Page 13 of 32 Days in May

I wish I could tell him: That’s what you think. But even when it all makes sense, people still just want you to get better. They want you to stop the pain before you know it’s coming. But telling Marco about my depression would mean also telling him about my lupus diagnosis. And telling him about lupus would mean forfeiting this drink and any chance of tonight feeling . . . normal. Or, fuck, I don’t know—fun.

“Fuck them,” I blurt out. “And fuck that. Normal people need to stop punishing the rest of us for being fucked up. We’re already doing that. And we’re really good at it.”

Marco actually throws his head back and laughs. A real, joyful bellow.

Bad influences come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they wear all white and then sort of look like one of Anne Geddes’s babies.

I suggest that we start a drinking game, and Marco really takes to it. The rules come hard and fast as Ernie’s transforms from family-friendly restaurant into a swingers-focused discotheque.

Drink every time a middle-aged woman in a tube top accidentally rests her boobs on Marco’s shoulders. Drink every time a Boomer stares at the floral tattoo that wraps around my left biceps. Drink every time someone starts to ask, Hey, are you the . . . then loses their nut.

Drink every time we almost say the same thing at the same time, which keeps happening.

We both love to point at the sky and shout the name of the song that’s just come on. Except when some asshole gets their paws on the TouchTunes and puts on “Sweet Caroline.”

“Forget Britney, this is what they should have played at Somali pirates,” I shout over the caw of drunken BAH-BAH-BAHHHHHs.

“Even they don’t deserve this,” Marco shouts back, pushing up out of his chair. He holds a hand out to me. “Come on, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Don’t we have to pay?”

He lifts his chin in the direction of a stack of bills on the table. “Already taken care of.”

Right, I think. You’re rich.

I take his hand and Marco immediately tangles his fingers with mine. As we move, he tucks my body behind him in a protective posture that sends a trill off in my stomach.

We’re so close, I can smell his cologne again, can feel the calluses on the palms of his hands against mine, the pad of his thumb pressing into the top of my hand. His grip sends a steady stream of heat through my arm; a heat that curls in my stomach, causing my breath to hitch. I haven’t been touched in how long? God. I haven’t felt another person in months.

Marco maneuvers us through the throng of bodies overwhelming the patio—sweating, swaying, and pressing closer and closer. Then, suddenly, the song changes and the crowd erupts.

We all erupt. Marco and I throw our conjoined hands into the air.

It’s the song—Philly’s song. Our anthem from the last time the Eagles went to the Super Bowl—and won. It’s an extremely random, nearly forgotten hyper-pop dance anthem with the kind of bass line that makes not dancing impossible. The entire crowd begins writhing—on beat, off beat. The wooden planks under our feet audibly creak and groan as people jump and lunge.

Marco turns around, eyes gleaming, smile wide, ready to say something—when someone knocks into him. His body lurches toward mine, but there’s no place for us to go. I loop my arm around his neck at the same moment his other hand, the one not already clasped in mine, jumps to my lower back. Now we’re completely tangled.

He tucks his head down, lips close to mine and, at the same time, we shout, “We have to dance.”

Marco tightens his hold on me, and I tighten mine on him. For the first time in months, I don’t think twice.

Friday, May 5

Just after midnight

We keep dancing. The crowd grows, then thins. I sweat through my shirt while Marco spins me around then pulls me back into his chest, over and over. We dance until Ernie himself kicks us out. Then we wander out into the chilly, humid night and I insist we race down to the beach.

“What, you afraid of losing to a lady in overalls?” I tease until Marco finally rolls his eyes in exasperation and unlaces his shoes. I kick off my sandals and we line up next to each other in the middle of the wide, empty street, bare feet on the still-hot asphalt.

“I’m fucking fast,” I warn him again. Present tense.

“Yeah, right, kid.” Marco swings his hat around backward, lowering his back knee to a lunge. “Prepare to get smoked.”

I flip him the bird. “Count us in, then. Stop dillydallying.”

He’s laughing. I make him laugh a lot. “Then stop distracting me! Alright. Okay. Three, two—”

“One!” I scream and I take off, full speed, toward the abrupt, sandy end of the road. The beach is over the dunes and behind a line of reeds. I can almost taste the ocean. I’m flying, my feet picking up and grinding in sand and rocks and gravel with each thundering step.