see them improve an old one, but for me? I haven’t been excited about art for myself for a long time.”
“You deserve that, you know?”
“Deserve what?”
“Good things. Joy. To do things just because you love them.”
She leans her head against my shoulder. “I might be starting to believe that,” she says, her words almost drowned out by the ocean.
I wish I could give her all the things she deserves. I wish I could be part of bringing her joy in this life, of providing her with good things that make her happy. I want that. I want to be one of those things in her life that makes her happy.
All I can do now is hope that she wants that too.
21
ABBY
I silence my alarm as it goes off so as not to disturb Miles. He’s not working today and said he’d hang out with Gray while I’m on my excursion this morning, but he has a surprise for me later tonight. He’s usually up for the gym in the morning, but it’s four right now and I think even for him, that’s too early.
After our walk on the beach last night, I didn’t want the night to end. I invited him back to my room. We cuddled and talked until late into the night, when both of us started drifting off mid-conversation. We talked about everything except the thing that we both know we need to talk about: what happens next.
I kept thinking I’d bring it up at the right moment, but no moment ever felt like the right one. I thought he would bring it up, but he never did, either. He seemed reluctant to let go of me after the lighthouse yesterday, but Miles has always been affectionate and touchy. It’s possible he’s feeling anxious about me leaving, but he hasn’t said anything yet.
After his vulnerability with me in the lighthouse and then again in the restaurant bathroom, maybe it felt like too much for him to also be vulnerable with me about his feelings and have a conversation about what we’re going to do next.
Today is our last chance. I don’t want to have the conversation we need to hundreds of miles apart on the phone. We have to talk tonight.
I slip out of bed without disturbing him to get ready. I opt for white linen pants and a matching white cropped tank top, pleased with the way the white fabric looks against my tanned skin. I run my fingers under the cold water and hold them beneath my eyes to try and get rid of the bags under them, but it doesn’t do much. I’d use my makeup to cover some of it, but I don’t think the skin tone matches now that I’ve had this much sun exposure.
I hardly recognize myself, glowing the way I am after nine days in Cabo. Hazel will make a comment about how I look as tan as I did after our spring break trip to Florida freshman year, after I transformed of course. I got burned the first day after she and I sprawled out in the sun and I insisted that I didn’t need to reapply sunscreen. The red peeled to tan, but she’s going to remind me that I was a lobster for a few days.
I might look more tan, a little less stressed, but inside, am I any different? Miles has been such a delightful distraction from thinking about my own life, but I’m leaving tomorrow, and as exciting as it is to go home with a bit of a tan and a more relaxed vibe, if I’m still not any closer to a decision about my life, what was the point of all of this?
I have less than two weeks left to make a decision that will change everything for me. I thought I’d be ready to make it by now.
It should be an easy choice. Teaching is making me more stressed, more sick, and more miserable every year that I continue. The obvious choice is to leave, but it isn’t the easy choice. My life was upended this year already—losing my fiancé, living on my own again in my early thirties when I thought I would be starting a life as a wife.
Do I want to go through another upheaval? Not just of my career, but of my whole identity? And, sure, Walter is right. If I hate it, I can go back to teaching. But wouldn’t that just be a waste of time?
I thought coming on this trip would help me relax and clear my mind, but I feel as confused as ever about what to do.
