Page 46 of Wayfarers

“So I can clearly not choose the cup in front of me!” My Wallace Shawn impression is wanting.

“Huh?”

“The Princess Bride?! This conversation is totally reminding me of it,” I tell him.

“Is that another movie?”

“Dude! How? You really have led a life of cinematic deprivation.”

“What if I’ve spent all my time honing murder techniques instead?”

I rub my temple. “Knox,” I say. “What are you going to murder me with?”

“I don’t know,” he says, looking kind of grossed out all of a sudden. “I have to have a plan?”

“They generally do.”

“I don’t know. Um. A gun?”

“I’ve listened to a lot of true crime documentaries. I feel like usually they’re, like, more into plastic wrap and handsaws—”

“Handsaws?”

“But even if you do have a gun, how are you going to use it? Your arm is broken. And I watched you try to eat soup with the other one, and I have to say, I’ve felt less threatened by kittens.”

“You don’t know it’s broken. It could be a con!”

“I saw your arm double back on itself!”

He’s clearly scrambling around for the next excuse. Exhausted, I reach out to touch his shoulder, and he lets me. “Knox,” I say. “I don’t have a plan. I don’t have a destination. I have all of this—this stuff, this car, and this bank account and like, fourteen annotated Lonely Planet guides for the Greater Midwest, and none of it is making me happy. I wasn’t supposed to be doing this alone, there was—he was—I’m not doing a good job of this, okay? But I can’t go home, and I can’t keep going the way I have been. If I pull up to one more, like, Insta-famous vista, and feel nothing again . . . I just want someone to talk to. It’s two hours away. Let me give you a lift.”

He’s studying my face. “So I’d be doing this for you.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess. I mean, if you needed confirmation that I’m a spoiled brat.”

“I don’t think you’re a spoiled brat.”

I shrug again. All of a sudden I feel raw. “It’s up to you,” I tell him, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m going to go walk Winslow. Think about it.”

Knox Two More Hours

What do you do

when there’s nothing

in this world you want

more than to spend two

more hours with someone

and nothing in the world

you want less than to only

spend two more hours

with someone?