“Honey man,” I said. “That’s sweet.”

He was blushing as I got out of the car. Inside, I put the In-N-Out napkin next to the toaster, so that Alec would find it.

The next day, I dropped Alec on campus and took his car to Point Reyes. The drive was all metal and tension. Aside from the traffic, the road kept curving and expanding and turning into bridges. In Kansas, you could close your eyes and take your hands off the wheel. Count to fifteen Mississippi.

I found a trailhead and walked a handful of miles until the Pacific appeared on my left. Holy shit, I thought, that doesn’t end until Japan. There was blue water and wheat-colored sand and cliffs taller than the tallest building in Wichita. Land, I now saw, was like pie. Who would settle for just the middle when the crust was the whole point? I felt bad for Kansas, that everything in it was the same: land, land, land. The occasional mosquito-infested watering hole. And then me, my family, all my history, and everyone I’d ever loved. If there was a map that glowed in the places where I’d loved and been loved, it would burn bright in the center, surrounded by darkness. Perhaps a lazy squiggle would mark the route Alec and I took on 1-70. Perhaps not.

I scrambled down the trail to a waterfall. This close to the water, I felt the first inkling of claustrophobia. It occurred to me that the openness of the sea was a lie: the ocean was not space, it was the opposite of space! It was a wall, a cage, a no-man’s-land promising imminent death.

Nearby, a group of people had congregated around a beached seal. It took me a while to realize that something was wrong with it. It was craning its neck in a sickly way, as if trying to break itself in half. Without warning, it began to convulse. White foam streamed from its mouth as quickly and voluptuously as soft serve. It was going to die, and these people were going to watch it.

“It’s having an orgasm!” a young man yelled.

Around him, the women squealed in joyful disgust. One raised her phone to take a picture.

Leave it alone! I wanted to shout, but had the ridiculous suspicion they would turn to me and know I was from Kansas. You’re not even from here, someone, probably the kid wearing the pink bandana, would say. This is just how we do things. It’s ocean stuff. You wouldn’t understand.

Later that night, Alec laughed when I told him the story. We’d just made love and were in bed, face to face. He’d been sweet that evening, making lasagna for dinner and then massaging my feet, which were sore from the hike. After dessert, we unpacked a box of candles and lit them in the bedroom. It smelled like our apartment in Lawrence: vanilla and mint. In many ways, it was the best night we’d had in the house yet.