Sunshiner

“I’ve always wanted to go to Italy,” she gushed, “and Greece and Amsterdam and the ruins of Ancient Rome.”

“You’re kidding,” I said flatly.

“No, I’m serious,” she said lightly. “Europe is so pretty and I’ve always wanted to see Venice – ”

“No, I mean this,” I said, slamming my hand down on the map. “You’re kidding about all of this. Right?”

She gave me a blank look. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” she repeated. “Why would I be?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said slowly, walking slowly around the circular table. Sensing danger, Candace also began to walk around it, matching my pace so that we were always at opposite ends of the table. We moved slowly, cautious of the others’ movements, as if one of us was the predator while the other was the prey. “Maybe because it’s absolutely insane?”

“It’s not insane,” she huffed. “We can easily buy plane tickets; I’ve had my entire college tuition saved up since I was a baby, and since I’m obviously not going to be able to use it – ” I cringed internally at how easily she said that – “I have plenty of money to spend. And I know you’re rich as fuck. All we have to do now is pack our bags and decide where we want to go first.”

“I know we can do all of that. I didn’t say it was impossible,” I countered smartly. “I said it was insane. Candace, we cannot do this.”

“Why not?” she demanded, stomping her foot and crossing her arms. “I’ve always wanted to leave the country and now is my only chance to do it. I haven’t got much time left – ”

“Please don’t say things like that – ”

“ – and I know you’ve always had a knack for adventure. I know you do. You can’t deny that you’ve always wanted to do something like this.”

“Candace, listen to me,” I said calmly. I had somehow managed to catch up to her during our circular chase around the table, and before she could get away from me, I had snatched her wrist and pulled her close to me. Encasing her golden face in my hands, I lifted her face up towards mine so that she could look into my eyes and see how serious of a situation this was. “I don’t think you fully understand how big this trip is. It isn’t even logical…”

“Yes it is, Kase!” she said earnestly. “I can’t die – ”

“Stop,” I said. “You have got to stop talking about death as if it isn’t a big deal. You say it so casually…”

“What am I supposed to do then, ignore it and pretend that I’m perfectly fine?” she snapped, and the look that she gave me made me fall silent instantly. “As I was saying,” she continued in a much less angry voice, “I can’t let myself die without a grand adventure like this. I know it’s ridiculous and bold, but isn’t that exactly what I am? I cannot live the rest of my life without seeing the world and without the world seeing me. I need it, Kasey.”

The look she was giving me was smoldering my stubborn attitude to ashes. “Damn it,” I cursed under my breath. I hated how she always managed to convince me to do the dumbest things.

“I made breakfast for you two,” my mom said cheerily, strolling into the living room with a steaming plate of homemade waffles in her hand and a cup of fresh strawberries in her other hand. I saw her camera hanging by her waist from her belt loop and I made a mental note to steal it from her before she could go on another picture parade while Candace and I ate together. When Mom saw the serious look I was giving Candace and the glare I was receiving from her in return, she stopped in her tracks and asked, “What’s going on?”

I let out a long sigh and then, wrapping an arm around Candace’s shoulders and pressing her into my side, I looked at my mom with an almost remorseful look on my face. I figured I might as well tell her now, considering how last time I left without telling her resulted with a shit load of chores for me to do. “Mom…” I said slowly, and in my peripheral I could see a triumphant smile spreading across Candace’s face as she realized what I was going to say. “Candace and I are going to go on a little trip.”



“I wish I never told her that,” I groaned an hour later as I flopped onto my bed. I rubbed my eyes in a vain attempt of waking myself up from this terrible dream.

“You had to tell your mom all the details eventually,” Candace said cheerily and sat down on my bed by my side. Despite how much trouble she had just gotten me in to, she seemed awfully delighted. She leaned back on one of her arms, angling herself towards me, and then she ran her fingers through my hair, which relaxed me, if only a little. “It was better to do it now than later.”

“Yeah, but…ugh. I hate it when you’re right,” I groaned and stared up at my ceiling. “Did you see the look on her face when I told her where we were going? I thought she was going to explode when I finally got to the part about Rome.”

“She hates it when you leave her,” said Candace simply. “It’s no one’s fault, really.”

“Except my fucking dad.”

“Yeah, well,” she shrugged but didn’t finish her sentence. “It was better to tell your mom than not at all, right? I don’t think she would be handle it if you just disappeared again. Especially if you were planning to go out of the country.”

“I wouldn’t do that to her,” I said. “It would be completely unfair. Besides, this is a big enough trip that it’s inevitable to tell her. I’ll probably need to tell my dad, too; I’m going to ask him for money for all of the plane trips we’ll be taking. And I need to tell him to somehow deal with my college tuition next year, as well.”

This seemed to baffle her. “Why?” she asked.

“I’m assuming we’re going to be away for a while, especially if we’re going to make a giant trip around Europe.”

“Oh. Okay,” she said, looking mildly surprised. “In that case, we might go to other places too, if you want. New Zealand seems like it would be pretty.” She looked at me shyly, waiting for me to say yes. I just shrugged and nodded. Initially, a trip as grand as this one would have freaked me out – going to more than one continent was a bit overwhelming. But at this point, why the fuck not? If we were actually going to do this, we might as well go fucking crazy. “I sort of want to go to Egypt, too. Egypt is awesome.”

“Why don’t you want to go to a normal place, like Paris? Girls like Paris, right?”

She scrunched her nose.

“Right. Not your type of thing. I get it.”

She laughed and nodded. “Anyway,” she said and leaned back, resting her head on my chest. Now it was my turn to run my hands through her hair. “Why are you not planning on going to college anymore? I don’t want you to drop out because of me – “

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I laughed. “There’s nothing in the world that can get me to not go to college, not even you. No offense or anything. But not going to college would just be stupid. I’ll just tell my dad I just want to take a gap year.”

“Isn’t it too late to do that?” she asked. “I mean, it’s only one month until your classes start, right? You must be registered for the fall term and your dorm and everything…”

“Whatever,” I shrugged. “I’ll make something crazy up, like I got into some insane accident and I have to take an entire year to heal. I mean, my dad’s probably gonna be pissed since he already paid and signed stuff and it’ll be hard to just back out of it… But my dad has made tons of donations to my school so if they piss him off he’ll just cut their funds. And, I mean, if they do make him pay…well, screw him. I don’t care.”

“Your dad pays for a lot of stuff for you. He does a lot to help you out, doesn’t he?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Not at all,” I scoffed. “He’s just loaded. He’s so rich that it doesn’t make a difference to him if he spends a lot of money on me – it’s only like losing a penny to him. He thinks that if he pays for all of my stuff then I won’t bother him about anything else. He spends a lot more money and time and attention to his new son, anyway.”

“Oh,” she said shortly and fell silent. Candace knew that I didn’t like talking about my dad, and when I did, she was never good at comforting me, since her parents were still happily married and she didn’t know what it was like to have a family situation like mine. Not that I needed any comforting, of course. I was perfectly fine with how everything in my life was.

A few minutes of silence ensued, which were finally broken when Candace commented, “I know it’s not even close to being the afternoon yet, but I’m tired.”

“Mmm,” I mumbled. It was almost like one of those moments when someone yawned and no matter how hard I tried to resist it, I yawned as well. “I am too. Let’s go to sleep.”



I dreamt about Italy.

At least, I thought it was Italy, since I had never been to the country before and I had no clue what it was supposed to look like. But it felt like Italy, whatever that was supposed to mean. All I could remember from the dream was that Candace and I were together and alone.

We were in a room not unlike the one from the old motel we had stayed at during our first road trip; there was hardly any furniture in the room and the bed consisted of only a mattress on the floor. Unlike the motel room, however, this room’s walls were covered in decorations. Oil paintings and shards of mirror covered nearly every inch of each wall. It was hard to tell what the paintings featured, because the little mirrors crammed between each picture frame reflected a different painting from an opposite wall, and each image blended and blurred elegantly into one picture. There were oceans and birds and skies and fireflies and who knows what else. There was a little bit of everything. It was as if the entire world surrounded us in this one tiny room.

There was only one window, which was neither too small nor very large, and if there was any sort of view outside of it, we couldn’t see it because there was a curtain of grape vines showering down the exterior of the glass. Sunshine peeked between the emerald leaves, dousing everything in an odd but warm yellow light.

I was aware that I was lying on the mattress and I could see my unclothed body tangled up in the sheets, but I couldn’t feel it. I felt lazy from being bathed in this strange light so I rolled over on my side, and then there she was.

She was lying next to me, naked like I was, with the sheet hardly covering her bare skin. Her drooping eyelids implied that she was on the brink of falling asleep, but there was a lazy smile on her face that implied that she was conscious enough to comprehend that she liked where she was and she was happy. I saw that her body was covered in glistening beads of sweat and it was only then when I became aware of the sweltering heat. Her blond hair was plastered to her forehead and neck and although it was incredibly tangled and un-brushed, I found the look to be incredibly attractive. It was messy and it was natural and it was her.

I watched as a droplet of sweat slowly rolled down the arc of her back and slid down to her waist and it was at that moment when I was overcome with lust and I wanted her now. I rolled over more to bring myself closer to her, and I pushed away her damp hair from her face to bring my lips to meet hers and then –

And then I woke up. I lay in bed for a moment and stared up at the ceiling. I wasn’t sure how long Candace and I were asleep for, but a bluish light was filtering in through my window, indicating that it was near dusk. I felt a movement on my stomach and looked down to see that Candace was still sleeping and was using my torso as a pillow. I smiled and brushed a strand of hair from her face, trying my best to remember how dazzling she looked in my dream in the strange little room with the yellow sunlight pouring over her.

I then realized that I wanted this trip as much as she did. Maybe I needed it even more.