I wish I were home.
I’m beginning to feel claustrophobic.
I reach in my pocket for nicotine gum, which always helps calm me down. But it’s not there. I search through our bags, and it’s not there either.
Not a great time to start withdrawing from my drug of choice, but I doubt they sell Nicorette at the hotel gift shop.
You could buy a pack of cigarettes, my evil brain suggests.
No. Bad idea. I associate smoking with drinking. If I have one, I might start craving the other.
I step into the shower and turn the water up to a temperature that threatens to scald me. As I shampoo my hair, I miss the “ocean” smell of the cruise ship bath products. What I would give for it to be two days ago, before I fucked everything up.
Or forty-eight hours in the future, when this whole mess will be, God willing, behind me.
Two nights.
I just have to get through two more nights, and I can leave.
Hope
I decide I’m glad Felix doesn’t want to explore the water park with me. He seems pensive, and I don’t want to live out my childhood fantasy in the shadow of someone else’s bad mood.
Besides, I could use some time to process his apology.
Water slides bring out my claustrophobia, so I forgo them in favor of floating on the “rapids river,” a mile-long loop through the park the brochure says is filled with steep drops and sudden wave surges. I assume its thrills will be on the mild side, given that it’s full of children, but a section of “white water rapids” topples me over, and a group of little boys laugh at me as I go chasing after my inner tube.
I decide to leave the rides to the one million families milling around. I treat myself to a frozen lemonade and grab a spot by a lake-sized pool under an enormous fake Mayan temple.
The problem with lying by a pool when you have neither a smartphone or a book is that it’s inherently boring, and you start obsessing over the boy back in your hotel room.
I need to get this out of my system.
I text Lauren.
Hope:I made it to the hotel.
Hope:It’s everything.
Lauren:!!!!
Lauren:Send pics!!
Lauren:Oh wait, you don’t have data
Lauren:Did you escape Felix?
Hope:Uh, so… no.
Lauren:What?!
Hope:He apologized this morning.
Hope:Out of the blue.
Hope:He said he now sees that your persona is a joke and he overreacted.
Lauren:Pretty shitty apology.
