Page 74 of So Thirsty

“I really am sorry,” she tells him.

“Naomi. Naomi, wait! Babe!”

He’s still banging on the window as we drive away. He chases the car, running after us until we turn onto the main road.

Naomi’s crying so hard that I suggest she pull over.

“Let me drive,” I say.

“I can drive,” she says, cracking the windows. “I’m driving. I can drive.”

“I know. But why don’t you let me get us back to the motel?”

Her phone rings. It’s Lee.

“Can you silence it?” she asks, putting the driver’s-side window all the way down, allowing the bitter night to spill in.

I do what she asks. He texts two seconds later.

“He’s messaging you.”

“What’s he saying?”

“Um…” He sends message after message. Telling her she’s fucking crazy. She’s a psycho. That he might have to go to the hospital. That if she doesn’t come back right now, she shouldn’t bother coming back at all. Then his tone shifts. He says Please come back. please. just come back.

“Fuck it.” She takes her right hand off the steering wheel and shoves her palm at me. I give her the phone, and she casually tosses it out the window.

My mouth falls open.

She puts her window up and puts mine down.

“Your turn,” she says, digging into her pocket and pulling out my engagement and wedding rings. “Give me your hand.”

“Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

“I…um…”

She sighs, drops the rings into the center console, among my collection of loose change—oxidized pennies, worn nickels and dimes.

“I mean, you can hang on to them if you want,” she says. “I just figured maybe you’d want to throw them out the window in a symbolic gesture of newfound freedom. Leaving the past behind. Letting go.”

“Right.”

“You could also flush them down the toilet. Pawn them.” She’s not crying anymore. She bounces back pretty quickly.

“I have options, is what you’re saying.”

“Exactly.”

I pick up the rings. Examine them, rub them between my fingers. I’ve never really cared about jewelry; I have no sentimental attachment to the rings themselves. But if I toss them, what do I have left of Joel? Of that life?

The AirPods?

“I’m not ready yet,” I say, slipping them into my pocket and fumbling for the button to put my window up.

She frowns. “I wasn’t ready either. But I was never gonna be ready.”