“Probably only until September or October. I doubt I can swing a six-month stay no matter how many awards I’ve won.”
“We need to keep you humble,” Cooper says. “Are you excited about the new gig? Change is good, right?”
I open my mouth, closing it just as quickly.
These two know everything about my life, but there’s something stopping me from blurting out the things I’ve been grappling with recently: The way I’ve felt stuck in my career. How the last year has been a drag, every day longer than the last. The dread that sinks like a brick to the pit of my stomach when I get ready for work.
How do I tell them I’m afraid the job that once brought me joy is losing its spark?
How do I admit I’m floundering, treading water in the middle of the ocean without a life jacket? Burned-out, fuckingexhausted, and looking for a sliver of enjoyment in the hell of corporate America where I don’t know how to do anything but talk about low-pressure systems and cold fronts?
I don’t want to mention the fake smile I’ve perfected. The deep ache that settles in my chest from missing something I love: the adrenaline rush I used to get when I was out in the field. The threat of danger around me.
The good ole days.
I might be traveling around the country and reporting on natural disasters after they happen, visiting a different town every month that’s been subjected to wildfires and landslides and tornadoes, but that doesn’t mean I’m havingfun. It doesn’t mean I’m in the thick of things.
Not like I used to be.
Not like Iwantto be.
“I can’t wait,” I say, keeping my smile in place. Calm, cool, and collected. Classic Seb. Nothing fazes me. “It’ll be good to be back with the storms.”
“Poetic,” Nate says.
“He might be high.” Cooper digs into his plate of pancakes, attention elsewhere. “One never knows.”
The only high I’m getting is reliving my early meteorology days.
Storm chasing is an outlet. Something I’mgoodat, and I’ve been reminiscing lately. Dreaming about my early twenties before I made it “big” when it was me, a pair of binoculars, a shitty laptop, and an open road. Nothing but cumulonimbus clouds as far as I could see and a tornado siren in the distance.
Nostalgia has been eating at me for the better part of the year, and no matter how large my social media following is, it’ll never give me the rush storm chasing does.
Every day that passes, I feel more and more stagnant. Worried I won’t be able to pull myself out of this rut I’ve fallen into. I don’t know how to get back to loving what I do, and this docuseries is an attempt at figuring my shit out.
The people closest to me always knew what they wanted to do with their lives. Mia, my younger sister, started writing stories when she was five with an imagination that never stops. Cooper went to the firefighting academy right out of college, forever a servant leader with a big heart. Nate didn’t bother with higher education, pivoting to open a pastry shop before he turned twenty.
Then there’s me.
Thirty-one and on the verge of a crisis while millions of people watch.
“Have you told Quincy you’re back?” Nate asks, and I blink, snapping back to reality.
Quincy Monroe.
My sister’s best friend and my favorite person to rile up.
Even with distance between us, Quincy is everywhere. She occupies way too many of my thoughts, and I’ve spent years trying to figure out how to make them stop.
I’ll see her brown hair just out of the frame of a photo Nateposts to show off the new hydrangeas he brought into Wet Your Plants, the greenhouse he opened when he was twenty-five. I imagine she’s smelling the flowers. Making some comment about how perfect they’ll look in someone’s yard.
She’s there again, blurry in the background of an image with Cooper, Harlow, and Mia in Harlow’s house on game night. A deck of cards on the coffee table. Beer bottles scattered on the TV console. Head tipped back, caught midlaugh.
“No.” I tap the handle of my mug to give my hands something to do. I’m fidgety. Warm and unsettled, and I shrug again. “Haven’t had a chance to run into her yet, but I’m sure she’s going to be ecstatic to hear I’ll be hanging around this summer. Seeing her at the chili cook-off later is going to be the highlight of my month.”
“Didn’t she slam a door in your face the last time you saw her? Last summer when you asked to collaborate on research with her, right?”
Damn Cooper and his memory.
