I was laying on my stomach in my bathing suit. I was looking out into the Gulf of Mexico, and at my new ex-boyfriend. We broke up that morning. I called into work and balled my eyes out. I told them that my dad was in a horrible car accident and that I had to quit and move back to Michigan.

He was walking around in the water. I knew he was thinking about things. I cried into my arms.

I met him out in the water and we sat in a shallow area and talked for a long time about everything. We  put each of our right foots in each others crotch area and would take turns pushing off, only to grab the same foot with our hands as soon as we got too far away. I felt like I was in a movie. I took a photograph in my mind of my surroundings so I could remember how unearthly I felt.

We took a 2 hour drive to a city outside of Tampa and picked up some record covers, and on the way home, the library called and said that they were going to hire me, out of 60 applicants. I gasped for breath as I  tried to act like I wasn’t crying as I told them that I was moving. I bet the person that got the job thought they were the first to be picked.

We told each other that we were going to spend tons of time together over the next week before I left. Most of the time was spent taking advantage of my surroundings. I layed in the sun way past the point of getting a healthy tan. I swam in the pool with all the old folks and didn’t care if I was the only person under the age of 60 there.

For some reason we didn’t tell most of our friends. I wanted it to seem like a normal night, and not the last night that I’d be hanging out with them as a resident of the city. I sat on the seat of a bike and a girl I had gotten to know during my duration in that city clenched onto the handlebars and pushed on the pedals as we rode around downtown and back. I tried to lift Him up on my back outside of some restaurant but ended up having him fall over my shoulders and scuffed up my knees. In Michigan it was rainy and the snow was melting.

The day before I left we got a rental car. I wasn’t 25, so the car was in his name. I just couldn’t get into an accident. On the way home, as I drove the rental back to my future former living space, I cried again. I think by this time my eyes were used to routine.

I left early the next morning and called my former boss in Michigan and asked for my job back. I experienced a 3 hour stand still traffic jam in Georgia and made it all the way to Tennessee before I stopped to sleep.

The next day I got into a car accident. The man I crashed into summed up his life into a 2 hour story on the shoulder of the interstate leading into Memphis. He was desperately in love with a Thai woman, but living on different sides of the earth was proving to be difficult. After everything was said and done with cleaning up the paperwork for the accident, he seemed to have gotten a lot off his chest. I was sincerely interested in his story, but the thoughts of having to pay for the car damages took over my brain.

Every state I drove through I made sure to steal a magnet in the shape of that state. I didn’t cheat and take one’s of states that I know I’d never visit, like Alaska or Hawaii. I listened to Willy Nelson’s biography on CD, but found it hard to make it through because it was being narrarated by his best friend and it was hitting too close to home.

When I pulled into the Grand Rapids Airport to drop off the broken rental car, they didn’t give my paperwork a second glance.  I don’t remember saying much on the way back to my parents house. I didn’t want to talk. I felt like I had failed at something, but not really knowing what it was. At least I had my old job back.