When he smacks his lips proud of his own creation, I laugh.

“There you go,” he says. “I missed that.”

“What?”

“You laughing. I feel like we haven’t laughed in ages.”

“We haven’t,” I agree.

We take a few more bites.

I take another sip of wine.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” I say with hesitation.

He looks up at me and waits.

“We’re in this new place, new town, new coast to start our new lives. But we’re not really doing that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it feels a lot like we’re just here on…vacation,” I pause, waiting for the right word.

He gives me a slight nod to keep going.

“Doesn’t it?” I ask. “I mean, we don’t really do anything. We don’t work, we don’t have friends…I think that’s why we’re having these issues.”

I intentionally avoid using the word “you” even though that’s what I mean.

It’s not that I don’t have issues but my issue right now is mainly him.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that myself,” Owen says, rubbing his chin. “It’s a little boring to not do anything all day, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

“It’s not like we exactly need money but sometimes that poses even more issues. Like, suddenly, we’re forced to decide what it is that we really want to do with our lives.”

Owen finishes one last bite and leaves his fork and knife on the plate.

“What kind of job do you want to get?” he asks.

I sit back in my chair trying to figure out what to do with my life.

That question is so simple and yet I’ve never really given it much thought.

Not in any significant way.

It was always so important for me to get good grades and get into the right college and do the right internship and get the best job that I never really stopped to think about whether or not I ever wanted to do that job.

I always defined myself so much in opposition to where I came from that it’s difficult to think of myself as someone outside of my past.

Of course, I will never really be free of it, but I am no longer that person either.

Having enough money to live on for a very long time sounds like an ideal situation.

Yet, it brings up other issues, especially for me, someone who doesn’t go out much and doesn’t really like to party.

What is it that I should do with my life?

“I have no idea,” I say, shaking my head.

“What about math? That’s what you went to school for.”

“And I still like it as a field. But to teach it? Or to write inane test questions that conform to some standard? No, that’s not for me.”