Chapter Twenty-One
Nate
When you've been sick long enough, you stop noticing that your body hasn't been working right. Being sick becomes your new normal, and when you're not sick anymore, it's like a shock. You don't know what to do with all the energy you suddenly have or all the full nights you've been sleeping with no problem.
Twenty-two days. I wasn't detoxing anymore. I was clean. Obviously, not as clean as I had been before I'd ever done dope, but as clean as it was possible to be as a former druggie.
That's right. Former. I'd kicked it. Was it too early to start calling myself recovered?
I felt recovered. I was writing music again. I felt stronger. I was waking up earlier; I mean, shit, I'd been up before nine almost every day the past two weeks. Everything was great. It was like I was on drugs again, but I wasn't. I was clean. The dope had put this weird fog over everything, and now that it was gone, I felt like I had never noticed how beautiful everything around me was.
I swear to God, it was like someone had put a new coat of paint over the entire world. It was new and bright, and I fucking loved it. I felt great. I wanted to do things again, things that didn’t involve getting loaded and passing out. I felt like I could finally think. My mind wasn't zapped, doped up, and cloudy.
I was on vacation, in paradise, and I was off the drugs. Whether I had known it or not, it was like the drugs had been my biggest problem, and now I didn't have it anymore. It was perfect.
Mostly perfect.
I had been sober when I had told Abby that I didn't want to see her again, and I knew that I had not imagined the look on her face when she left.
The last thing I had told her to do was shut up and leave me alone. I had wanted her to leave, and it had worked.
That was a lie.
I had wanted to make myself feel better about the fact that I was going to leave. I did want her to stay. I wanted to share this with her. I wanted us to hang out without thinking about when I could get my next fix and her not having to worry about whether I was feeling sick.
Was there a better way to let someone know you didn't want them than just straight up telling them? Even if it was a lie?
I had been avoiding the front lobby like the plague. I wanted to see her, so fucking bad. I wanted her in my bed again. I wanted to fuck her, but I'd want that when I was back in LA, too, and this vacation was over. I wasn't here to start again; my life was in LA, and I was going back to it. This was her life. She was staying here.
I couldn't see her, but that hadn't meant that I'd gone into hiding for the past two weeks. It was hard to get around the hotel without going through the lobby, but I had managed to go back to the Garden of the Gods a few more times.
Abby had mentioned that I had to see it at sunset, and she had been right. It was like entering another dimension when I was there. The rocks looked like they glowed in the light of the sunset. It was amazing.
It also maybe helped me feel a little closer to her since I couldn't actually be close to her. There was that, I guess. I felt a little nostalgic about it. I remember feeling like I wanted to kill her that first day she forced me out of my suite to go there, but now, I remembered it sort of fondly.
It was morning, but I wanted to leave the suite. If I took the stairs instead of the elevator, then I wouldn't go by the front lobby. Being in my suite alone all the time wasn't that appealing anymore. I walked towards the bar because if I was hanging out with anyone, it might as well be a familiar face.
It was early, so Keno was there by himself. He was wiping a glass when he saw me.
"Hey, Keno," I said first.
"Nate, it's been awhile. I thought you went home, brother," he said.
"I'm here all summer."
"You look different," he said.
"I've been making some healthier choices lately," I said, smirking.
"You're not drinking today?" he asked. I shook my head. I didn't need it. I felt good.
"How have you been?" I asked him.
"Good. Busy. That's how it is every summer when you guys come to the islands."
"I bet you can't wait for us all to go back where we came from."
"As long as you buy a lot of drinks before you go," he joked. I laughed.
"It’s easy to forget I don't actually live here," I admitted.
"Not looking forward to going back?" he asked. Wasn’t that the fucking truth?
"I'm on vacation while I'm here. When I go back, I gotta work," I said. A version of the truth, but not the whole truth.
"Better make the rest of your time here count, then. Before you know it, you'll be on that plane back," he said. I nodded.
"I gotta get out more," I said, laughing.
"Listen, I'm going on a hike after my shift. You should come." A hike? I'd never gone on a hike, not on purpose, at least. I lived in LA, but it wasn't really my scene. I preferred the gym. Since he had offered, though, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. Abby wasn't taking me anywhere anymore. Might as well, right?
"Sure. That sounds great. Thanks."
"The guys here at the hotel could hook you up with some gear if you don't have any. Just check the island adventure center." I thanked him and said I'd meet him later.
I took his advice, getting myself some real hiking boots before meeting him at the entrance of the hotel, where a car took us out to the city. He said the trail we were doing was the Munro Trail. It was a lot of forest and there were some pretty serious elevations, he warned me beforehand. It was all good. I could take a climb. I felt like I could do anything since getting off the dope. The trail began beyond the city and went up behind it.
I had started working out a lot more since I had quit, so it wasn't that hard. The island was so small I could practically see where it started and where it ended. Plus, Keno was cool. He was good company. He was no Abby, but I wanted very different things from her than I wanted from him. He told me he had lived on Lanai all his life and was going to die here, too, as far as he was concerned.
It was sort of embarrassing hearing where he had come from. We had had very different lives. I felt like a little Richie Rich asshole who'd been coddled my whole life. He lived in a small place in Lanai City, but he'd done it himself.
I knew what it meant to be my father's son. I knew how much clout my last name carried. It was part of the reason why I hadn't followed him into business. Money made misery easier; it didn't make you happy. Even if you wiped your tears with Ben Franklins, you were still crying.
What was that like? Being in the same place all your life? I’d had a passport since I could talk. Besides moving to LA from San Francisco, I had been around the world, most of the time just because. Just to travel. Was it because he couldn't? Or because he didn't want to? It seemed so limiting to me.
"You've never left this island? Are you fucking serious?" I asked him.
"I've been to Maui, Molokai, Kauai-"
"You've never gone to the mainland?"
"Nope," he said lightly.
"Why?"
"Why would I? I live here."
"You're surrounded by people who've traveled here from different places. You never wanted to go somewhere yourself?"
"I've thought about it, but it's not that important to me to try leave. I don't want to leave. There are things I want that I want to get for myself; that's just not one of them."
"I could never do it. I mean, I came here, didn't I? I like being able to leave if I want to."
"You have something to run away from," he said sagely. "Or you're just not in the right place."
"If you had my life, you'd know why I had to run," I told him. We trekked in silence for a few minutes.
"Can I ask you something?" Keno said.
"Sure, what?"
"What's going on between you and Abby?"
"Nothing," I said truthfully.
"You had a lot of questions about who she was dating," he said. He didn't sound like he was accusing me, but he was onto me.
"I wanted to know," I said shrugging.
"Did you go out?"
"No... Well, sort of. It was just a few times, and she was basically just taking me on tours around the island. It wasn't that deep."
"You like her," he said looking in front of him.
"She was all right," I tried to say, flippantly.
"If she was all right, then what happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"Something happened. Otherwise, you'd still be hanging out with her. I know you're only here because you two aren’t talking anymore," he said.
"It's not like that," I started, defensively.
"Nate, it's not a big deal. I know how it goes. What happened between you two?"
"I couldn't do it to her anymore. When the summer ends, I'm going back to LA. She's staying here."
"I think she knows that, brother."
"It's not right. I can't make her believe this can be a real thing and then just up and leave at the end of August."
"You didn't want to hurt her?"
"Yeah. I mean, it's shitty leading her on like that. It's better if she doesn't have any expectations. Then, I can't disappoint her."
"I can see why you did it, but, tell me something, are you happier that you did?" he asked.
"What?" I frowned.
"Are you happy with that decision you made to cut her off?"
"No. I liked hanging out with her. She's a great girl."
"Do you think she's happy about it?"
"Definitely not. I think she hates me for what I said to her."
"Love's a scary thing, but you can’t be scared of it," he said.
"Whoa, who's talking about love?" I asked.
"I'm just saying," he said. "Love makes its own decisions. It's a mystery, it can take you anywhere. Make you do anything."
"I'm not in love with Abby."
"I never said you were," he said, looking over at me.
"So what's your point?" I asked, angrier than I wanted to sound.
"My point is you made that decision for a reason, but if it isn't making you happy, then maybe it's not a good enough one." I thought about it. Love? He had to slow the hell down; we weren't doing all of that. We had slept together a few times. We weren't in love.
"By the way, if you're willing to torture yourself and her because you're afraid to hurt her, you are in love," he said.
"You're single. I'm supposed to take your advice why?" I asked. He laughed.
"I'm not single because I want to be. I don't have a choice. You don't have to be single. You made that choice." I thought about what he had said the entire way back to the resort after the hike. Maybe he was onto something.