as simple as that.
I stretch my arms over my head. Today’s the day. Or maybe tonight.
I still can’t really picture it, Nick and me, becoming horizontal with each other. But I’ll get there. I’ve decided. Today.
I’m getting out of bed when I notice the spot of red on the white sheets.
“No,” I gasp incredulously. I run to the bathroom to check my pajamas. “No no no no no!”
Yes. My period has arrived. It’s like four days early. I knew it was coming, and it felt unfair knowing it would happen in Hawaii, because isn’t that how it always goes when you go on a trip? You have to pack the extra stuff. You have to worry about it.
But this, today, of all days, is the ultimate level of unfair. This is seriously going to mess up my life.
It’s like the universe doesn’t want me to have sex. Revenge or not.
“Nooooooo,” I moan. Right on cue I start to cramp. Why does that always happen, too, that the pain only comes after you notice you’ve started? I sink to the bathroom floor. I want to scream. I want to sob over the unfairness of this world. I want to eat ice cream and feel sorry for myself and possibly die.
A shadow crosses over me—Afton, standing at the bathroom door. “You sound like you’re dying in here.”
“Oh, I am,” I confirm. “Minute by minute, I’m getting closer to the grave. Give it seventy years or so.”
She scoffs and walks away, back to hating me again.
I get up, clean up, shower quickly, make use of some feminine products, and before Mom can come in to dump Abby off on me, I run down to the pool to meet Nick.
Only now I don’t know what to say.
He’s there. It’s nice that he’s so prompt. Leo was always running late for things. “Have you tried the acai bowls from the café? They are delectable,” Nick says as I approach the cabana by the Ocean pool.
He’s obviously trying to impress me with his AP-level vocabulary. Like a bird flashing his brightly colored feathers. Loquacious. Delectable. Squawk.
“It’s ‘a-sigh-ee.’” I drop into the lounge chair next to him. Another passing cramp. Ugh, if I could only cut my uterus out and fling it into the sea, that’d be preferable.
“It’s good.” He digs around in the bowl with his spoon and settles on a huge bite of sliced banana and blueberries. “Normally, I’m not a fruit guy, but this is making me rethink my position. What is acai, anyway?”
I have no idea. “Some kind of magic berry. Why don’t you like fruit?”
“My dad’s always trying to get me to eat fruit and vegetables. I have to make him work at the parenting thing, you know? I hate to be so easy.”
“Or, like, healthy, right?”
He shrugs his thin shoulders. “I try to be noncompliant now and then. Especially when it comes to my dietary choices.”
There’s an acai stain on the front of his shirt.
All morning I’ve been wondering if, when I saw Nick again, I would still have that almost-sexy we’re-about-to-kiss feeling from last night.
I don’t.
For multiple reasons, I guess.
He’s looking at my face. “Have you changed your mind?”
I feel bloated. God, I love being a woman. Oh wait, no, I don’t. But I say, “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You could be here to tell me you’ve changed your mind.”
“Well, I haven’t.”
“So we’re still on for having sex,” he says slowly. “I thought I might have ingested some bad pineapple upside-down cake yesterday and hallucinated everything that happened.”
“We’re still on.” I struggle to sound casual about it. “But we need a plan.”
“Absolutely,” Nick agrees. “It’s common knowledge that having sex always requires a strategy.”
“Right. Now be serious.”
He arches an eyebrow. “I’m very serious. I’m a very serious guy.”
I bite back a smile. Before this, I did think Nick was fairly serious. All my life he’s been this solemn, quiet kid standing in the back of our tour group (excluding that one time in Rio). But now here he is being a wisecracker.
His gaze drops from my face to what I’m holding. “You brought a notebook. So obviously you’re serious.”
“It’s my sketchbook.”
“Oh, are you going to show me some of your work?” he asks, too eagerly.
“No. I use this for everything. Sometimes I use it like a bullet journal.”
“Bullet journal? That’s alarming. Is this like a hit list?”
“No,” I sigh. “It’s like bullet points.”
He stares at me blankly.
“Like those dots you put in front of things when you’re making a to-do list.”