Chapter 13
ABBY
I have a migraine.
It took six days, and I’m glad it took as long as it did, but having a migraine in a place that is essentially one big trigger makes it difficult to navigate my day.
I promise myself that if I can get out of bed and I don’t feel like throwing up for ten minutes while I get ready, I can go have lunch at the café.
I promise myself that I will come straight back to the room after I eat, drink no alcohol for the rest of the day, and take more meds if the trip to lunch makes it worse.
And, worst of all, I promise myself that if I’m at a 5 or above, I’ll cancel my excursion tonight.
But I seem to be feeling well enough to leave my room, so I shove on my sunglasses and head to the café. To my delight, I spot a familiar face, but fill a plate with food before going to say anything.
“Walter?” I greet my friend from the stingray excursion as I approach his table.
“Well, hello there.” His face lights up with recognition. “Annie, is it?”
“Abby.” I give him my warmest smile, which he returns.
“Abby! I’m sorry. Sit, sit. Let me buy you a drink,” he says, chuckling at his own joke.
“Would you mind if I sat with you while I eat?” I ask as I take a seat.
“Not at all, I just got some myself. Let me…” He trails off and twists in his chair as if he’s looking for someone.
He raises his hand, flagging down the waiter, who comes over right away.
Walter orders a beer and I tell her a water is fine, and even though Walter doesn’t raise an eyebrow at me about it, I still feel like I have to justify myself.
“I have a migraine,” I say. “It’s not unbearable, I just…don’t want to drink.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well, dear.”
I shrug. “I’ve had them my whole life, so I guess I’m used to it?”
I’m not used to it; I don’t know why I say that. Probably because I hate making other people uncomfortable with my pain. It’s not theirs to deal with.
“Is there anything you need?” Walter asks. “Should you be out of your room?”
Walter’s kindness makes my eyes burn with tears, but I blink them away.
“That’s really nice of you, Walter. I’m—I’ve been in my room all day, though. I’m okay. Please don’t worry about me.”
I started getting migraines when I was five.
I didn’t know they were migraines then, but I would get these bad headaches and the light would hurt my eyes.
I couldn’t sit in classrooms with fluorescent lighting—my parents had to come pick me up from school a few times a month.
It was a burden on them because they both worked.
Sometimes the pain would last for a couple days, sometimes accompanied by the worst nausea.
The doctors didn’t see my migraines as bad enough to put me on preventative medicines for years.
I was still making it to school 80% of the time, and we could manage the pain occasionally with over-the-counter medicines.
But I saw the toll it took on my parents, and I heard them talking about me one night.
They were in the kitchen while I was going to sneak down for a late-night snack.
I heard my mom and dad talking, and I heard my name.
“I’m tired. It’s a lot taking care of a chronically ill child,” my mother said.
“I know, Jean, I’m tired too. But she’s a good kid.”
“Can you imagine if we had had two?”
“I know you wanted two,” my dad said. “Do you still?”
“No. One chronically ill child is enough for me. I couldn’t handle two.”
My dad agreed and that was that. I went back up to my room and cried myself to sleep.
I didn’t want to be a burden to my parents.
I’d vowed right then and there that outside of my migraines, I would be the best kid.
That I would make it no one’s problem but my own when I didn’t feel good.
My parents, of course, continued to take care of me, but I stopped complaining.
I made sure from that moment on that I was the golden child, so they never regretted not having two.
I was ten.
They seem happy enough now—my parents. Both retired and golfing every day, traveling when they can.
They enthusiastically agreed that I shouldn’t waste the non-refundable deposit on the resort and gave me all their tips and tricks for resort travel.
I try to send them at least one selfie every day so they don’t have to worry about me.
After my breakup, they were there for me.
I lived with them for a month or two while I figured out what to do next, and they did what they always do—they took care of me.
I felt too guilty to stay longer than two months, so I got my own place despite their insistence that I could stay as long as I needed to.
I still have dinner with them at least once a week, and they still send me bad selfies of themselves on the golf cart sometimes.
I still do my best not to make it anyone’s problem but my own when I have pain.
“What have you been up to?” I ask Walter, desperately needing to think of anything else right now. “Any more excursions?”
He studies me, taking a pull of his beer. I suspect he knows there’s something deeper here, why I’m brushing him off, but whatever he sees on my face, he chooses to let it go.
“Well, yesterday, I went snorkeling. This morning, I did a horseback ride—”
“How was that?” I ask.
“It was real nice, but I’ve never been a big fan of horses,” he says.
“Me either,” I admit. “What else? It seems like you’re trying to do it all.”
“I’m doing as much as these old bones will let me do.
I think tomorrow I have the day off, so I’ll go lie on the beach with the only book I brought with me and fall asleep halfway through the first page.
I’m seeing some turtles this week, and, oh, I don’t know what else. I need my planner.” He chuckles.
“I’m doing the turtle thing too,” I say. “And a lighthouse hike and a sunset sail.”
“Well that sounds fun,” he says.
“I’ve already done the ‘sleeping on the beach’ thing, so it’ll be nice to get away from the resort.”
“Have you been enjoying your vacation?” he asks just as I’ve taken a bite of food. I nod enthusiastically, and realize that doesn’t feel good to do, so I nod a little less enthusiastically.
“You know, I thought I saw you the other day around here with a boy. Well, a tall man, very strapping lad,” Walter says. “I think you said you came here alone, but it seems you’re making friends.”
“Oh, that’s just…that’s Miles.”
“I see…?” he says skeptically.
“Miles is my—” My ex? My friend? All of the above? “Well, he’s my ex-boyfriend. From college. And now I guess we’re friends,” I say. Miles and I aren’t exactly friends, but we aren’t not friends.
“You’re giving your ex-boyfriend the time of day?”
“I know, I know. I’m too nice.”
“Is there such a thing as too nice?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I think sometimes I can be. I don’t like to make a fuss.”
He studies me again while working on his beer. “Life is way too short not to make a fuss. My wife of forty-seven years was the same way. She started to make a fuss the last few years before she died. She used to say, ‘Hot dog! I should have been more fussy.’”
“Hot dog?” I say with a chuckle.
“Just a phrase us old fogies like to say,” he says and gestures to a passing waiter for another beer.
“I had grandparents, Walter, and they never said ‘hot dog’ when they could say ‘holy shit.’”
Walter acts like this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard.
He slaps his knee and throws his head back in a giant, booming laugh.
He laughs until the waiter brings that beer and finally wipes the corners of his eyes and straightens.
It definitely wasn’t that funny, but his reaction has me smiling at the very least. I’m glad I left my room today; this was worth whatever pain my little field trip might cost me.
“How much have you had to drink, Walter?” I tease.
He dismisses me with a chuckle and a wave of his hand, taking a sip of his beer. “I’m on vacation—I’m not counting!”
“Well deserved,” I say and hold up my water glass, which he clinks his beer against.
“Now, I’m not trying to be nosy, or overstep here, but you’re not hanging out with that boy because you don’t want to be fussy, are you?” Walter asks.
“No, no. I like hanging out with him,” I say, only realizing how true the words are once I’ve said them out loud to someone else.
When did that happen?
Was it when he apologized in the middle of the pasta-making class? Was it during the beach party when I chose to talk to him? When we danced? Surely it was before I chose to get in a hot tub with him, and it must have been before we kissed…
I don’t know if I can name the moment. I do know that I started to enjoy seeing Miles. And that I am starting to hope I will see him by chance.
“Good,” says Walter. “You’re too old to be hanging out with people you don’t like.”
“Did you just call me old?”
“I sure did. Your school years are the only time in your life you can get away with hanging out with people you don’t like.
You don’t know what you need in a friend group and even if you do find people you like, you’ll only keep one or two for life.
By the time you’re in your twenties, it’s time to whittle that friend group down to the people who are most important.
And it’s never okay to spend time romantically with someone you don’t really like. ”
“I’m flattered you think I’m in my twenties. I’m thirty-three.”
“And you don’t look a day over twenty-three,” he says and winks. “Is your friend enjoying resort life?”
“I don’t think he’s had a chance to properly enjoy it.” I explain that Miles is living here while working on a project nearby.
“Tell him to take some time off! It’s too beautiful a place to work all the time. Trust me. I spent my whole life working and where did that get me?” Walter says, gesturing. “I guess it got me here, but I’ll tell you, I wish I’d done this with my wife. She would have loved this place.”