Page 38 of Here for a Good Time

“You’re my best friend,” I say. As fucked up as all of this is, I suppose it’s a privilege to know in advance if you’re going to die, because at least then you can say your piece, every single thing you were ever afraid to say.

Or almost every single thing. “I love you, and you’re my best friend, and I don’t want us to die with a weird argument hanging over our heads.

I know I’ve been a terrible friend these past few months, and I know I don’t deserve—”

“Stop.” I sniffle, but do stop. “We’re going to get the hell out of this place, because, if nothing else, I refuse to accept that this is how it all ends, with you dying in a shirt that says BIG DICK ENERGY LEADS TO BIG DICK INJURY .”

I let out a loud, snotty, disgusting laugh at that, and now I don’t know if I’m crying out of fear, or because I can’t stop thinking about how lucky I am to have him as my best friend.

“I love you,” I repeat, feeling the words more acutely than I ever have any time I’ve said them.

“You know I love you, too,” he says. “We’re going to be okay. Here, and after.”

“How?” I ask.

“Because we just happen to have the most creative, perceptive, astounding writer of our generation in the room with us.”

It’s cheesy to the point of clichéd, but it still elicits an equally cheesy grin out of me.

“Thank you. But I don’t think my job as a person who professionally makes up tough scenarios with incredibly raised stakes that imaginary people have to get out of by dealing with both internal and external obstacles is going to be quite the thing that gets us out of this predicament.

Again, truly appreciate your unwavering support.

But if this whole time you’re a secret spy or trained assassin, or I dunno, have been taking bodyguard lessons, now would be a great time to reveal that. ”

“Sorry, I was shortlisted for the ‘trained assassin’ role but in the end they decided to go with someone else.”

“Darn tootin’,” I say with a huff. We stare at each other for a beat before bursting into laughter. “I see we are absolutely not using humor as a coping mechanism when stressed. Our therapists will be glad to hear that.”

“Darn tootin’ right they will,” Zwe replies.

I aim to look affronted, but my laugh betrays me.

“I meant what I said. I know I dismissed it when you said it earlier, and I will forever be so unbelievably sorry for that—” He pauses, and I give him a short nod to acknowledge both that he should be sorry and that I appreciate his apology.

“But you were close to figuring all of this out, and it was because you sat down and plotted. Do that again. Plot.”

“You make it sound so important,” I laugh. “Anyone could’ve done it.”

“ I couldn’t do it,” he says softly. “And you’re selling yourself short by saying that anyone could.”

Hundreds of past moments like this one flash through my mind.

Moments where not a single person in the world, including myself, still believed in this author “thing”—except for Zwe.

Zwe, who replenished my steady stream of teas, texted me YouTube links to stretches and wrist exercises for writers, who left a proper laptop stand with a giant red bow tied to it on the dining table one morning with a note that said Now can we please put our board game stack back in its rightful place?

Except, it’s different this time. Because this time, I still remember how he’d agreed with Leila when she dismissed me before. There’s a gnawing voice in my head that keeps whispering, You’re a bad writer and he thinks so, too.

“This feels stupid,” I say, not admitting the rest of it. “This is such a stupid way to try to get out of a mess. This is real life, it’s not a novel. In spite of my current feelings toward her, Leila was right when she said that I can’t treat this like a novel.”

Zwe’s face crumbles at that. “Ignore anything Leila said. Hell, ignore anything I said! You were the only one who knew something was up. Please, just try it again? For me?”

He knows I would do anything for him.

I’m not the most intricate of plotters, but whenever I’ve gotten stuck in the middle of a draft, I step back, look at the bigger picture outside of that specific scene or chapter, and see if there was something in the past that can be brought back up to propel the story forward.

Because that’s the key of any story: always moving forward.

“I don’t think we’re going to figure out why they came here, so let’s focus on how . They arrived to this resort somehow,” I say. “They didn’t fly or swim here.”

“What if they were already at the village? Before we got here?” Zwe asks.

I shake my head. “Maybe, but even then, I doubt their plan is to stick around after they do whatever it is they’re planning on doing. They destroyed all of the resort boats by shooting at them, but they’d never strand themselves. Which means—”

When I meet Zwe’s eyes, I can tell that he’s caught up. “They have a boat somewhere.”

“Somewhere far enough away from the resort that there are no cameras. Maybe on the other side, so even patrolling security wouldn’t see them. Or Leila gave them the patrol schedules and routes so they could arrive undetected.”

“So we get to the boat,” he says. “We get out of these ropes, get to the boat, and go get help.”

I scoff. “You make it sound so easy.”

“I know it’s not easy, but also…” He hesitates, and the tightness in my throat returns.

“What?” I prompt.

“It… is. It’s always easy with you, Poe.”

Oh. “If this is about earlier…” My voice is a dim rasp. “Let’s save it for later.”

To my surprise, Zwe shakes his head. “You know what? No. I’ve been thinking about it and… and I’m done saving things for later. You were… right,” he says, laughing on the last word. “You know what one of my favorite things about you is?”

“What?”

“You have these huge dreams, and I know everyone does, but unlike most people, you actually go for your dreams. You achieve one thing, and then you get a glimpse of something else around the corner and you decide you want it, and you work hard at it until you have it. I am a coward. I do stick to what I know because I’m scared of what comes next if I do something new. ”

New goose bumps rake down my skin as my words from before come back to slap me in the face. “I didn’t mean any—”

“I love you.”

A weird chuckle-esque sound escapes me. I’d been bracing for something scathing. “I… love you too?”

He drops his head back, letting out a groan at the ceiling. “No, stupid, I love you.”

And when he looks at me again, I feel the core memory form deep in my bones, like your first kiss or the first time you ride a bike with no training wheels. Just as scary, just as thrilling. That sensation of I want to remember this for the rest of my life.

“I love you so much it scares me. Julia and I didn’t break up because I didn’t want to move in with her.

We broke up because I didn’t want to move out of our home,” he says, looking like he doesn’t know whether to cry or laugh.

“I’ve spent so much time pretending I didn’t feel any of this, but when she asked me, even though it was the next logical step in our relationship…

I couldn’t do it. Which made no sense to me because as you just said, I am naturally a logical person.

It wasn’t that I thought you wouldn’t be able to survive living on your own, Poe.

It was, and brace yourself for the corniness, that I knew I wouldn’t be able to without you. ”

“Wh—” I don’t know if I want to ask what or why .

What are you saying?

Why are you saying this right now?

Why didn’t you tell me before?

What next?

I’m breathing hard but it’s not enough. “You never told me,” I finally say.

His mouth slacks. “I didn’t know how.”

“But y-you were talking to Julia again,” I sputter, tripping over my metaphorical two feet. “And you were flirting with Leila.”

“Because I knew I needed to move on.” He laughs like it’s an obvious joke.

“I almost told you so many times, but there was college, and then there was Vik, and also Julia, and then you got engaged, and then your engagement was called off, and then you had all those book rejections, and then you sold a book, the book even, and then I had a breakup, but then you were in the middle of this great, amazing book whirlwind and in the middle of a movie deal, and then you started working on your second book and were trying to get through this writer’s block, and it was just… never the right time.”

“We live together!” I don’t expect my voice to be ragged as it is. “You could’ve told me any time. Over coffee, while doing the dishes, while folding the laundry. I spend more hours in a day with you than with anybody else!”

“But I also didn’t want to be that guy! Because I hate that guy!”

“What guy?!”

The way his shoulders jerk, I can tell he forgot where we were and was going to spread his arms. “That guy who sticks around pining for the girl, hoping that one day she’ll wake up and realize she’s been in love with her best friend this whole time, too, and then they’ll have a big romantic moment in the rain and that’ll be it.

“But every morning, I wake up and walk into the kitchen and that girl is sitting at the table, brows furrowed, fingers clacking away on her keyboard as she writes the literary world’s next big thing, and I have to stop and take a breather.

I see you, and I think, Good god, how lucky am I that I get to be in your life?

I’ve watched all of these people fall in love with your words and that ridiculous, perceptive brain of yours, and in my head, I’m the snob that’s going, Well actually, I was a fan before she became ‘cool.’ ” I snort, and he smiles, and my heart flutters.

“And it’s so stupid and clichéd in the movies, because you think, Grow up, dude, stop making excuses and just fucking tell her .

But I get it now, that reasoning of I would rather have you as a friend for the rest of my life than try to enter new territory and risk losing you forever .

Before, I was angry when you accused me of taking Leila’s side, because how could you ever, ever think that I’d take anyone else’s side over yours?

All I was trying to do was keep you safe.

If it came to it, I would give myself up to keep you safe, you have to know that.

” After a long silence, he says, “Please say something.”

I reenter my body, feeling for the first time the wet trails cutting down my cheeks. Someone’s flipped the earth on its axis and rearranged every frame of reference I’ve ever held—and I’m meant to make sense of this new worldview while tied to a chair in an empty hotel room.

“What are you thinking?” Zwe prompts gently.

“I—” My head is spinning, and that near-passing-out sensation returns. “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “This wasn’t—”

The lock makes a familiar click, and the door swings open. Leila slides the key card in her back pocket, a saccharine smile plastered on her face. “Hi, friends,” she says, taking long strides toward us. “How are we feeling? Still in the mood for a little adventure?”