All At Sea (14 page)

Saturday 29
th
March 5.07pm

—North Shore Hostel—

Remember the Lost beach? I am going there now. Come when you can.

Saturday 29
th
March 5.15pm

—Starbucks, Ward Village—

Okay...ONE minute. That’s it, though. ONE.

Saturday 29
th
March 5.16pm

—North Shore Hostel—

One minute.

Saturday 29
th
March 5.31pm

—CVS Pharmacy, Ward Village—

My stomach hurts because I just inhaled my own weight in French fries, ice-cream, and chocolate espresso beans. Also, because I’m really nervous.

Saturday 29
th
March 5.45pm

—CVS Pharmacy, North Shore—

If you change your mind, that’s ok. I will just be surfing.

Saturday 29
th
March 9.28pm

—near North Shore, Oahu—

I’m just going to write and not think. Just freewrite it’s called becaus if I think or censor myself I won’t say what I want to say and I wont’ say what Im feeling. That was wayyyy more than kissing and i”m glad and that was like woah and I’m glad we agreed ahead of time not to talk well mostly I mean because there was some talking or like words spoken. Utterances, I’m not going to say moaning. Okay, moaning sighing and cries of pleasure. Wah, I feel like an idiot! I guess I mean I’m glad we didn’t hold a lengthy discussion beforehand or after it because a discussion would have ruined it I think. I’m glad I came to the beach to be with you. It was lovely and amazing and a true gift thank you. it was hot and pretty much what you said it would be except for the parts where I laughe dna asked if I was doing what you liked right and  holy and holy shit that was amzing, thak you for coming prepared i didn’t think it would go as far as it did and Id din’t think to bring anything and I should probaby be offended that you broght protection but I guess you probably never leave home without it which is a good thing. Okay, bye I’m sending  this now goodbye.thank yo.u

Saturday 29
th
March 9.36pm

—near North Shore, Oahu—

I thought we might. I hoped we would. I didn’t want you to feel like, if you wanted to, you couldn’t. I have wanted to forever. Since the beginning anyway. It feels real. You know how I said surfing has a spiritual side? When you can imagine how the face of a wave might buckle and fold and roll underneath you, even with your eyes closed, and it stops being about speed or turning, and starts being about connecting with the sea and the tide and way the moon pulls the water around the whole planet, and the infiniteness of the shapes the water has formed - endlessly the same and always different. It was like that. But furiously. Does that make sense? It was like that. I don't know. It was something like that.

Saturday 29
th
March 9.49pm

—Mahina’s Shave Ice—

It was like that. Just like that. You’re saying it better than I am...sorry I am overwhelmed and rambly. I am shaking still. I have to keep rewriting this because the words are completely jacked and it’s taking forever to get it out.  The driver thinks something’s wrong with me. He keeps asking if I’m okay, if something happened. (Uh, yeah, something happened alright! But I’m okay, Yoshi! I’m more than okay back here!) I told him I skipped dinner. Low blood sugar shakes. He’s getting me a pineapple shave ice and hotdog. He says I’m too skinny.

Sunday 30
th
March 1.12am

—Waikiki Yacht Club—

I feel bad now for Lachie. How will this work? I don’t love Lachie but I think he might love me and I have feelings for him and like him a lot. He’s going to hate us both and I don’t want to be the cause of a lifelong friendship ending and you’ve been friends for so long and I’m starting to feel the regret coming on. Tears maybe, and I’m thinking now it might have been a mistake.

Sunday 30
th
March 1.15am

—North Shore Hostel—

You just need to tell him.

You only have a few weeks. Remember?

This is what you asked me to do. I did it.

Sunday 30
th
March 1.25am

—Waikiki Yacht Club—

Okay. Let me think.

Sunday 30
th
March 1.36am

—Waikiki Yacht Club—

Wait! To clarify...I don’t mean I need to think about whether I want to cut it off with Lachie. I mean I need to think about how to go about doing it. How to say it to him. I can’t think how to say it in a way that wouldn’t gut him. I’ve tried out different ways of saying it in my brain but it all comes out like awful variations of the same thing: “Soooo...I slept with your best friend. Well, not slept. We did it on the beach where Lost was filmed. It was mind blowing. You and I are through.”

What will happen after that? He can be really sweet. Maybe you haven’t seen that side of him because you’re his brah or bro whatever you guys call it. 

Help.

Sunday 30
th
March 1.40am

—North Shore Hostel—

You want me to tell him? I can do it right now. He’s next door.

Sunday 30
th
March 1.41am

—Waikiki Yacht Club—

NO! I’ll tell him! Just give me a little bit of time to think about how to say it and the when and where of it. You had a lot of time to cut it off with Fiona after you met me. What, like over a month? I pressured you at various points there at the end but mostly I gave you your space to do it your way. And I took her feelings into account. I know Lachie and I aren’t engaged or anything like you and Fi were and that we only have a short history together but I think it’s been a meaningful one all the same. We’ve spent almost every day together for the last couple weeks. Yeah, two weeks is nothing in the big picture but it feels longer somehow. Like the summer vacation time warp effect? Like with dogs? Only vacation days feel like seven days in real life. Anyhow, I owe him more than a text break up, don’t you think? No one should be discarded that harshly.

Plus, there’s the Kody Factor of it. Jesus, he’s going to be wrecked! He’s losing two people important to him and he’s losing them to each other. There’s a particular sting of betrayal in that, don’t you think?

Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit here, placing too much importance on myself and what I might actually mean to him and maybe he won’t care all that much in the end. He’ll realize it was just a summer fling. But, I’d rather err on the side of caution and let him down easy somehow. Like you tried to do with Fiona.

Maybe you and Lachie will be able to be friends again at some point but I highly doubt it will be in the immediate future. He is not going to want to play hacky-sack and have a beer with you anymore, I promise.

Plus, he might beat you into ground beef right after. And not in the friendly “punch you in the guts” way like men apparently do and then get over in five seconds. So let me do it. I’ll do it Friday. Cristina’s birthday is tomorrow (today) and I don’t want our soap opera infecting it.

Will you give me until Friday night? That’s two days. That’s not a long time to wait I don’t think. I can make up reasons not to sleep with him until then.

Sunday 30
th
March 9.25am

—Totally Brewed Café—

You don’t have to tell him about us. You could just say it’s not working out. Tell him you’re busy getting hot stone massages. Go and do that. Take Jac and Cristina shopping for ridiculous shoes.

You don’t have to give him a reason. You could just go cold turkey. You could do tourist stuff with your mum for a couple of days. Take a helicopter ride. Go to pineapple pavilion. Go to Chinaman’s Hat.

Or stay on the yacht and watch Sex in the City from the beginning.

Lachie’s thick, but he will get the message. He’s done it enough himself to know a brush-off.

I can take him on surfing safari for a couple of days if you want. I won’t say anything. Lachie and I can get by on gestures and grunts.

Sunday 30
th
March 1.45pm

—Mockingbird Bookshop & Coffeehaus—

I thought maybe I was just being sensitive. So I went for a long walk. I bought a cup of coffee and ate a sandwich. It’s been four hours and the words still sting. Ridiculous shoes. Helicopter ride.
Sex and the City
. I know texts don’t always express tone but those words word deliberate. Why do you want to be with me if that’s how you feel? Is that all you think I do with my days? Sit around and think about the next thing to buy? Do you know I told my mother about you? She hasn’t been home any of the times Lachie’s come over. (She’s usually too busy riding helicopters to hot stone massages.) She doesn’t know anything about Lachie. You were the one I told her about. She asked me what you were like. I told her how you’re kind to me in the water and helping me get over my fear. She asked me if we’d had sex and I nodded. She asked if we used protection and I nodded. I spared her the details because she’s my mom but she more or less glowed for me. She told me she was happy for me and asked would I be seeing you after the summer. I had assumed the answer was yes. Now I’m not sure I will. She says she trusts me to make good decisions. Now I’m not sure I have.

Go on safari. While you’re away, maybe think about if you and me could actually make a go of it beyond the next few weeks. It’s a big ocean between Hawaii and California. There’s probably no point to all of this, really.

Sunday 30
th
March 3.00pm

—near North Shore, Oahu—

You know who is thingy about being loaded? You are! What chick doesn’t like buying shoes? Christ! Poor chicks like shoes. All chicks like shoes, and even if they hate Sex in the City, they still watch it so that they can make an informed argument in the bar about why it sucks.

Who wouldn’t have a hot stone massage in Hawaii? Lomi Lomi? They fricken invented it! You’re on holidays, remember? Do holiday stuff.

Or hole up in your boat and have a horrible time being pissed about someone suggesting that you enjoy yourself.

Suit yourself. I’m going camping with my fellow insensitive cavemen.

Sunday 30
th
March 3.14pm

—North Shore Hostel—

You know what is less sexy than jealous chicks? Girls who look for shit to fight about. Don’t be that chick.

Wednesday 2
nd
April 4.02pm

—near North Shore, Oahu—

Totally looking forward to meeting your mother now. Thanks for putting the image of us in flagrante delicto firmly in her head before I even walk in the door. She’s going to pull me aside and give me a lecture about chlamydia. Yippee!!

Wednesday 2
nd
April 4.46pm

—KFC, Ward Village—

You’re a piece of work you know that? It’s either that or the text-translator in my brain is broken because according to you, I see words on my screen filled with intent and emotion that is not there. Amelia likes being a drama-seeking bitch. Quit being a boring bitch, Amelia.

You have a tone when you speak about my situation. It’s not in my head. That’s the thing about guys, right? They like to make women feel like they’ve gone off their rockers. It’s in your fucking head, woman.  Quit acting psycho.

I’m not crazy. I know a dig when I see it.

Regarding my mother. She and I are very close. Remember the “best lay of your life” conversation you had with your dad? The filthy rich have those types of conversations with their kids, too. I didn’t draw her a goddamn picture of it. She’s concerned about her daughter so I alleviated those concerns with a NOD. She’s my friend. She’s been my friend when I had none. She loves me and wants to know that I’m being safe about things. She wants me to be happy and for a second I thought that might involve you.

You will never meet my mother so don’t worry about that. And it’s your loss because she’s amazing. She’s had a hard life and gone through hell to take care of me. She gave me a life that she could never have dreamed possible. She didn’t send me off to boarding school like some of the mothers I know. She kept me right next to her. She gave me the best education while tucking me in at night.  She took me to the Sistine Chapel when I was ten and we looked up at the ceiling and held hands. She knew nothing about art. She was a scared trailer park kid from Pemiscot and we learned about art together. She struggled to fit in wherever we went and still does to some degree. Nobody’s forgiven Delilah Rose for preying on the loneliness of a rich old widower. To this day not a single old money rich asshole in Kansas City thinks she might feel genuine love for Paul. She’s done wonderful things for our community and the world and has taught me to give back in that way. I may not know what it’s like to be poor but my mother does and she’s taught me not to take money for granted. She taught me to do good things with it.