I can’t stop myself from grinning. “We went back to his room after the Elvis show last night and—”
“Hopie!” she cries. “You didn’t!”
“No, notthat. But he kissed me, and it was… lovely. Until I puked in his bathroom.”
“Youdidn’t.”
“I did. At length. He was so nice about it. He gave me his bathrobe and got me ginger ale and then this morning he came over with electrolyte tablets. He’s nice. I really like him.”
It feels so good to talk to her like this. Just shooting the shit on vacation, without all the heaviness of my stalled-out life or the guilt I feel about overrelying on her. I smile to myself, until I notice she’s gone oddly quiet.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
“Just be careful,” she says.
I look over at her and she’s frowning at me.
“Why do you say that?” I ask.
“You know what you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“You meet sexy guys and go nuts over them immediately and then they turn out to be troubled or sleazy and you get your heart broken.”
So much for easy breezy girl talk.
She is, of course, correct about my pattern.
But this crush is the first thing I’ve enjoyed in months. Can’t she just… let me have it?
“Okay, I admit I’ve been guilty of that in the past,” I say, “but I’m talking aboutkissingsomeone. I’m certainly not going to end up devastated over kissing a guy on a cruise ship. We’re only here for ten days.”
She side-eyes me. “I’m pretty sure you moved in with Gabe after ten days.”
“Oh my God. It was three months! And excuse me, but you literallytold meto hook up with Felix the day we met.”
“Fair. Sorry. It’s good for you to dabble with someone else. I was just imagining more of a fuck buddy situation, and I worry when you get all swoony like this. I’m really glad you’re having fun.”
I’m relieved she’s not pressing the point. Lately, we’ve been bickering over our respective life choices. I get irritated with her incessant filming of every moment of her life, and while she doesn’t outright say it, I think she thinks I’m too passive.
“I am having fun,” I say. “Thank you for inviting me. I know I was a bit skeptical about this, but I’m having such a great time.”
She smiles at me. “Good. It’s nice to see you less hung up on Gabe.”
“I’m not hung up on him,” I say immediately.
She snorts. “You’ve been in mourning for him for months, Hope.”
I consider this.
My feelings for him are still so complicated.
I loved him madly. From our first date, he enchanted me with long, intimate talks in which it felt like he could magically see inside my soul and was entranced by what he found there. And it was flattering, because of who he was.
He’s an influential book editor, and he told me that despite my disappointments, I still had vast potential. That by our combined powers we could conquer the world. That feeling was magnetic. That feeling dulled my real life—the writer’s block, the thankless deadlines at work, the constant low-grade financial anxiety, the dread that I’ll never stop floundering.
I fell in love with that feeling as hard and fast as I fell in love with him.
