He tells me he has a band, they're traveling and he's vacationing. I tell him I have blisters on my feet.

We've been halfway across the country in his dad's station wagon, taking little pieces of the land and leaving little pieces of ourselves. I like him best when the sun is setting and he's spread out on the hood of the car like it could be anybody's fault when we both know it's mine. When we both know I killed him.

Our limbs always seem to find a way to tangle, to dance around each other until they're trapped together. But it's so detached, the way our legs twine like braided string and our arms divorce from our sides to marry between our chests. And we are, we are exactly like the way our bodies move. We represent ourselves perfectly and we don’t talk about it.

I tell him we're a rip current. He tells me to stop.

We've been halfway across our lives in this journey, indiscreetly stealing little pieces of each other with no intention of returning them. He likes me best in the backseat, quiet and composed like it could be anybody's fault when we both know it's his. When he knows what we've done and I know why.

He keeps a pocket thesaurus in the glove compartment along with used and creased napkins and no user's manual. When his pointed features touch mine and I think they're going to cut me open, dissect me and pull me apart until there's nothing left, I ask him where the matching dictionary got to. He answers by saying the first word for inappropriate is indecorous.

He tells me now that he's an adult, he can do whatever he wants. I tell him now that we're adults, we can do whatever we want within the confines of our morale rules.

We've been back and forth in this argument for the whole ride, not listening to the opposite side and believing what we want for our own safety. We come to a mutual agreement on the way we like each other the best-when our eyes are closed or when we're facing the other way.

We're fragile, he says, and that's why we do this. We're learning, I don't tell him, and that's only because I want to pretend I have something to believe in when our feet kiss the sidewalk time after time and he kisses me every once in awhile.

I tell him I almost drowned once. He tells me he could save me if only I'd let him.

The only time I'm aware of breathing anymore is when I'm walking away. Other times, his inhale becomes my exhale and vice versa until we're breathing in, out, in faster than out, more synchronized than we've ever known anything to be.

But I'm hardly ever walking away. He doesn't really give me that option, but to be fair, I don't give him that option either because we are, we are stuck together and we know this and we don't understand it, but we live with it to the best of our ability.

He tells me the season is almost over and he should be heading home soon. I tell him the funniest name for a month has to be May.

We've doubled back like cowards in his dad's station wagon, rediscovering the pieces of ourselves we left weeks ago and leaving them-we don't need us anymore. We've progressed, we're progressing, we're falling behind but still moving ahead and he says he wants to be a poet, a firefighter, a lawyer, a policeman.

He asks what I want to be. I say I want to be the bane of his existence. Like it's supposed to be something intimate, like it's supposed to be something important, he whispers in my ear, he says he can't really pay me to be that, but I'm well on my way. And I pretend we haven't said anything at all.

I tell him he's a four minute song about inscrutability. He tells me I haven't been listening long enough.

We're in this stupid car for the last time, I know, and we're tangled for the last time, I know, and we're talking for the last time, I know, but there is no air of regret, no anxiety for the future, because we are, we are.

There's a shooting star but he doesn't suggest I wish on it because he knows I won't. I know he will because he is futile and I am real. That's the difference between him and me, he says. That's the difference that will kill us both, I say. And for the first time in this entire trip, I see the hint of a real smile on his lips.

He tells me to call him Kevin. I tell him not to bother calling me when he gets home.