Page 31 of 32 Days in May

I should take some ibuprofen now; that way it will have started working before we get there. Then, while Marco gets his haircut, I can wolf down some yogurt and take the Big Guns. The Good Stuff.

I don’t want to think about medication. A petulant little thought. I wish I could stomp my foot. Throw back my head and whine. I don’t want to deal with any of this. For the first time in months, I just want to be here, completely, in this moment. I want to have fun.

“You okay?”

His voice snaps me out of my spiral, and I toss Marco a small smile. “Yeah, sorry. I thought maybe I forgot something at home.”

“We can turn around—if you need to check for the thing you forgot . . . or maybe just get out of spending the entire day with me.” He adds the last part softly, kindly. He’s giving me an out.

“No, no. I’m good. I really . . .” What I should not do is finish this sentence with: have been looking forward to this.

Marco laughs, flexing his fingers around the steering wheel. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Whale watching is something I’ve always wanted to do,” I say, recalibrating. “I’m excited.”

“I’m excited,” he parrots back in my monotone. “Why do I feel like that’s glowing praise from you?”

“Because I fascinate you.”

He lets out a low, deep laugh. “You’re definitely one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.”

“No way.” I pull three ibuprofens from my pill pouch. “You’ve like, hosted award shows with Japanese sex symbols.”

Marco shrugs, twisting his hat around backward. “Hedonism is kind of boring. Once you’ve seen one nepo baby try to network while in a k-hole, you’ve seen them all.”

I laugh through a sip of water, swallowing back my medicine. He doesn’t even notice. “What a sinister sentence.”

“Speaking of which . . .” He tightens his grip on the steering wheel for a moment, and I straighten in my seat. “The other night, when we went out and got drunk . . . ” Dread crackles in my stomach. Oh, no. “I’m supposed to be living a completely sober lifestyle. I’m a drug addict and . . . ” He pauses to lick his lips. “This conversation is going awfully.”

I shake my head. “Keep going.”

“I know myself and once I start down that path, it never ends well, and I never want to put myself in a situation where I’m tempted to potentially make an even worse decision. Which is exactly what I did.” He drags his eyes away from the road to meet my gaze for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey. No.” I place a hand on his shoulder. He’s like a hummingbird trapped in a greenhouse, slamming into all-glass walls over and over. My hand, gently placed on his warm shoulder, stills him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . instigated. Or fanned the fire. Or whatever the fuck I was doing.”

I feel the tension in his muscles dissipate. “How were you supposed to know?” He runs his tongue over his bottom lip. “By the time I was being honest with you—”

“You already had your hands down my pants.” Thankfully, my joke lands and we both dissolve into laughter.

A very modest cast of pink expands upward from the collar of his shirt. “Well, that’s a little humiliating.”

“Hey, life is just a series of humiliations and then sometimes . . .” Sometimes what? I have no wisdom for Marco, only sympathy. “Sometimes you get to go whale watching.”

His eyes dart off the road again, toward where my hands rest in my lap. He reaches over and gives my knee a squeeze. “Thanks, kid.”

“You’re welcome. But you have to stop calling me that. It reminds me of this mega-douche I dated. He was always using experimental pet names. One time he called me little dove in front of a waiter.”

Marco grimaces. “Oh God. I’m so sorry. Never again.”

“Thank you.” I laugh. And then we both relax back into a more comfortable silence. Outside, the sky is a cloudless wash of cornflower blue. The low, vibrant farmlands of South Jersey whip by. After a moment, I say, “Can I ask what triggered you? To drink?”

Marco makes a small noise in the back of his throat. “I guess getting recognized. And honestly?” He lets out a dry laugh. “The boardwalk.”

“The boardwalk?”

“It’s all the . . . the . . .” He takes a hand off the steering wheel and gestures vaguely, rolling his wrist. “The shit. The bright lights, the crappy overpriced food, the hokey stores. It makes me feel like I have a plastic bag wrapped around my head. I want to like Evergreen. I’d even consider staying there forever if they just would burn down that goddamn boardwalk.”

I huff. “I can see that. When I was a kid, I hated anything where I was told I was supposed to be happy. Even now, I still hate it. It’s like . . . like, fuck you! You can’t make me be happy. You can’t trick me with flashing lights and clown music.”