“Are you sick?”
“Sick and tired of your shit, maybe,” I tell her.
“Clever boy.”
I look out the window and see her parents standing at the top of their driveway, waving. Annie returns one half-heartedly.
“Don’t worry,” I yell towards them, “I’ll keep her safe and get her down there in one piece.”
They smile and wave even harder.
“See you two in a week!” I say. “Travel safely! Congratulations!”
Annie yells something in Cantonese, and I pull away from the curb.
“At least your parents like me. They think I’m charming as fuck,” I tell her.
“That’s because they neither speak nor understand English.”
Huh. “Well, maybe I give off charming vibes. They can just feel it.”
“Your vibes feel like a hernia,” she says seriously.
“Have you had a hernia? Do you know what it feels like?”
She thinks. “Well, at first it’s a mild irritation, like… a nagging pressure that you try to brush off,” she starts.
I heave out a breath.
“But then, out of nowhere, he shoves his way in?—”
“Oh, it’s a ‘he’ now?”
“—sharp, insistent, and completely unwilling to be ignored. Every movement reminds you of his existence. A stabbing, pulling sensation that flares up when you least expect it?—”
“May I remind you that you forced me into this?—”
“If you try shifting or adjusting or bargaining with the pain,” she continues, “it doesn’t matter. He’s there. A relentless,throbbing, burning discomfort that makes even the simplest tasks unbearable. And just when you think he might ease up, he digs in deeper, a cruel reminder that he’s here to stay?—”
“Again, this is on you?—”
“—and you’ll probably need professional help to get rid of him.”
I mull that over. “Is there an assassination implication there?”
She shrugs. “Surgical removal.”
I sigh. Four sighs in five minutes can’t be good for my lungs.
“So what are you filming?”
I have a mild panic attack before remembering the wedding. “I guess I’ll film the… ceremony and vows and like, the first dance or whatever.” I have no intention of doing so, but those are the film-able parts of a wedding, right?
She scoffs. “You really wanna get Tom on camera thanking May for funding his chino and boat shoes collection?”
I glance over. “You’re real mean, you know that?”
Her long hair starts flying all over the place once we really get moving, and she ties it back. More skin. Skin on the elegant line of her neck. I’m gonna need some of those blinders they put on horses, or else we’re going to get into an accident before we even get on the highway.
