Page 39 of 32 Days in May

The question throws me off for a second. We’re stopped in late morning traffic on the Malaga Bay Bridge, a soft hazy sunlight falling over the road.

I’m still a writer. I write every day. Even on the days when I’m too tired to put pen to paper. On my phone before I fall asleep, I capture a few words. In my mind, I write poems and sketches and jokes. If I could play an instrument, I’d be writing songs. I don’t love writing; it’s just writing is the only way I know how to make sense of anything well enough to know how it’s really made me feel. It’s the only way I know how to let go.

If I hadn’t been able to write down how the last few months have made me feel, I’d still be lying in bed in my apartment in Philly, staring at my shaking hands, paralyzed by the thick, inky pull of shame and self-loathing. But when I found out I had lupus, I documented all my symptoms. Then, what I did in a day and how it made me feel. Eventually, all the conversations I had with different doctors. The meals I ate, the dreams I had.

“I still write,” I say simply.

“I mean writing commercials. Do you miss seeing your writing on TV?”

“Yeah.” I kind of laugh. “Actually, I think I miss being able to tell people my writing’s on TV.”

They smirk. “You hotshot. Now what do you tell people?”

“That I’m a fucking farmer.”

Soph laughs. And I laugh. We laugh all the way to Rucci’s Pizzeria, where we deliver twenty-seven pounds of red onion.

“You got a package,” Allie sings out to me as Soph and I bust through the front door, jackets heavy with morning dew and sweat.

I pull off my work boots. “Moi?”

“Yoi.” Allie holds the package out to me. Weird. It’s not in any sort of delivery service parcel; it’s a brown-paper-wrapped box with a little white note card taped to the top. There, in ransom note handwriting, someone has written NADIA.

“Why aren’t you at work?” I wash the grime off my hands before drying them on the hem of my sweaty T-shirt. “Did you see who dropped it off?”

Allie leans a hip into the kitchen island and takes an enormous bite of her apple. “It’s state testing day. And no, they left it in the carport, and I almost ran over it.”

“Awesome. How normal. Do we think this is a bomb or something only vaguely threatening, like a picture of me showering?” I rip open the note card. Figured you need a new one. No signature. “What the fuck.”

“What’s it say?”

I ignore Allie and start tearing away the paper, hungrily palpating the box, trying to get the lid to come away. When it finally does, tissue paper springs back and there, in the middle of the box, is a brand-new gray cardigan.

“No fucking way.”

It’s a lot nicer than the cardigan I wore last night and accidentally left behind, wrapped around Emmett as he slept like a little angel in the back seat of his mom’s SUV. The fabric’s softer—way softer—and the thread is too silky and finely stitched to pull or pill. It smells new and floral, like a department store.

“What is it?” Allie asks, ditching her apple to circle the kitchen island and snoop over my shoulder. “I don’t get it.”

I unravel the sweater from the box, revealing chic monochromatic buttons and drop sleeves. It even has two patch pockets, just like my old cardigan, but these aren’t stretched from holding the weight of my phone and car keys.

“Wait, there’s another note—” Allie pulls an envelope from the box, opens it before I can stop her, and begins reading out loud. “Nadia, I’m sorry I can’t keep my end of the Sweet November deal for the next few days. A work thing came up and I had to head back to New York—Oh my God, this is Marco, isn’t it?”

I’ve basically gnawed my thumbnail off. “Keep reading!”

“I had to head back to New York for a work thing. But you’re still my girlfriend—Jesus Christ, Nadia!”

“Shut up and read, Allie, before I shit myself!”

“But you’re still my girlfriend for the month and I’d love to see you Wednesday at seven P.M.—and then there’s an address for a restaurant in Manhattan.”

“He’s insane. He’s lost his mind.” I snatch the note card out of her hand. “Don’t touch the cardigan. I’m sending it back.”

“Too late.” Allie’s pulling her arms through the sleeves and wrapping herself in the heather-gray fabric, pressing her nose to the collar. “Mmmmm. Smells like famous boyfriend.”

“He’s not my real-goddamn-boyfriend, Allie!” I jump up and immediately start pacing.

“Mmmmm famous. Mmmm musky.”