Living

“You’ve got to be joking,” he said. I can remember the way he rolled his dark eyes, the way he clipped the last syllable with his tongue.

I drew my knees to my chest, taking a deep breath of the cool air. The waves lapped lazily against the shore, never pushing past their bounds. “I’m serious,” I told him, looking forward to the horizon, “Let’s get away. Let’s go somewhere. Do something crazy.”

He shook his head. “And where would we go?”

“I don’t know, Sam. But that’s the whole point!” I said, throwing my hands in the air dramatically.

“Our lives our here.”

“Who says they can’t be out there?” I challenged, gesturing to the open sea.

Sam looked at me, quirking a brow like he does when he tries to do mental math. “You’re insane sometimes. We can’t just leave.”

“Who says?”

“Logic.”

“You’ve never listened to it before.”

He rolled his eyes again, leaning back in the sand. “Our lives are here. What makes you want to leave so badly?”

A stronger wave came to shore, spilling over the dry sand. I sighed. “Maybe because there’s too much of a world out there to want my death to be here, too.”