I paused at the desk in my room. Two things remained on top. One was the flyer for Elijah’s boxing tournament that was happening this Saturday. I wondered if he would keep working there forever, or if he’d tell his dad that he didn’t want to run the gym anymore. He wanted to fail or thrive on his own terms.
An ache still throbbed in my chest when I thought about him. I wasn’t used to those kinds of things lingering. I usually did such a good job of shutting off my emotions, packing any negative feelings into a box and not thinking about them ever again. But the box I’d tried to put all my sad feelings into kept bursting open, kept making me reach for the phone but never call him, pick up my car keys but never drive to him. His box with any feelings about me in it was obviously sealed tight and thrown off a cliff.
I sighed as my eyes lingered on the second thing on my desk: the scratch-off that Fake Dr. Franklin had given me. Was this scratch-off part ofrealDr. Franklin’s marriage tools? Her sister had taken it out of a drawer in the office. I had only revealed the one square that had prompted me to write the sexy text. My finger ran slowly over the other boxes. The penny I’d used to scratch off the filmy top layer still sat next to the paper on the desktop. I sank into my chair and, slowly at first and then almost frantically, scratched off the remaining four boxes. When I was done, I brushed off the debris and leaned back in my chair to read.
Appetizer: Before dinner, go to a park or hiking trail or beach. Take your shoes off and feel the earth as you tell each other something that you loved about your childhood.
I blinked at the prompt. She went fromsend a sexy texttofeel the earth under your feet as you talk about your childhood? After the sexy text, this would feel like false advertising.
I read on.
Main course: Order food for each other without showing the other person what you ordered. Share one of your favorite things about each other.
Letting someone order for me would’ve been hard for me to do. I flipped the page over—was this numbered? Did she know she had given me this specific sheet? Sexy text, talk about childhood, and let someone else pick my dinner felt tailor-made to my specific issues. There was no number on the back. Maybe they were all the same. I kept reading.
Dessert: Take an after-dinner walk in your dream neighborhood. Talk about something that scares you about the future.
Nightcap: Stay fully clothed while you touch and describe each body part of the other person, out loud.
I let out a single laugh. That escalated quickly. Elijah and I had mostly done the first and the last prompts of this exercise. I hadn’t described his body parts out loud, but I sure had touched them. The memory made my cheeks go pink. Why did she want us to describe body parts? So we got more comfortable with each other? So we started asking for what we wanted in bed? So that we got extra horny? I flipped the page over again—had I missed a square? The square that said,Now make passionate love. Maybe that was just the natural outcome of the last prompt. I quickly folded the page and shoved it into my shoulder bag along with the tournament flyer.
Then I strapped my bag across my body and wheeled my suitcase out of the bedroom.
Mom was standing in the kitchen, meal prepping. She was going back to work the next day. I hadn’t seen her this happy in a long time. All day she’d been humming in the kitchen, staring out the window at her car, glaring at the scooter I still hadn’t taken back to the hospital. I needed to do that on my way out of town.
“I’m going to load my car,” I said.
“Okay, sounds good.”
I stepped outside, it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, big puffy clouds exploded across the blue backdrop of the sky, and the trees seemed a brighter green than normal. I was happy to be going home, I told myself. So happy. And I was… I should be. I wanted to be… needed to be.
I put my things in the back seat and then popped the trunk in preparation for the scooter. I headed back inside.
Mom had her Tupperware containers out and was filling them with chicken and rice. She looked up when I walked in. “You should never wear cream,” she said. “It’s not the right color for you.”
“Not nice, Mom,” I said.
“How is that not nice? I’m giving you tips about your complexion.”
“Okay, thanks for the tip I didn’t ask for.” I walked to her side, leaned forward, and kissed her cheek. “I’m glad you’re doing better.”
“Me too,” she said.
“We’ll talk soon?”
“Okay, hon, bye.”
I cried on the way to the hospital. I’d never cried this muchin my life. Maybe my body was trying to release all the negative energy it had stored over the past fifteen years. I was able to pull myself together by the time I made it inside and returned the scooter. I had texted Tara on the way over, and she met me in the cafeteria.
“How are you?” I asked her. I’d seen her twice in the last ten days. One time she had been happy that she haddodged a bullet; the next time she’d claimed her life was over.
“Meh,” she said. “How are you?”
“Same,” I agreed. “Will you come visit me in Los Angeles sometime?”
“Yes!” she said. “Please.” She gave me a tight hug. “I don’t believe you’re leaving.”
“I know,” I said, hugging her back.
