Page 55 of Here for a Good Time
I whip my head around so violently that my tears streak down my cheeks. “Don’t you patronize me.”
He flinches, like I turned and slapped him. “I’m notpatronizingyou.”
“I don’t care what fucking Leila says. Did she send you over to placate me? Because I’m the injured, whiny little kid who won’t stop crying about wanting to go home?”
“Nobody thinks that,” he says with a scoff that makes me want to push him into the water. “And ifyouthink we’re thinking that, then that’s just you projecting your own insecurities.”
I open my mouth, stopping myself in time for a voice to step in and ask if I really want to say it. I decide I do. “You’re just like him. You don’t think I can doanything,do you? That whatever ideas I throw out are just stupid, half-baked ones that aren’t actually practical.”
A wrinkle forms between his thick brows as he deciphers my words, and I watch in real time as they land. “Vik,” he says, my silence all the confirmation he needs. “You think I’mjust like Vikbecause I’m calling you out on your unfounded and frankly bordering-on-misogynistic—”
“Misogynistic?!” I yell.
“—contempt toward Leila?”
“You think I’m not capable of anything!”
He throws his hands in the air. “When have I said that?! Tell me one point in all of this when I’ve told you that you couldn’t do something!”
“That’s why you didn’t move in with Julia, right? Because you don’t think I can survive living on my own? And you didn’ttellme that you broke up with Julia, orwhyyou broke up, because then I’d realize you’re still living with me even though you don’t want toand I’d feel guilty over it, and you thought I couldn’t handle that either!”
It’s the thought bubble that’s been hanging over my head ever since I found out the reason for their breakup earlier. Still, evenI’mnot prepared for the gut punch it is, for both of us.
He considers me with an emotion whose resemblance to hatred frightens me. “That’s not even remotely close,” he says at last, voice so still it takes on an eeriness. “I didn’t tell you about my breakup because you were so goddamn preoccupied with your own crap that I knew you wouldn’t care. But you already knew that. That’s why you booked this trip, right? Because you know what a shitty, self-absorbed friend you’ve been lately?”
If my words were a punch to the gut, his are a stab to the jugular.
Because he’s right.
Because I’m not mad at him.
Because I’m mad at myself.
I’m mad at myself for tripping and injuring myself and slowing us all down. For booking this trip at all and being the reason we’re in this mess in the first place. I can’t stop pulling at the thread now that I’ve started. I’m mad that while Vik was wrong that I was never going to be a published author, being a one-hit wonder doesn’t exactly putmein the right either. I’m mad that I might have to go back to a life of selling books that other people have written, only this time, it’ll be with the knowledge that I let it all slip from the palm of my hand. And I amsomad that I can’t write another book, that by the looks of it, I willneverwrite another book, and all of this isbecauseI couldn’t write one more fucking book.
But none of that even fucking matters,I realize. Because it really, truly doesn’t.
The thing I’m most mad about, as Zwe just pointed out, is that I’d become so engrossed in my own writer’s block—which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t even a real problem—that I didn’t even know my best friend had been looking at buying a house, or that he’d gotten his heart broken.That’sthe thing that’s going to keep me up at night for the rest of my life.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Save it,” he says, and even though I should’ve been aware of this beforehand, for the first time, I register how cutting my words had been. Zwe doesn’t really hate people, but hehatesVik, and I knew what I was doing when I compared the two of them. He begins heading back toward the bungalow, and I fall in step behind him.
When we reach her, Leila looks at me, at Zwe, at me, back at Zwe, then away at some vague point on the horizon. “I’m sorry to make things awkward, but we need to get moving,” she says slowly. She points up at the sky, which has become the shade of dark that, if you didn’t have access to a working watch or phone (which we don’t), would leave you uncertain as to whether it was afternoon or evening. “If they don’t catch us first, the storm will. Add all of that water to all of that mud, and the ground turns dangerous real fast.”
“We need to weather the storm,” Zwe says.
“Literally,” Leila says with a small chuckle, but Zwe’s face remains as unmoving as the stone statues by the reception hall.
“Where?” I ask.
“One of the villas?” Zwe suggests.
“They might have access to the security system,” Leila says. “All the rooms and villas have security cameras outside. There’s a tower on the other side of the island.” She makes a half-circle gesture to her right. “It’s where guests can go zip-lining. It’s a bit of a walk, butit’s not as long as the hiking path, and it’s all on flat ground. If we hurry, we’ll make it right before the storm hits.” As though proving to all of us that she knows what she’s talking about, a huge wave hits the shore right after her last word.
“The tide’s already risen some more,” Zwe notes.
“Do you think help will come before the storm arrives?” I ask.
