Page 35 of Here for a Good Time

He unfolds the small rectangles until the whole map is laid out. “Yeah, I know it’s outdated now, but I figured it was better than nothing. It’ll still be a good backup if we need to figure out where to go next.”

“What should we do to pass the time slash distract ourselves from the fact that our feet smell like a bucket of rotten fish?” I ask.

“We could… play a game?” Leila suggests.

“Like what?” I ask. “I Spy?”

“Truth or Dare?” she asks.

I look around the completely empty space. “What could we possibly dare each other to do?”

Leila bites her bottom lip as she considers. “To… tell the truth?”

“So, like, Truth or Truth?”

She flashes a smile. “Why not? I’ll go first.”

“Leila—” I lean back and stretch out my legs, shifting my weight onto the heels of my hands.

I didn’t realize how sore I was until this moment, but my calves are burning with relief.

As though finally relaxing, my bandaged ankle begins to slightly throb.

I want to keep on sitting for an hour or five. “Truth or truth?”

“Truth,” she answers immediately, eyes glinting as she looks back and forth between me and Zwe.

“Who… is your least favorite coworker?” I ask.

“That’s not fair! You’re going to tell on me afterward!”

I hold up my right pinkie. “I won’t, promise.” She opens her mouth, and I quickly remind her, “It has to be the truth, though.”

She works her jaw as she thinks. Finally, hands raised, she answers, “I don’t have one.”

“Lies!” I gasp.

“It’s the truth! I genuinely love everyone I work with. Now, management on the other hand…” She verbally trails off, but her face tells a different story.

“You don’t like the management?” Zwe asks.

Her shrug is weary. “Frankly, I think they’re out of touch about a lot of things.

They come once a year and point out all the things we could be improving on, and all the ways they’re going to make this place bigger .

Meanwhile, they’re not hiring any more staff because surprisingly, it’s very hard to recruit for a role that involves you living on a remote island for the whole year, barring three weeks.

But that just means that it’s up to the staff who are here to go to even more ridiculous lengths to keep the increasing number of guests happy, and it’s not like we get the most easygoing guests either.

No one comes all the way out here and spends this much money to just happily sit on the beach with a cocktail in hand.

No, they want unique, personally tailored experiences for a once-in-a-lifetime trip, but it’s also like, how many once-in-a-lifetime trips can a single team of hotel staff create? ”

Judging by the way she has to sit up to replenish all of that oxygen she just used, I don’t think even she was aware that she was about to go on a rant.

Zwe lets out a half snort, half chuckle. “So that’s a ‘no’ then? To liking management?”

“Ugh, you’re going to make me say it out loud, aren’t you? Fine, I would say ‘no.’ Okay, my turn.” She points at me. “Poe, truth or truth?”

“Truth.”

“What… is your… biggest regret?”

I blink. “What?”

“I know it’s kind of morbid, but if this were an end-of-the-world situation, what would be your biggest regret? Like, the thing that when you think of it, you go, God, I wish I had twenty-four more hours ?”

Even without looking at him, I can sense Zwe’s gaze on me, anticipating my answer.

I know what it would’ve been if she’d asked me just forty-eight hours ago: I only published one book.

But now I pause, picking through the note cards in my mind, each holding an equally plausible answer.

I wish I’d seen more of the world.

I wish I’d gotten matching tattoos with my mom like we’d always joked we would.

I wish I’d made the time to fly to Oxford and meet Soraya’s kid in person.

“I’m not sure,” I muse. “Probably something clichéd and cheesy. Like… I… wish I’d found true love before I died. As you might have pieced together earlier, my last relationship wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of unconditional love, to say the least,” I say.

“Yeah, sorry, that sucks,” Leila says quietly.

I cast a glance at Zwe. Something ticks in his jaw, and he looks like he’s trying to figure out if I’m lying.

“Oh wait, I got it,” I say as one card finds its way to the top of the pile.

“I wish I’d gone on a girls’ trip with my mom.

” My voice turns hoarse, and the back of my eyes begins to sting.

“We didn’t have a lot of money growing up and she didn’t have the time because of her work, and when I did make a lot of money with my writing and my parents retired, I became too busy.

We wanted to go somewhere like Greece, because we both loved Mamma Mia —” I give a wet laugh, remembering how we sang along in the cinema to the utter annoyance of everyone else.

When Meryl Streep sang “Slipping Through My Fingers” to Amanda Seyfried, my mom laced her hand in mine and gave it a tight squeeze, saying, I understand what she means .

“If I could go back, I’d book us two first-class tickets to Santorini, and we’d go island-hopping and eat seafood until we couldn’t look at another piece of calamari. ”

Leila gives me a kind smile. “I’m sure you’ll get to do that once all of this is over.”

“Thanks,” I reply.

There’s a short pause before I realize it’s my turn. “Zwe,” I say, darting the shortest of looks in his direction. “Truth or truth?”

“Truth.”

“Oooh, good choice,” Leila says, rubbing her hands. “Poe, do you have any ideas about—”

“Do you like my book?” Typically, I wouldn’t have asked it outright without any buildup.

But typically, Zwe wouldn’t have said to my face that he hated my book.

Anger and hurt and confusion and Leila’s voice contextualizing If this were an end-of-the-world situation have all swirled together inside me and congealed into a nauseating sensation, one that I can only get rid of by asking a question I am 99 percent certain I don’t want to know the answer to.

When Zwe doesn’t reply instantly, that 1 percent of hopeful, delusional doubt flickers out.

He yanks back in surprise. “What? Of course. You know I do. It’s my favorite book.”

But his answer is stilted, each word pricking me like the tip of a very, very sharp pin.

“No.” My voice cracks on the word. “Not Give Me a Reason . My new one. Do you like it?”

“I… haven’t read a single word of it.”

I have a flashback to university, of me insisting to Zwe that I didn’t want to send him the last chapter I’d written for my work in progress because it was stupid and probably not even that good, him telling me that that was impossible.

Blind faith, which was so very un-Zwe that I knew what a privilege it was.

“But do you like it? Do you think it’s good? Or that it will be a good book?” I ask.

At this, the fold between his brows slowly disappears from view. “What are you doing?”

“Answer the question.”

“I don’t know,” he finally says.

“You don’t know,” I repeat, hot tears distorting my voice.

“I don’t—”

“You can’t lie, Zwe. That’s the rule.”

I can see it happening in slow motion, like when you knock over a glass of water and watch every single preceding second in horror, as certain in your knowledge of what’s going to happen (a smashing of shards that fly everywhere) as in your ability to stop it (nonexistent).

As I watch him sit up, shoulders squaring, lips pulling into a taut line, I realize, this is it. This is when and where and how Zwe Aung Win sucker punches my heart the way only your best friend can.

“No,” he says calmly.

“Have you liked any of the drafts I’ve shown you?”

“No,” he repeats without any prompting this time.

“You think I’m a bad writer,” I say, unsure whether my response to this is fight or flight. “You think I’ll only ever write one good book.”

“Honestly? At this rate? Maybe,” he scoffs, running a frustrated hand down his face. Each word is a fresh blow to my chest.

“I thought you were my friend!” My voice has raised several octaves, but I can’t give a single fuck about anyone hearing me.

“You know what your problem is?” he snaps.

“You’re so obsessed with writing a book that your agent and editors and reviewers and readers will love that you’ve given up on writing a book you’ll love.

No, I don’t think your book with a time-traveling manhole will be good.

Frankly, it makes no sense and sounds boring, and you sound bored when you talk about it.

You know why your first book was as fucking good as it was?

Because you didn’t give a shit if anyone hated it.

All that mattered was that you loved it.

“And now, now you’re too busy making up imaginary competitions with authors you’ve never even met!

You don’t make time for your parents or Soraya or me or anybody that’s not you.

Hell, even right now, you’re thinking about your book, as though there’s nothing else that could be more important.

And sorry to break it to you, but your problems aren’t that important in the grand scheme of things.

Poor you, with only one internationally bestselling book.

It would sound like a joke if that wasn’t exactly the sob story you’ve been spinning.

I don’t recognize you at all anymore. You make having to go back to working at the bookstore sound like hell on earth, when newsflash, that’s what I do!

I have tried to be understanding and patient, but it’s clear now that I’m waiting around for a version of you that’s long gone. ”

Reset, I scream in my head. Reset, reset, reset .

But we can’t.

The glass has shattered.