“Tell your woman that the decent thing to do before you leave is to say thanks to the person who sacrificed her bunk for you!”
I suppress my smile. “I’ll tell her.”
Tonya opens her mouth, then lets it fall closed again.
I wait patiently. Silence opens more doors than force, sometimes.
Then she mumbles something, but it’s too low for me to catch.
“What was that?” I ask. “Speak up.”
She pauses, considers repeating herself. Then she changes her mind.
“Nothing,” she says quickly. “Never mind.”
* * *
I leave Tonya to her lone bunk and make my way back outside. I’m frustrated enough to punch a hole in a wall.
But that won’t get me anywhere. I need to focus. Find a new way forward.
I’m driving aimlessly through town, trying to blow off steam, when I pass a bus terminal.
That’s as good a lead as any, I suppose.
I park, hop out, and check the schedule, wondering where the fuck Esme had decided to go next.
Tonya was right about one thing: with a newborn in tow, she can’t have gone far.
And then something catches my eye as I’m staring at the maps detailing all the different routes.
I see the ocean.
Months Earlier
“That’s one thing I miss about the compound,” Esme tells me as she places her head against my shoulder. “The ocean. It was so close, I used to go for midnight runs when I needed an escape.”
“The ocean, huh?”
“Cesar loved it, too. We always used to joke that we’d get a little hut on the ocean one day. No one else around for miles. Just us. I’ve always wanted to live by the ocean.”
“It’s been so long since I’ve been near the sea,” she muses. “I miss it.”
“I’ll get you to an ocean soon,” I promise her.
“Yeah?”
I nod and kiss the top of her head. “Yeah. We can take long walks on the beach and our child can splash around in the water.”
She smiles—a bright, open smile that leaves me with a fierce sense of pride and possession. “That sounds perfect,” she nods. “That’s exactly what I want.”
“You know what I want?” I ask.
“What?”
“I want to recreate that day on the beach on our honeymoon…”
Esme’s cheeks blush scarlet as she remembers the longing that unleashed between us on the beach that afternoon. The day we broke through together.