Fluke

35: Life and Other Disasters

With Jia on antibiotics, Logan on his own for his seal watches for a while, and me on way more caffeine than could possibly be healthy, l planned out my next whale trip. I had identified thirty-three out of my goal of fifty for the summer, and I still had plenty of time to find more. The only problem was that it was a lot easier said than done tracking them down.

I looked through all the friends that I had made throughout the summer, and out of all thirty-three, Luna, the sick one with a crescent on her fluke, was still my favorite. Of course, it was a bit ridiculous to be so in love with her, but there was something about her gentle aura that drew me in, even if I had only known her for an hour at the most.

Brett and Jia sat in the living room on the couch across the coffee table from me, and they whispered and giggled about something, trying to keep quiet so I could concentrate. It was awfully kind of them, but there wasn't much to focus on.

I looked up at them. "Do either of you want to come with me on my whale trip tomorrow?"

"I thought Logan usually—wait, never mind. Are you two still fighting?" Brett asked.

I shook my head. "Nope. We're just not talking to each other, which is way better. So are you guys up for it?"

"I don't know, Reagan. These antibiotics are kinda throwing off my microbiome, and whatever bacteria regulated my excretion processes have been killed off, so I'm sure you can imagine how that's going," Jia said. "Dammit, now that I thought about it, I have to take a shit again."

I rose my eyebrows. "You should probably take care of that, then."

Jia stood up. "Yeah, probably."

I looked at Brett, and he smiled and shook his head.

"Charming," he said, and I laughed.

She certainly was.

"So would you want to go with me? It's pretty cool, and I think we would have a lot of fun together," I said.

"But what about lunch? I can't just leave you helpless sciencers to fend for yourselves," Brett said. "Actually, yeah I can. I'm a dick, so," he trailed off and laughed. "No, I'm not. Don't tempt me, Reagan."

I smiled. "Sorry, sorry. I just thought you deserved a second away."

"You know what?" he asked himself aloud. "I do deserve it. I'll go with you."

That would make me feel a little less lonely, and I'd be a lot less likely to tell all my problems to Robbie and Nastasya. They didn't need to hear about all of that, especially since I got the opportunity to talk to my dad. Maybe it wasn't a heart-to-heart conversation, but it felt like a beginning to a reconnection.

Was it weird that I felt proud of myself?

"Awesome. We'll leave right after breakfast tomorrow," I said.

I continued scrolling through the whale database, and once again, my eyes fell on Luna. I needed to know how she was doing, but in the open ocean, the odds were slim that I'd ever get the opportunity to see her again. Maybe it was for the best, though. I had proven once again that maintaining good relationships wasn't my forte.

But that didn't mean that I couldn't sit there and imagine what could have been if I only had been a whale.

***

Onboard of the Millennium Osprey, Brett, Nastasya, Robbie, and I didn't really say much at the beginning of the trip. I didn't mind, though, because there wasn't anything that I wanted to say, and the hum of the engine kept it from being completely silent.