One Moment at a Time

by Thomas, K. S.

  “You know Laura’s gonna barf up every pancake she sucks down, right? She’s totally riding with you after this.”

  I glance down at the leggy blonde I would have called hot on any given day, except this one, as she sits here, sucking sweetener straight from the packets and sticking the empty wet paper wrappers to the outside of her water glass.

  “I’ll call Carl. He’ll come get her.” He’s always more than happy to perform the boyfriend designated dirty work in hopes of one day possibly becoming hers.

  Ky smirks, eyeing the table. “Who can we get to pick up Dusty? He always has to stop and pee like a million times. Last time I took him home, he wound up whizzing down the side of my truck. Highly unimpressive.”

  I scowl. “No one if we open with that story.”

  “Oh, and Dan the windshield smasher!” she exclaims, eyes wide. “Whoever gets him has to know he goes in the backseat. It’s just not fair otherwise.”

  The longer this conversation goes on, the more aware I become of how many of our friends are assholes.

  “What if we just leave them,” I suggest after watching her scroll through half her contacts and coming up empty.

  “What do you mean, leave them? Like, leave them here? At the diner?” She doesn’t sound entirely against it.

  “Yeah.” That’s precisely what I mean. “None of them have cars here. They all have money to pay. Phones to call people. Or, you know, a cab. And, they’re all adults. I vote we let them figure their own shit out this once.”

  She mulls it over. “Then what are we going to do? I mean, if we’re not carting everyone home all night, I just freed up some time.”

  “It’s like, three o’clock in the morning. What’s your aversion to sleep?”

  She shrugs. “No aversion. Just like to be really about-to-drop-over, can’t-see-straight-exhausted before I do it. And I’m not there yet.”

  “Well, if you’re only looking for ways to work off extra energy I could come up with some suggestions,” I say, leering at her like a douche.

  “Do you ever actually expect that to work?” she asks, brows furrowed, genuinely curios, as well as skeptical, of my approach.”

  “Not on you,” I scoff. “Works on every other chick I meet though.”

  “You need to find better places to meet women,” she says, lip curled up in disgust.

  “Maybe you need to give me a reason to stop meeting other women,” I counter.

  She laughs. “What time did you say it was?”

  I glance down at my watch. “It’s three-o-seven. Why?”

  Her eyes light up. I know that look. She has an idea. Likely a crazy one. And just this once, I have a feeling I’m going to be a part of it.

  “If we leave right now, we could make it to the coast to watch the sun rise over the ocean.”

  If it were anyone else, I would ask for a repeat, expecting to have heard wrong. But it’s Ky. She would say weird shit like that and mean it.

  “You want to go for a road trip, right now, so you can watch the sun rise over the ocean in the morning?”

  She nods. “Don’t you?”

  I want to do anything that makes her smile at me like she’s doing right now.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Within minutes, we’re on the road, heading east. It’s nuts.

  On the other hand, we aren’t even leaving the state to do it, I rationalize.

  Then, come sunrise, we’re sitting on the sand, side by side, cheap cups of gas station coffee in our hands, eyes glued to the horizon. Well, hers anyway. Mine can’t stop staring at her.

  “Think the water’s cold?” she asks when the sun is no longer touching it but has reached high enough into the sky to be surrounded by its own pool of watercolors ranging from hot pink to burnt orange.

  “Yes. I think it’s freezing.” Early March in Georgia is never promising beach weather, least of all at eight in the morning when the sun has barely cracked the skyline.

  “Let’s find out.” Before I can talk her out of it, she’s on her feet, running toward the water and into the waves. She makes it all the way up to her belly, then lunges face first into a wave before racing all the way back to where I’m still sitting. She’s shivering from head to toe, teeth clattering so loud I can hear it before she reaches my side.

  “You’re insane!” I tell her, jumping up and ripping my jacket off so I can wrap her up in it.

  “And you’re a chicken!” she says, laughing through her chattering teeth.

  “I don’t recall chickens being super sensible or smart, both of which are traits you just witnessed from me.”

  She rolls her eyes and groans loudly. “For someone who’s always so keen on breaking rules, you don’t break a lot of fun ones.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  She tosses my jacket back at me and sinks down into the sand, stretching out as though the skimpy morning sun is strong enough to warm her. “It means, you’re all about being Mister Bad Boy when it comes to pissing off your dad or messing around with the girls, but when it comes to doing something that might actually garner you some sort of adventure or life experience worthy of more than a quick lay, you lay low, stick with what’s comfortable.” She shrugs. “You’re a mainstream rebel. Average. Ordinary. Only in it for the reputation, not the actual act of being a rebel.”

  I shake my head. “And I suppose you would know, Miss Always-On-The-Run. Fine, you break rules, big deal. You never stick around for any of the consequences. You’re a coward. A sheep in lion’s clothing.”

  Her eyes narrow and the corners of her mouth twitch. “That’s not how the saying goes.”

  “I know,” I tell her, louder than necessary, “I changed it. I broke a damn rule.”

  She smirks. “Clever.”

  “Maybe not,” I moan, frustration building. “I’m not sure you understood that I meant that to be an insult.”

  “Oh, no. I did.” She laughs. “It was a good one. Very on point and witty.”

  “You’re sucking the victory right out of it.”

  She laughs harder.

  “Whatever,” I grumble, lying down beside her. The sun really is warmer than I expected.

  Neither of us says anything for a while. She just lies beside me with her eyes closed, a smug smile resting on her beautiful face. Then, just as suddenly and spontaneously as she does everything, she bolts up again and starts digging around in the big-ass bag she drags everywhere she goes.

  “If you’re searching for your sanity, I don’t think you brought it,” I mutter under my breath.

  She hears me. I can tell by her smirk, though it’s the extent of her response. Instead, she briefly waves around a pad of paper and pen for me to see that she found what she was looking for, and then, placing the pad on her knees, she begins to write.

  “What are you doing?” I sit up and lean in to get a better look.

  “Writing a letter.”

  I can see that now. “To your grandmother?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The one in France?” Her mother’s mother. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard her talk about her.

  “No, she died before I was born. I never knew her.” Ky’s focus is completely on what she’s writing. I can tell by the way she’s answering my questions. They’re simple answers. To the point. No detours or hidden symbolism for me to search for days, weeks and months after this conversation comes to an end. I should probably take the hint and let her do her thing.

  But my curiosity won’t let me.

  “I thought your other grandma died too. When you were seventeen.”

  “She did.” She nods, still working on her letter, which has reached the flipside of her paper now.

  “Then who are you writing this letter to? You have a third grandmother you’ve never mentioned before?”

  Finally, she surrenders to my incessant questions and looks up. Her pen is still poised over the paper, so I know this window of attention will be small. “I write to my
Grandma Mary, Ben. The one who raised me, and yes, the one who died when I was seventeen. I write her every time I live an incredible moment I want to share with her because I don’t see why something as silly as death should mean she’s no longer a part of my life, no longer the person I want to tell all my incredible moments to.”

  She waits when she’s done explaining, like she knows I’ll have another question. She knows me too damn well.

  “What do you do with the letters?”

  She shrugs, like it’s obvious. “I mail them.” Her free hand slides back into her bag and pulls out a box of envelopes. A book of stamps is taped to the front of it.

  “To the cemetery?”

  “To her house.” Her mouth quirks wryly and her blue eyes are narrowing, like she’s growing impatient with me. “You’re overthinking this. I don’t write these letters with some delusional expectations of having her receive them. She receives my words the moment I think them. I write them down for me. I send the letters for my own sake. I know she’s gone, Ben. The big picture of my life has taught me plenty what loss looks like. I get it. But I don’t have to live in the big picture. I can live in the moments. Like this one, this fabulous sunrise at the beach with you – that’s an amazing moment to live in!” She smiles, the impatient frustration lifting from her gorgeous face again. “And then, when I write the moments down and share them with my grandmother, I get to have another moment, where she’s still here.”

  I nod. I understand it now. Maybe I should have understood all along. It’s so totally Ky to never want to see life beyond the present. To think she could outrun death. But I don’t say my thoughts out loud. She’s right. She’s lost more at her young age than anyone should. If she’s found something that gives her some peace within the grief, she deserves to keep it.

  “You know,” she says, folding up her letter and sliding it into an envelope, “you’re under the mistaken impression that consequences are stagnant, bound to a specific location. They’re not. All of my actions bring about some sort of re-action, and believe me when I tell you, I feel them all, no matter where I am.”

  “Huh?”

  “What you said earlier,” she says, “about my being always on the run, like I can outrun my problems or something.” She licks the sticky strip of the envelope and seals it. “And, for the record, I don’t run because I’m scared, I run because I get bored. Because I like to learn things.”

  I turn sideways to face her full on. “So, take a fucking class.”

  She laughs as though I’ve said something hysterical. “Not learn shit from a book or a teacher. The stuff I want to learn, I can’t find in a class.”

  “What the hell do you need to learn that’s so special no one can teach it?” I ask, fully exasperated now. I take classes. Hell, I’m getting a degree. A complete education at an excellent school. I don’t need to step foot outside the city limits to access an endless supply of learning opportunities.

  “I need to learn about me.” Her eyes sparkle as she says it. “I need to learn who I am, what I like and where I like to be. How the hell else am I ever going to know what I want out of life? And I need to know what I want, otherwise I’ll never get it. I’ll just be half alive, going through the motions, following routines on the well-worn paths most traveled. And I may not know what I want, but I sure as hell know I don’t want that.”

  “What is so wrong with any of that?” I demand, increasingly offended, given she basically described my entire life plan in a few short depreciating sentences. “What is wrong with following a path that’s tried and true and proven to lead to success? Huh? Why does everything have to be all out or nothing with you? Why can’t things just be good.”

  “Comfortable?” she asks. “Easy?”

  “Yes!”

  She chuckles, but it’s laden with pity. “Of course, you would be alright with that. Look at you. Everything you do keeps you in the safe confines of ‘good’. You get good grades, but not great. So, you pass, but you’re not exemplary. You have a job that makes you decent money so you’re comfortable, but not so much that you have to put any thought into what you could really do with it. Invest. Give back. Travel. And easy, GOD, we know you like it easy with women. Lay a little of your charm on them and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, you’re good to go and ready to move on. No muss, no fuss. And, no real connection, no intimacy, and FYI, mediocre sex.”

  “Fuck you. There is nothing mediocre about the sex I have.”

  She just places her now sealed and stamped envelope back in her bag, along with her paper and pen, and lowers herself back into the sand where she closes her eyes. “How would you know? You never sleep with anyone more than once. You’ve never been in love. You’ve never had any sex more significant than a quick fuck, which, half the time, one if not both parties are wasted during. I hate to break it to you, Ben, but getting laid a lot doesn’t mean shit. Except maybe that what you think is great, is actually just...shit.”

  “And you would know, right? Please,” I scoff. “How often do you have sex? In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you date anyone. And, we both know how you feel about hooking up, given the abundant nos I’ve received from you over the years. Shit, for all I know, you’re still a virgin.”

  She doesn’t even bother sitting up. Or opening her eyes. She just smirks lazily and says, “I see what you’re doing there. Egging me on. Another round of this and you’ll be insisting we fuck just so we can settle the argument and see who was right.”

  Unbelievable.

  She reads me.

  Every. Fucking. Time.

  And usually before I even fully know what I’m up to myself.

  “You suck,” I spat, crossing my arms over my chest and pouting like a four-year-old.

  “You’ll never know,” she teases, eyes still closed, smirk growing wider. Then, like a bolt of lightning, she shoots up. “Oh my God! I just had the best idea!”

  “I doubt that. The best idea has already been had, and you shot it down,” I counter with my super lame comeback.

  She ignores it. As per her usual. “We should get in the car right now and drive to the west coast.”

  “What? Why?” Other than her ongoing draw to pursue insanity, of course.

  “To watch the sun set over the ocean, obviously,” she explains, apparently really put off by my stupidity.

  “Like,” I search the horizon for some rational thought, “you wanna drive down to Florida? And then go west?”

  She shakes her head, laughing at me, yet again. “God, no. How boring would that be? If we’re going to do it, we should really do it. Go west. All the way.”

  “You’re insane.” I shake my head. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for starters, as you pointed out so enthusiastically earlier, I have class on Monday. And work. And not to mention, my father would have my ass if I just took off to follow some chick to the west coast.”

  I watch as she gets to her feet, unbothered by my objections. She dusts the sand from her legs and shrugs. “I’m going.”

  “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “Nope.” She gazes across the sand toward the parking lot. “Where do you want to me to drop you?”

  In hell. That would be a step up from where I am. “You’re serious. You’re just going to leave.”

  “Yeah.” She nods, eyes darting back and forth between her car in one direction and the ocean in the other.

  “You only just got back,” I remind her. As if that would matter to her. It never matters.

  “I know. I got all I needed out of my stay. Time to see what’s next.” She drops her gaze until her eyes land smack on mine. “Sure you don’t wanna come?” For a moment, I think I see something new in them. Something sad. Something pleading, like some part of her wants me to do the one thing we both know I won’t and say yes.

  “I can’t.” Want is never the issue.

  Her shoulders bounce listlessly. “And I can’t stay
. The moment is over. Time to make another.”

  I turn away. I can’t face her if she’s about to fucking walk out again. “Don’t hang around on my account.”

  “You don’t have a car here. How are you getting home?”

  “I’ll figure it out,” I tell her, way harsher than she deserves. “You have a sunset to catch, right? Don’t let me slow you down.”

  I hear her move around in place a few seconds longer, a couple of times, I swear she takes in air, like she’s about to speak again. In the end, she just...walks away.

  An hour later, I was booked into some shit motel directly on the beach, the only place in walking distance to where she’d left me. I spent my time wallowing while I watched mind-numbing re-runs waiting for enough hours to pass so I could call my brother without pissing him off by waking him on a Saturday morning, only to beg him to come and pick me up. Which would ultimately piss him off anyway.

  None of it mattered. Because I’d lost Ky. Again.

  Now, sitting here, mindlessly staring at the television screen, I notice my traveling budget and the vastly improved room I’m staying in, aren’t the only differences this time around. I’m not angry, furious with myself and her, for winding up in two different places yet again. This time, I’m hopeful. Excited. This time, I know I’m on my way to her. And that one small detail makes all the difference in the world.

  chapter

  six

  BEN

  Come morning, I’m up at the crack of dawn and sitting in the parking lot of SUP paddle board rentals waiting for someone to show up and open the shop.