Page 88 of An Introvert's Guide to Life and Love
“Are you serious?” I ask. There’s no way this could work.
“Trust me. I carry stuff like this all the time.”
Well, no point in arguing.I finagle the mirror into the bungee cords, he makes sure they’re tight enough, and then we kick off. He rides a little more slowly and carefully, but with a surprising amount of confidence for a man wearing a mirror as a backpack.
As we ride back in the rosy dusk, I can’t help the grin that takes over my entire face.
Chapter 29
Apparently, all I have to do to have a magical time at the beach is announce my intention to leave. Saturday morning, I park my bike—my bike!—in the shady parking lot of a public park. I’m meeting up with Amanda and a group of her friends to kayak through the mangroves. I’ve never been kayaking before, but Amanda didn’t seem worried about that. She’d invited me last night when I stopped by her bar for a drink after a few hours of painting. I told her about how I’m living a bucket list of sorts in the less than two weeks I have left, and she invited me to join her and her friends without hesitation. I didn’t even consider the physical exertion required when I accepted, I was so excited to be included.
It’s eight thirty on a weekend, but there are quite a few people milling around the park, walking or schlepping paddleboards over to the dock. I take it in my stride when strangers call out hearty good mornings to me.
A mini van pulls up and Amanda waves to me from the passenger seat. She and a guy she introduces as her brother, Francis, jump out and unload two kayaks. One of them is a double. As we deposit them in the shallow water by the dock, we’re joined by her other friends, three girls and one guy. It’s a lot of kayaks. After a round of introductions, we’re off.
Amanda instructed me to join her in the double. I didn’t argue.I’m seated in the front, Amanda behind me, and we glide easily through the clear green-blue water of the bay. I have a feeling it wouldn’t be quite so easy if I were trying to paddle myself.
After a few minutes, we find ourselves in a tunnel of mangrove trees.
“Wow,” I breathe. It’s so otherworldly, I’m speechless. Tree roots rise out of the water, crisscrossing in midair. Above us, the tree branches form a leafy green canopy. It smells incredible—mossy and verdant and alive.
I turn around to shout at Amanda, “This is so cool!”
She grins. “I couldn’t let you leave without experiencing this.”
“You guys do this a lot?”
“At least once every month or two.” Amanda’s arms look intimidatingly strong as she dips the oar back and forth.
“Come on, slowpokes!” Her brother, Francis, cruises past us. I face forward again and add my paddle to the water.
We skim through the glowing mangrove tunnels in near silence, the only sounds our oars sloshing through the water and the calls of birds, frogs, and some chittering creature I can’t name. A sense of peace settles over me, so profound I don’t know if I’ve ever felt anything like it. I think I came close to it after that first day of ripping out carpeting—but that was a sense of calm caused by physical exertion. This is more like a calm bestowed on me by the environment itself. I can’t stop grinning, and I already know I’m going to go overboard with how many times I thank Amanda for inviting me.
We turn back into open water for a while, the sun beating down on us, before turning into another thicket of mangroves.
“Alligator,” one of the girls calls matter-of-factly.
“What? Where?” I shriek and clutch my paddle to my chest.
Amanda points it out: There’s not just one but two alligators lounging among the tree roots.
“They’re just chilling,” Amanda says.
“Chilling to save up the energy required to eat us?”
“Don’t worry, they only eat people stupid enough to swim in these parts,” Francis calls back. This must be an inside joke, because everyone erupts in laughter.
“What?” I ask.
“It was me,” Amanda says. “I swam here one time. It was really hot. And I didn’t see the gators.”
“Until it was too late,” Francis says in a menacing voice.
“Oh my God, what?”
Amanda shakes her head at her brother. “Quiet, fool! He’s just messing around. I mean, yeah, I didn’t see the gators until after I’d jumped in. But they didn’t actually try to eat me. I got right back in my boat.”
“That is… terrifying.”
