Page 49 of Wish Lists and Road Trips

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

She shrugged. “Because you need to. Keep talking.”

I hesitated but even just not having to lie about that phone call already made the air in my lungs feel lighter. I’d lied about so many of them—to friends, girlfriends, colleagues. “She’s a lot of work when she gets like this,” I said.

“Work for you?”

“Mostly. Sometimes she starts out her day fine, and then realizes halfway through that she can’t handle it. She has a few drinks, then calls me like that, crying, needing to be talked down. Other days I won’t hear from her all day until I call to check in. She’ll still be in bed, and I’ll have to leave work or somewhere else and force her to get up and shower and eat. It’s almost every day now since—” I paused, wiped a hand over my mouth. “Alex died two months ago. He was thirty-two.”

A swift pain caught me in the chest and I realized I hadn’t had to talk about it yet. My best friends were my cousins, so everyone was going through it just like me. There was no need to speak it out loud, to hear what it sounded like in my own voice.

He died two months ago. Eight weeks, that was all.

I looked up at Brit and her eyes were red-rimmed. “Oh, Nick,” she whispered. “That’s so recent.”

I nodded, her sympathy making me uncomfortable. “I know I’ve been killing all of your fun,” I said.

She shook her head. “No.”

“This whole trip was a terrible idea. She’s losing her mind over it. She needs to lay eyes on me every few days, you know? Make sure I’m breathing.”

But Alex didn’t think of that when he sent me on this trip, how everyone would be right now. How I would be. “Brit, last night, I . . .”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“I want to, though. It’s just . . . I’m under a lot of pressure.” Even though I’d somehow found a way to check another item off of Alex’s list, the whole thing sat like a boulder on my chest. I was trying to finish this for him, but to do it, I knew I was leaving my parents to struggle at home.

Brit tilted her head, studying me, then she let go of my hand and stood. She made a rolling motion with her hand. “Lay on your stomach.”

I stared at her. “What? Why?”

“Just do it.”

In my head I told her no way, but I was already rolling over. She kicked off her flip-flops and I tensed when she stepped up onto my lower back. She wasn’t heavy but it was awkward, having a woman stand on me. “What are you doing?”

“Shh. Trust me.” She balanced on the balls of her feet, one on either side of my spine and fuck it felt amazing. When she took a step, I nearly moaned.

“People are looking at us,” I slurred. I sounded half drunk.

I felt her body lift in what I assumed was a shrug. “Who cares?”

“Please don’t break my back.”

“I took ballet until I was in high school. My teacher taught us how to do this. You’ll be fine. Keep talking to me.”

“My dad,” I said on a rush of breath. “He needs me. He’s too old for this. Having a sick kid aged him. Both of them. But it’s too much sometimes.”

I don’t know why I said it. Maybe she was using some sort of magic on me, or maybe it was just that with her standing where I couldn’t see her, my face buried in the bend of my elbow, it was easier to admit all of these things.

“When I was a kid, I would get jealous of Alex. How he never had any responsibilities. He could just do what he wanted, no one expected anything from him. No one needed his help. Fuck, that sounds awful.”

“It doesn’t.”

“I’ve never told anyone that. I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”

She moved to stand between my shoulder blades, rocking from her heel to her toe. “Have you ever told them how you feel?”

I froze and she stopped rocking. I could feel her eyes on me. “I did. Once,” I said. “But I shouldn’t have.”

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