Page 63 of So Thirsty

“I never get pulled over,” she says. “Besides, I’m not going that fast.”

I know for a fact that she does get pulled over, because she often brags about being a pro at talking herself out of tickets.

Her phone buzzes, and she picks it up to look at it. I cringe. Why did I let her drive?

“It’s Lee,” she says, sighing, dropping her phone back into the cup holder.

She turns up the music, signaling that she doesn’t want to talk about him, or how, whether she likes it or not, their relationship is now over. I’m tempted to ask if we can put on my Chernobyl podcast, just to hear about other people having an exceptionally bad time, but I know she’ll veto it.

And I doubt it would help, be of any comfort.

I stop myself from chewing on the inside of my cheek, my bad habit now off-limits, too hazardous. What if I bleed? Would I drink myself dry? I don’t understand the ways my body is different now, and it’s so frustrating, I could scream. Yet at the same time…my wrist, my joints—they’re all so quiet. Everything destroyed by my fall or corroded by age doesn’t hurt or bother. I’m hesitant to call it healing, reluctant to be grateful, because it cost me too much.

I can’t see myself in the car’s mirrors. I can’t say this was a good trade. It certainly wasn’t a fair one.

I know I’m not saving you, Henry said last night, but I’m giving you all the time in the world to save yourself.

Was that romantic? Or was it deeply messed up?

Actually, the same questions apply to our entire time together.

He said he was giving me a choice, but I didn’t have a choice. Why does it always feel like this? Like every open door is a trapdoor.

Naomi’s phone buzzes again, and she curses, lets her head back. She tries to shake it off, drums her fingers on the steering wheel. There’s no ghosting Lee, and I know she doesn’t want to ghost him.

He’s going to be a problem.

I should be coming up with next steps, because I know she isn’t. But I’ve always had an easier time running away from something than running toward anything, and it’s so hard to think right now. My throat…

“Do your parents still have that”—my words chafe against the burgeoning need—“that summer house? It’s in North Carolina, right?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, craning her neck to look at road signs, as if we have a destination.

“Maybe we stay there until we acclimate to our thirst? Until we figure out if we’re in trouble for…for what happened at the Waterfront.”

She doesn’t say anything. She should be on board; she basically pitched the same idea, just at the vampire house instead of her parents’.

Except her idea would solve our thirst, assuming the vampires would continue to share their supply. On our own we’ll have to…to pay for our own meals.

How is this happening? How is any of this real?

I pinch my throat. Clear it. Cough. It’s thirst; it feels close enough to ordinary thirst, just for something so specific. I think about how in cartoons or movies, when someone’s wandering in the desert and they’re delirious from their thirst, they hallucinate finding water. An oasis. They’re splashing around in it, elated, and there’s a palm tree overhead providing shade. I imagine us pulling over somewhere, stepping out to find a spring with blood bubbling up from the ground. And we could sip from it, and no one would be hurt, no one would suffer, and I wouldn’t have to feel any guilt or doubt over my satisfaction.

I must manifest the idea, because now she’s pulling over. Only I don’t want it. The fantasy wasn’t real. Is never real. Those cartoons and movies always cut away from the hallucination to show them writhing around in the sand.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to talk to Lee or he’s going to freak out. And I’m so dizzy, I can barely see.”

“I can drive,” I say. “We shouldn’t stop.”

“I need a minute,” she says, parking.

We’re at a basic rest stop with some vending machines, picnic tables, bathrooms. There’s a path down to a vista of the lake and surrounding woods, coated in fluffy white marshmallow snow that glows in the moonlight. There’s a plaque that I’m sure details the historic significance of this spot, who lived here once upon a time. Who died here.

There’s no oasis.

Naomi grabs her phone and gets out of the car. I know “a minute” is never just a minute, so I get out, too. I walk down the path and sit on a snow-covered bench, staring out at a beautiful view while trying not to hyperventilate. Time liquefies, leaks away.