“Have a good workout,” I tell her, groggy and rough, hardly human and barely awake.
“Thanks,” she says, and then the door shuts and I’m alone in Madeline’s apartment. On her guest air mattress, using her guest sheets and her guest pillow and her guest phone charger. There’s no way I’m falling back asleep, and, what, am I supposed to stay here and pace the floor until she comes back? Am I supposed to be sitting at her kitchen table when she comes back? Drinking her coffee? Taking up her space?
I shouldn’t have even spent the night. I should have left before dawn. My welcome was overstayed hours ago.
I deflate the air mattress, fold the sheets, stack it all on her pretty blue couch, throw on some clean clothes, and I’m gone.
Castillo textsme at exactly 8:30. I’m sitting in my car outside the North Carolina welcome center, drinking gas station coffee and looking at a map, when I get it.
Castillo:We’re still on for lunch at 11:30, correct?
“Fuck,” I whisper, because of course I’d forgotten, but Castillo is as routine as I’m chaotic, and thank god for that.
All the same, I nearly cancel. I haveSorry, something came upall typed in, the car heating up in the morning sun, the bad coffee going lukewarm, but—well, I can’t cancel onCastillo. She’d be disappointed, and she wouldn’t respondNo worries, hope everything is okay!she’d respondThat’s too bad, I wasreally looking forward to getting to see you, in that blunt, honest way she has, and I’d feel awful.
And where the fuck am I going, anyway? What am I doing in North Carolina? I didn’t mean to cross the state line, I just got into my car and drove for thirty minutes.
Castillo:We can go to my favorite falafel place.
Me:Of course, wouldn’t miss it!
Castillo:Do you need directions?
Castillo, despite being the same age as me, loves to ask if I need directions. I have never said yes.
Me:No, I’ll be there.
She sends back the thumbs-up emoji, signaling the conversation’s end, and I lean back in my seat, crack the window, and keep drinking coffee.
Three hours. Three hours, then I’ll have seen Castillo and I can leave.
An hourbefore I meet Castillo I’m in Walmart, staring at the clearance towels and wondering if I need anything. I’m not here for a reason; I’m here because I suddenly had a few hours to kill and no plan for how to spend that time. Even though I thought of at least five things Ishouldbe doing right now, I didn’t do any of them, and then I passed this Walmart.
As I stand there, mind both utterly blank and overwhelmed by home goods, I realize that possibly—possibly—my current psychological state is related to the fact that I forgot to refillmy ADHD meds before I left Sprucevale. They won’t prescribe me the good ones—no stimulants for addicts, just Strattera and Wellbutrin—but wow, they sure are better than nothing.
I getit together enough to be five minutes early to the hole-in-the-wall falafel place, but Castillo’s already waiting on the sidewalk outside, her hands in the pockets of her slacks, looking like she’s trying not to stand at attention. If I’ve ever been earlier to an event than Amy Castillo, I don’t remember it.
“Hey!” she says, smiling, and then she frowns. “You look like shit.”
I look down at myself: I’m wearing perfectly respectable shorts and a T-shirt—it’s August in the South; long pants can go fuck themselves—and neither hasanyholes.
“No, I mean your face,” she says, in a tone that suggests she thinks she’s helping.
“Hi, Castillo.” Now I’m trying not to laugh. “It’ssogood to see you.”
She wrinkles her nose but then opens her arms, so I bend down and give her a proper hug. “Hi, how are you, lovely weather we’re having, how about that football team,” she says all in one breath.
“Football season hasn’t started yet.”
“Preseason has,” she says, and I let it go because she knows better than me. “Appalachia treating you right? Long time no see, et cetera.”
We pull apart, and she’s still frowning, her eyes narrowed, like she thinks I’m hiding something from her. Which, in fairness, I am.
“You do look like shit, though.” At least she sounds apologetic about it. “Come eat falafel and tell me why.”
Castillo’sthe only person I’ve ever known to have a “usual” at a restaurant. As in, she walks to the counter and the guy behind it smiles and asks “The usual?” and she says yes.
“It’s not drugs, is it?” she asks me once we’ve got our food, drizzling tahini onto her chicken shawarma before she answers her own question. “No. If it were drugs again, you’d have flaked on me. Also, you’re kind of thriving.”
