“No. And I have no trouble being sure about it,” he added.
She smiled and then laughed.
“What?”
“You’re traveling, running around looking for yourself, and the truth is that you’ve already found yourself. You know who you are. You’re just not sure what shoes to wear yet.”
“I knew it. I knew you’d make me feel dumb,” he said.
She turned to him. This time, she was the one looking down. “But you don’t care,” she said, and played with his hair.
“No. I don’t care.”
“That’s why I could be addicted to you, too.”
He raised his head so they could kiss. Outside, the stars were blazing even more. She imagined it was because of them, their fire. She turned and lay back so she could welcome what he had brought to her before and would bring to her again.
They exhausted each other with their passion. She fell asleep with her arm over his back, her face snuggled in the pillow, inches from his. Maybe he was afraid to move, afraid to wake her, but when she did open her eyes to the sunlight that threaded through the open blinds, he was exactly where he had been, his eyes closed. Gently, she lifted her arm from his back and turned. She had anticipated feeling guilty and afraid now, but she only felt hungry, or at least, that was all she would acknowledge.
When she sat up, he still didn’t wake. She went to the bathroom, carrying her clothes in with her, showered, and dressed. She used his hairbrush on her hair, and then, when she opened the door, she saw he had awakened and was lying on his back, his hands behind his head, waiting.
“You want me to take you back to the mall or back to Spindrift?” he asked.
“I was thinking of some breakfast. Is there somewhere close by? I’ll treat.”
“Sure,” he said, smiling. “I’ll just shower and dress, too.”
“I’ll be outside. I want to take a little walk.”
“If you’re going to disappear, let me know now,” he said.
“I disappeared a long time ago,” she said, and walked out.
The motel was very quiet. No one else was outside his or her room. There were fewer cars. It was too early for new people to arrive. This was a place you came to when you realized it was getting late or you were getting tired. For reasons she didn’t understand, that pleased her.
She walked to the road and stood looking first to her right and then to her left. To the right was going back, retreat; to the left was . . . the unknown. From this place, there was nothing different about either direction. Both sides of the road were bordered by undeveloped land, woods, and bushes. Her legs were tight from her nervousness. Her body was making her rational, thoughtful.
You don’t understand, she told herself. The others still have families. Both Donna and Corliss worry about what their parents will think of them. My father left my teddy bear with me the day he brought me to Spindrift. It was really the only thing left that would remind me I was a child once, with parents and a home. Now it’s the only reason I can think of to return to Spindrift, to get my teddy bear.
But maybe it’s good that I leave it behind. Soon my father, or the father I once knew, will be there, and they might hand him the teddy bear with my other things. He will look at it and see me as a child, or maybe, maybe, he never saw me as a child, not the way my mother could, and she is gone.
If I return to Spindrift, no one will see me, perhaps ever.
She waited to hear disagreement, the way it came whenever she debated something inside herself, but it didn’t come. The silence, in fact, was loud, overwhelming.
Yes, she thought, and she started down the road to her left. She walked with her head down, her arms folded under her breasts. No one could see. A car went by occasionally, but neither the driver nor the passengers could see she was smiling.
She didn’t look up until Leo pulled up beside her on his motorcycle.
“Hey,” he said. “Where are you going? You walked quite a ways.”
“Isn’t breakfast waiting up ahead?”
He smiled. “Yeah. It is. Then what?”
She stared at the road in front of them for a moment. “That’s point B, isn’t it?”
“I guess it is.”