One more week of meds. I can make that last longer. Skip two days, three on the third, two, the correct dose, on the next, half dose for the next nine days, another missed day, and that should leave enough to get another course. Should. Assuming nothing happens, and of course something always happens.
She wandered back to where she left her old motorbike, tucking the orange bottle into one of her pockets before zipping off. Usually She’d wait out the cold days in the shop, but apparently the Department of Labor was looking a bit too closely, so it would be a few days of regularly scheduled shifts.
Her earbuds were close to breaking, the tiny speakers crackled on the high notes, but it was more noise to down things out. She wove in and out of traffic, which was wildly unsafe, but technically legal. A few people slowly rolling along in traffic flipped her off, but it wasn’t like they could do much. She took a quick right turn towards the beach, kicking dust into the sky behind her. She tucked the beat-up old red bike into a juniper bramble before wandering out towards the water.
Her sneakers were knotted together over her shoulder, cuffs of her coveralls rolled up her calves, and the sleeves knotted around her waist, leaving most of her skin in the sun, except for a ratty tank top. Curls of fading tattoo ink poked out, outlining a snake’s fangs on her right bicep, curling roses on her left shoulder, and a geometric pattern just barely poking from under her collarbones. Her knuckles were scattered with pen-ink stick and pokes, little stars, hearts, a tree, a wheel. Most were really just splotches of purplish ink.
The sea foam curled up her legs and she paused. For such a quiet beach, everything seemed too loud. The distant roar of the highway, the beating sun, the cold crashing waves, the scratchy seams on the inside of her coveralls, that bit of hair that was just the wrong length. It was getting time to cut it or find a bandanna to wear until it grew back out.
She stepped back out of the water and unsnapped her coveralls, throwing them and her shoes back onto the juniper brambles. Men’s boxers and a tank top was not even close to indecent, anyways, it’s San Andreas, you could wear a lot less and no one would notice. Several thin lines spiraled around her right thigh, and the rest of a pattern on her left calf finished as scrolling waves above the knee.
Eventually it was the ocean itself curling around her legs as she waded out into the surf. It was cold. Something about the Pacific was always cold, no matter what time of year. It’s a familiar cold though, like bathwater that had been sitting for just a bit too long, but the sun made it feel just fine. The waves were low today, so it wasn’t so hard to walk in the surf. The sand under her feet was rocky, but it was a pleasant sharpness to pull her mind out of the haze around the heat and the cool. The highway still roared away. It’s warm for December. Maybe not here, but there was some part of her that missed the familiar weight of winter coats and knitwear. She wasn’t even sure where her winter coat was, but all at once it was the only thing she could think about.
Gray felt, blue lining, red buttons, just long enough to make it nice and warm. Missing button on the left cuff. The hem was unraveling. Once I wore it to look at Christmas lights when we lived in Germany, and I got so cold that my fingers turned white…
She hadn’t noticed she had wandered out just a bit too far. She started walking back, almost knocked over by the waves as they picked up. Eventually she made it back to shore, her hair curling in the saltwater and her clothes mostly soaked. It would be a while before she could head back home.
