Page 88 of Bulletproof

I fell back on the bed, spread-eagled. “You know what I was thinking?”

“No, what?” he asked, lying down beside me, fingers linked behind his head.

“That I wanted to make another go of running my own business. I think my best friend and I gave up too fast last time. I think maybe we should try again.” The idea had been doing laps in my head lately, and I finally had the time to dive into the pool with it.

“Okay.”

“But see, I really like Fallon too, you know? I gotta figure that out because he’s sorta counting on me, and letting the man down is not an option.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

And I knew that, too, but it hardly mattered. “I’m worried about working for someone else again. I don’t do that all that well.”

“I’m surprised you work at all.”

I rolled my head to look at him. “Why?”

“You get that you’re a bit scattered, right?”

“Yeah, people say that.”

He lifted his eyebrows like maybe they said it a lot.

“I’d flip you off, but then I’d hafta move.”

He shook his head. “You know, last night, I was working so hard for you to like me because I thought that was what Aaron wanted, but today …”

“Not so much with the caring, huh?”

“No.”

“The shrimp was really good at that truck. You should’ve tried it.”

He looked at me, and I knew he was deciding.

“I will on the way back,” he said after a long minute. “It did smell good.”

We were silent for a long time after that.

“I’m gonna go for a swim,” I told him.

“I’m gonna go screw Aaron Sutter’s brains out.”

“Okay,” I said.

He left me alone then, and everything felt better, settled.

I changed to go for my swim.

THIRTEEN

Instead of being afraid of things that were real, I had always been afraid of things that were not. Like, if I was walking home and I heard a noise, I wasn’t thinking stalker or serial killer. I was thinking werewolf. It was how my brain worked.

So, when I swam out into the Pacific, I wasn’t worried because I never contemplated sharks or rough currents or jellyfish or anything remotely frightening. I was in the water. What could happen?

As I rose and fell with the waves, I felt small in the grand scale of earth and sky and water, and that perspective, as I realized how truly insignificant I was, sort of jogged my brain.

For months, I had been thinking about trying to relaunch Harvest Design—my company with Dylan Greer—which I had loved more than anything besides Sam Kage. Ever since I had realized that I really did hate my job and that my boss really didn’t like me, I’d understood that it was just another sign to change my life that I had been ignoring. Normally, I looked for guidance all over, even in the most mundane things, but lately, nothing was getting through, and I knew why.