Page 54 of So Thirsty

“Goodbye, my loves,” he says. “But maybe this is not goodbye.”

He gives another wink before Naomi closes the car door; then he zooms off, spraying us with snow.

We stand in place for a minute, watching him drive away. His car disappears beyond the trees and the world is quiet, snowy and still, and everything seems perfectly ordinary. I’d swear it was all a bad dream if not for the tickle in my throat and the heaviness in my chest and the harshness of the light.

Naomi takes my hand.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

I’m not ready to accept her apology, and I can’t tell her that everything’s going to be okay, because we’d both know that was a lie. I pull my hand away, too sullen to be touched.

“Let’s go in before someone sees us,” I say. We look a mess. Our clothes ripped and bloodstained, our hair tangled nests.

We look like victims, and maybe that’s what we are. Or were.

I don’t think I know what we are anymore.

18

T he cottage is hot and stuffy, too bright with all the windows. Naomi staggers into the bathroom. “I really don’t feel well. I feel so…so weird…like…Oh shit.”

“What?” I ask, poking my head in.

She stands in front of the mirror. “Look.”

It takes longer than it should for me to realize that we don’t have reflections. That we don’t appear in the mirror.

My lip starts to quiver, and my eyes go wet. One, because it’s further proof of something I don’t want to accept. And two, because I’ve been so frustrated and upset by my reflection lately, and I never thought I’d ache for it like this. I’ve never wanted to see myself more. To stress over a forehead wrinkle, over crow’s-feet, over beautifully perfect drooping eyelids. It’s the worst feeling in the world, knowing you’ve taken the sight of your own face for granted. Knowing you’d give anything for yesterday’s problems.

Naomi sniffles. She’s crying, too.

“This is really happening, huh?” she says. “This is…really happening.”

I can’t stand watching her cry, so I leave the bathroom before we both lose it. I go upstairs to the loft. I plug my phone in, turn it on, anticipating at least one missed call or message from Joel checking in, but there’s none. There’s nothing.

I find the present he gave me and rip off the bow, tear the pretty paper. Underneath is a plain cardboard gift box, taped shut. I get a nail under some puckered tape and pull.

The box is stuffed with glittery tissue paper. Did he pick this out for me? I’m not glittery. I never wear sequins, or shimmery eye shadow. Not even on New Year’s Eve. At no point ever in my life have I been a sparkle person. We’ve been together for so many years. Shouldn’t he know this about me?

I flip the box over onto the bed, shake it so the paper falls out. Somehow this is just as terrifying as anything that went down last night. I’d almost prefer getting my leg gnawed by the skeleton man to this. Discovering what the person I chose to waste the last fourteen years of my life with got me for my birthday.

It’s AirPods. A pair of AirPods. No card.

“What?” I ask, picking them up. I rack my brain. Did I ever mention wanting AirPods, or any wireless earbuds?

If I’d opened this box two days ago, I would have thought they were a good, considerate, practical gift. Because I would have needed to think that. Because if I allowed myself to think it was impersonal, to be disappointed, that would have meant acknowledging my unhappiness, pulling out a block in the Jenga tower and risking the collapse of everything.

A few days ago, I would have opened this gift and said Thank you. I would have plugged these stupid things into my ears and listened to podcasts about horrific shit happening to other people, or music—art made by other people—and I would have gone on being grateful for the AirPods, until they inevitably broke or were lost within a year or two, and I had to get new ones. Maybe I would have asked for them for my birthday. And I don’t know anymore if that’s the saddest fucking thing, or if I wish that were still my future.

I repeat Naomi’s ridiculous question in my head. What if this wasn’t bad luck?

I run my tongue across my teeth, which are no sharper than usual, I don’t think, and I call Joel.

He picks up on the fourth ring. “Hey! Happy birthday.”

Right. It’s my birthday. Some birthday. “Thanks.”

“How’s the place?”