Fluke

Bonus 6: How Far We'll Go

If there was just one thing I could have changed about the fact that I uprooted my life to chase a passion that swam around in the ocean, it was that the entire day was shifted an hour earlier than what I had gotten used to for eighteen years in West Virginia.

"How am I supposed to get anything done after work?" I asked out loud to myself. "I mean, look. It's four thirty and it looks like midnight."

And it wasn't an exaggeration in the slightest. With plenty of cloud cover, there were no stars or moon in the sky to give us just a little bit of light.

"You were up by five though. Aren't you tired?" Logan said.

I shook my head.

"Oh my god, Rea. I don't know how you have this much energy. It's fucking ridiculous."

The problem was that the darkness was sapping the energy right out of me, and if I wanted to make it long enough until I could accomplish something with my day, I was going to need a little help.

When I walked over to the coffee pot, Logan let out a long, dramatic sigh. "What do you need to do so desperately that you're willing to sacrifice your sleep now?" Before I could answer that, he continued. "It would be one thing if you only did this occasionally, but dammit, I just want to sleep with you, and you can't sleep when you drink coffee this late."

"It's only four thirty," I said, but with no light coming through the window, it seemed like a pitiful lie on my part. I took in a breath. "I just don't like letting days go by without doing something with them. I could drop dead at any moment, and would I feel like I accomplished something with my life if it happened today?"

I thought about my life. I spent my time chasing whales around the ocean, and when it wasn't field season, I studied data to make sure they were healthy. I was married to my best friend. I had friends—human friends—when I never thought that was possible for someone who kept to herself like I did.

It was crazy how I turned one trip to the ocean into my entire life.

But today? All I had really done to help someone out was buy a latte and a bagel from a small business. That wasn't much at all.

"Today I would feel like a failure if I died," I said.

Logan didn't respond to that right away. Instead, he sat down and put his head in his hands.

Shit. There was nothing worse than accidentally hurting him. Again.

"I'm sorry. I'm not trying to make you upset, but—" I began, but Logan interrupted me.

"I'm not upset. I'm just trying to think of a way that we can salvage today."

"It's okay. If you want to relax tonight, we can do that." I forced a little laugh. "I probably need it honestly."

Once again, he stayed quiet for a moment longer than I expected, and just when I was about to tell him that I really meant it, he spoke. "Can it be a little bit productive, but definitely more fun than anything?"

I was thinking I was going to end up deep cleaning the bathroom, but something barely productive was an intriguing option.

"That's pretty much my favorite way to spend an evening," I said.

"Not to say that you're not the most gorgeous person to ever exist, but I'm gonna need you to get a little dolled up for this," Logan said. "Because you are the hottest person on the planet."

I looked down at my sweatpants that I immediately changed into after work. In the back of my mind, I could hear Darrell crying about them and how unprofessional they were. But on the bright side, he would also say the nice sweater I had in mind was unprofessionally provocative or something. I shook my head. I really thought I had life figured out at twenty-one, but resisting the overwhelming urge to care what people thought about me was an important lesson young Rea had to learn the hard way.