“Anyway, the last I heard, he’d moved back in with his Mom. I’ve been avoiding his calls. I have nothing else to say to him. He still thinks this is all over a passport, or that it’s just a phase.”
Eva shakes her head in disbelief. “Men will really say ‘she left suddenly, for no reason’ ignoring an entire graveyard of reasons.”
“In his defense, I didn’t even realize how bad things had gotten for a long time. If not for Grannie dying, I might’ve married him.” I sigh. I don’t want to defend him but he isn’t the only one at fault for our unhappy relationship. “Anyway, that was cathartic, but I don’t want to think about him anymore. What’s new in your life?”
“Well,” she smiles shyly as she takes a sip of her drink. “You’ve kind of inspired me. I’ve loved seeing your passion for the sea turtle sanctuary and I’ve been following everything you post on social media. It made me realize, I’m young, I’m flexible, now is the time for me to travel the world. I’ve been looking into becoming a digital nomad.”
“No way!” I grin, honored that my spontaneous choices could inspire someone else. “But what’s a digital nomad?”
“It’s what you’re doing! Freelance jobs, or any kind of online work that you can do while traveling. There are special visas for it. Or, there’s something called a working holiday visa. Some countries invite young people to come live and work for a year doing casual jobs to fund their travels.”
“What? That sounds incredible. And they have one of those for Indonesia?”
“Well, no. I don’t think so. But I’ve been looking at maybe Australia or New Zealand.”
“Whoa, that would be so cool!” I bounce in my chair with excitement for my friend. “I’ve always wanted to go to Australia. What about Jake?”
“He’s thinking about it too.” Eva’s smile is mischievous.
“Have you seen him again? Other than…”
“We’ve visited a few times. Maybe you guys can come see us when we’re working on a camel farm or something.”
“In Australia?”
“Yes, girl! They’ve got huge deserts!”
“God, I’d love to see it.”
Just then, Steven slips back into his seat. I turn to him, wanting to ask about camels and deserts, but the words fly from my mind when I see the worry lines on his face.
“Hey,” I say softly, rubbing his arm. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he says tightly. “No. I don’t know. There’s just some shit going on at the dive shop and I feel really terrible that I’m not there to help.”
My stomach twists, thinking of the turtles. Jimmy. All the babies yet to hatch, already with such low odds of making it.
“Is there anything we can do to help?”
“No, I don’t think so. I just feel helpless being so far away.” His eyes bounce around the room. “Do you mind if I head back to the flat? I can take an Uber.”
“Of course, I’ll go with you.” I link my hand with his. We say goodbye to Eva and head back to the house in a tense silence.
I don’t know what to say. Watching my strong, confident dive master bounce his leg anxiously in the car makes me feel guilty and ashamed for dragging him away from the island. It hasn’t exactly been easy on him. He’s missing out on work he’s passionate about to watch me deal with my ex, my crazy family, and make a bunch of lists. I think he yearns for the ocean.
My life is in shambles. I need to get away more than ever before, but there’s just so many things I need to take care of here first.
I’m exhausted. It’s only been a week and I can see it’s been weighing heavily on him as well.
We fall asleep in each other’s arms, probably both wishing we could be in two places at once.
Chapter 28
Steven
The morning after drinks with Eva, Junie takes me out to a classic American diner for brekkie, but I’m still in a funk. Mike called out of the blue just to update me, but it sent me into a tailspin.
He made it absolutely 100% clear he wasn’t asking me to come back. He just thought I should know that some famous actor found us on social media and wants to make a big donation and schedule some dives. I can’t do anything about it from halfway across the world, but it’s thrown me for a loop.
