Page 89 of Here We Go Again

“It has to be shitty,” Logan tells her. “It’s a first draft. Isn’t that the rule of first drafts?”

She hadn’t thought of these words as a first draft. “I guess.”

Logan plays with the drawstring on her basketball shorts. “Sometimes, I think I’m still a shitty first draft.”

Logan asks probing questions about the story, gives a few suggestions about the beginning, and it feels like they’re girls again, passing a single sheet of paper between them to create new worlds.

“I think I might be a shitty first draft too,” Rosemary confesses as they’re falling asleep.

Logan scoots closer to her in bed. “I think you’ve been rewriting yourself bit by bit this entire trip.”

Rosemary doesn’t know what day it is, but Logan has made mint juleps, and Remy’s built a fire in the pit out back, and they’re all staring up at the stars while being devoured by mosquitos. In the south, the mosquitos are the size of birds, and the birds are the size of Cadillacs, and somehow, Rosemary doesn’t even care.

“If we’d stayed together…” Joe wonders aloud. “If I hadn’t left, and we’d stayed together long enough for marriage equality to pass, do you think we would’ve gotten married?”

“Absolutely,” Remy answers. No hesitation at all.

“Hmm…” Joe keeps staring at the stars. “I thought so.”

Rosemary’s nonalcoholic julip sweats in her hands.

“What about you two?” Remy points a finger at Logan, then Rosemary.

“Marriage seems a tad premature,” Logan answers coolly, but her hand is in Rosemary’s, and they’re both looking up at the stars.

In the middle of the night, someone shakes her awake. “Rosemary! Come on, get up! We’ve got to go!”

She bolts upright. “Joe. Is Joe okay?”

“Joe is fine,” Logan hisses excitedly. “Come on.”

Logan clicks on a lamp, and Rosemary blinks as her eyes adjust, slowly registering that Logan is fully dressed. “Where are we going…?”

“You’ll see. Follow me.”

Logan’s vibrating on her restless frequency, her limbs jangling with wild recklessness. There are limitless possibilities when Logan is in this mood, and Rosemary is pretty sure she’d follow her anywhere. She gets out of bed and gets dressed.

They sneak out of the house and drive the Gay Mobile to a quiet, completely empty beach. “What are we doing?” Rosemary tries again as they fumble their way across the sand toward the dark ocean.

Logan kicks off her shoes. “I want to go skinny-dipping!”

“Seriously?”

“Yes!” She tugs off her T-shirt and her bra, and Logan’s breasts look pearlescent in the moonlight. Rosemary needs to see every inch of her—every acre of her exposed skin. “Remember? When we talked about going to Europe together after college? We always said we’d skinny-dip in the Mediterranean!”

“This is the Gulf of Mexico,” Rosemary points out. But she remembers the bathtub, and trusting Logan, and feeling safe. She starts to strip, too. Soon they’re both completely naked under a big sky, and there are acres and acres and acres of Logan. How could Rosemary ever see anyone else when Logan Maletis takes up so much space in her field of vision?

The warm air is thick against her bare skin, and Logan reaches for her hand. Leads her into the Gulf. The ground is pure silt, and Rosemary feels the world slip out under her feet with every step. They wade out up to their shoulders, tread water, facing each other. Logan’s face is ethereal. She takes up so much space inside Rosemary, there’s no room for all these feelings. She has to send some of them outside her body.

“I like who I am with you,” she blurts.

Logan treads water in front of her. “What do you mean?”

Shit, what does she mean? She came on this trip with no intention of changing orrelaxing, yet here she is, bathed in moonlight with a woman who kisses her like she cares. “I mean… if I’ve beenrewriting myself on this trip, it’s because of you. Like this! We’re skinny-dipping right now! I never thought I was capable of skinny-dipping!”

Logan laughs. “I always knew you were capable of it. But also… I’m sorry if I made you feel like you need to change.”

They both quietly tread water, arms circling around their bodies, forcing a distance between them. “But I’m rigid and uptight and controlling,” she says, emboldened by the safe distance between them.