Page 61 of That Last Summer

“Yeah, nothing. I don’t buy it.”

Right. Well, he asked. No filter, they say? Fine. If he wants to know, I’ll let him know. I’ve never been one to shut up.

“Jaime thinks we should have sex. Put the finishing touch on our relationship.”

Alex spits out his beer.

“He what?”

“You heard me. I’m not repeating it.”

“And what makes you think I would accept?”

“What makes you think I would?”

“We were good in bed.”

I receive the comment like a wrecking ball. Because it hurts, it hurts so much. I guess that’s what our relationship came down to for him, everything reduced to good in bed.

All my memories, all our stories, our adventures, our dates, our conversations, all of that has boiled down to we were good in bed. I’d never say something like that; it was much more for me. Not for him, it seems. I guess I was just another girl he was sleeping with. And I don’t understand how these things can still hurt me after all these years. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea that I wasn’t the only one for Alex. That he didn’t love me to the moon and back like I thought he did.

I don’t understand why he married me either. Just because we were good in bed? Is that why?

I don’t want to keep going with this. I can’t. I’ll leave for Boston soon and I can’t spend my time here arguing with Alex. We’ve fought more in these few days than in our entire life together and it’s hurting me more than I thought possible.

I don’t even bother to answer him; I turn around and leave. The night is over for me. I’m not that far from home, the beach bar is right at the beginning of the beach and there are exactly fifty-six streetlights from here to my parents’ house. Yes, I’ve counted them; no, fifty-six is not too many. I decide to walk.

“Priscila,” Alex calls after me, weariness obvious in his voice. Or maybe it’s plain boredom. What difference does it make? I just want to be left alone.

Ignoring him—he’ll give up soon enough—I take a quick look around, searching for Jaime. But I can’t find him, he’s missing in action. I look for my brothers then, but I’m only able to make out River and Catalina—down by the shore, dancing close to each other, even though the music doesn’t invite them to do so—and Marcos and Alicia who are each chatting with a different group.

“Hey. Hey!” Alex’s calls still follow me. I ignore him and pray to the sky and the stars that he stop insisting. I don’t want to fight with him anymore. I don’t want anything with him. I’m leaving in eleven and a half weeks and that’s the only thing that matters. Okay, now it really is like that Kim Basinger movie, right?

I shake my head, brushing off that thought, and with my chin up and my gaze fixed on the almost-dark road, I walk on in the weak light from the streetlamps.

But Alex keeps calling me in that impersonal way. “Hey you! Hey!”

I hear his footsteps, closer now. I know it’s him. And then he grabs my arm and forces me to turn.

“I’m calling you,” he recriminates me. “Didn’t you hear me?”

He looks a bit tipsy. So am I. But I think we’re both choosing to appear drunker than we actually are.

“Sorry,” I apologize with the fakest of smiles, “I thought you were calling a dog.”

“A dog, huh?” he huffs. “You’re so funny.”

“I have a name, you know. It’s Priscila.”

“Priscila? As in Queen of the Desert?”

Okay, I handed it to him on a silver platter. And I’m about to retort—every single time I hear him calling me that, Queen of the Desert, it’s like Mr. Hyde is struggling to get out of my body—but I just promised myself I wouldn’t fight with him anymore. I free myself from his grasp and begin climbing the slope that will take me home.

“Hey! Queen of the Desert!”

Alex is smiling. I can hear it in his voice, though I can’t see his face. Jerk. Without turning, I raise my left hand and flip him the bird.

“Good night, Alex.”