“Built for strength and not endurance, I see,” Elijah remarks, nudging me with his hiking boot. “That’s not what the strippers used to say,” I pant, and Elijah laughs so loud and so bright—so happily—that I feel his laugh running through my body like water. Like fun water, like a rippling swimming pool or turquoise ocean waves. His laugh feels like a vacation destination all in itself, and then I remember that I used to hear it often. That even though I was a flake and a jackass, I could always make him smile. I could always make him laugh.
