The next day, July 19, is more sun and more ice cream.
It’s also Addison’s birthday.
After the beach, when they should just be getting up, I email my mom.
Doing anything special with the b-day girl? I ask.
She’s going out with her friend Sloane, she writes back.
I try to catch Addison on FaceTime, but she doesn’t answer. I message her instead.
Me: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Look what I got you!
I snap a picture of the Paris snow globe I bought her the week before. I haven’t been able to find one in Juan-les-Pins. Even though Jackson has been helping me look. And I forgot to get one in Switzerland.
Me: I hope you have an amazing day. Love you.
She doesn’t answer. I take a shower.
“I’m hooking up with one of them tonight,” Leela tells me as we get ready.
“Which one?” I ask.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she says. “It’ll be a game-time decision.”
“You’re debating between Yosef and Lachlan, right?”
“Yes . . .” She hesitates.
“Not Matt. Right? Not Matt?”
“Not Matt,” she says. “I’m done with Matt. It’s not just all the shit he pulled. I don’t like myself when I’m with him, you know? I become the worst version of me. Whiny. Jealous. Controlling. It doesn’t feel good.”
“Wow. Okay then.” I’m proud of her. “It sounds like you’re ready to move on.”
“I know. I’m going to! I’m ready.” She applies her lipstick in the mirror. “Hey, do you think Kat hooked up with Eli last night?”
“No, definitely not,” I say.
She shrugs. “They were getting a little cozy on the train home. I just wondered.”
“She loves her boyfriend.”
“Then why did she leave him to go to Paris?”
“Because she wanted to go to Paris. And he was going to camp anyway.”
“Okay,” she says in a singsong voice. “If you say so.”
We do another group dinner. This one involves moules frites.
“Do you think this one is too closed?” Leela asks me. “Or can I eat it?” She is sitting to my left at our long, rectangular table.
“I wouldn’t,” I tell her.
“What are you talking about?” Sienna asks.
“If a mussel is too closed, you could get food poisoning because that means it’s not cooked all the way,” I explain.
“Yikes,” says Sienna.
Leela dips a piece of bread in her sauce instead.
“More wine?” Lachlan asks her.
“Sure,” she says, smiling at him.
“I think we’re going to take off tomorrow,” Eli says to Kat, who he’s sitting beside.
Kat frowns. “Already? How come?”
“We have to get to Barcelona,” he says. “And then Portugal. Then Yosef is flying to Brazil, and I fly home.”
“Are you going straight to camp?” Kat asks. She twirls a strand of hair around her fingers.
“Almost,” Eli says. “I fly into New York and then I’m going to drive up the next day. Will I see you there?”
“I don’t leave Paris until August tenth,” she says. “Gavin’s gonna try and come to NYC for a night to see me when I get back.”
“Yeah, Samantha’s going to take a day off when I get there. We’re going to get a room at a B and B in the Hudson Valley.”
Leela takes a sip of wine. “I hope it’s nicer than La Lune.”
“Oh, it will be,” Eli says. He taps his chest pocket twice. “I’ve got my winnings now.”
The waitress comes and refills our glasses with bottled water. None of the restaurants offer tap.
“What about you guys?” I ask the Aussies.
“We fly out of Heathrow,” Sienna says. “So we’re going to Paris next, then Amsterdam, and then London.”
“That’s our trip in reverse,” I say.
“What about you?” Lachlan asks me.
“We fly out of Rome,” I tell him as I open another mussel.
“Me too,” Matt says.
“Can’t wait,” Leela says, rolling her eyes.
“I thought we were friends again,” Matt says to her, and blows her a kiss.
“Best friends,” Leela says, smiling sweetly. She finishes her glass of wine, and pours herself another. She turns to Jackson. “Are you flying out of Rome too?”
He shakes his head. “I fly out of Athens.”
“You do?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Air Canada was having a special.”
“When do you leave?” Leela asks.
“Two weeks. Same day you leave Rome.”
“We’re all splitting up,” Sienna says. “How sad!”
At the words splitting up, I tense.
Jackson puts his hand on my knee. We look at each other.
Splitting up.
We’re splitting up.
We haven’t discussed it, but we’ve both known it was coming. After Juan-les-Pins, we go our separate ways.
“Hey, Syd, where are we off to next?” Leela asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, my mouth dry. I take a sip of water.
“This is our fourth night,” she says. “We’re not going to stay more than five, are we?”
“At some point I might have to go back to work,” Kat says.
“I don’t know,” I say again. I take Jackson’s hand. I don’t let go.
“Excusez-moi?” Leela says to the waiter. “Can we get another bottle of wine?”
About an hour later, we’re all walking down the beach. Leela is singing. Loudly. Then suddenly she stops.
“I don’t feel well,” she says, swaying.
“Let’s sit down,” I say.
She plops right down in the sand. “My tummy hurts. I think I ate a bad mussel. Did I eat a bad mussel? Doesn’t it sound gross to eat a mussel? Yosef has muscles, and I wouldn’t want to eat them.”
“She’s drunk,” Matt says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think I should take her back to the room.”
“Don’t let Matt see me get sick,” she begs.
“I won’t,” I promise, even though, obviously, he heard that.
We leave the rest of the crew on the beach and Jackson and Kat help me carry Leela back to the hotel.
Matt offers to help but Leela screams, “No way.” He challenges Lachlan to an arm wrestle instead.
Tip: Rosé is even cheaper than water in the South of France!
That doesn’t mean the wine is cheap. It just means the water’s expensive.
I unlock our door, put her on the bed, and hand her a bottle of water.
“Drink this,” I say.
“Where’s Matt?” Leela asks.
“On the beach,” I say.
“Good. Good, good, good,” she says. She frowns. Her face is flushed. “He’s not going to hook up with Kat, is he?”
“No,” I say. “Kat’s right here.”
“Oh,” Leela says, staring at her. “Hi, Kat.”
“Hi,” she says, waving. “Also, I would never do that. Never.”
“Good,” Leela says, head bobbing. “What about Sienna?”
Sienna had been chatting up a Swedish girl on the beach.
“I think she’s going the other way tonight,” I say.
“Also good,” Leela says. “Jackson, tell him not to hook up with anybody, ’kay? Can you go now? It’s girl time.”
He sighs.
“Thanks for helping me bring her up,” I tell him, walking him to the door.
“Of course,” he says. “Come to my room in five?”
“Will do,” I say. “I just need to make sure she’s okay.”
“I can stay with her,” Kat says. “You can take my room with Jackson.”
“No!” Leela cries. “Stay with me, Syd. Don’t leave. I miss you. I miss you so much. All year I missed you. Will you braid my hair? You’re so good at braiding hair. Has she ever braided your hair, Kat?”
“No,” Kat says.
“I’ll come get you,” I mouth to Jackson.
He closes the door behind him.
I try not to feel too aggravated. I want to be hooking up with Jackson, not braiding someone’s hair. I try to calm down. She needs me. Leela has always been there for me. And anyway, friends come first.
“Okay,” I say, sitting behind her on the bed. “I’ll braid your hair. But you have to drink more water.”
She takes another sip and then says, “The room is spinning! It’s magic!”
“The magic Lune,” I say, brushing her hair with my fingers.
“Lune means moon you know,” Leela says. “Not loony.”
“The magic moon,” I say. “Do you have an elastic?”
“The bad mussel is back,” Leela says. “It’s coming back right now. It’s—”
“The bathroom!” Kat says. “Go to the bathroom!”
“She’s not going to make it!” I cry. “I meant to move over the garbage! Where’s the garb—”
But it’s too late. She pukes all over a bag. You’ve got to be kidding me. The smell is noxious.
“I hope that’s her bag,” Kat says. “The duffel-suitcase is hers, right?”
“Yes,” I say, relieved. I do not want half-digested mussels all over my snow globes and clothes. And my jeans are already stained enough.
“Come on, Leela. Stand. You have to go to the bathroom.”
We help her up and walk her to the mini-bathroom. I lift up the seat.
“My hair,” she says. “I don’t want puke in my hair.”
“I’m going to braid it,” I tell her.
“French?”
“Of course,” I say.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for everything. I love you. I’m sorry I’ve been a bitch. This trip has been so messed up. First, I was supposed to be on it with the love of my life, and then he screwed me over and then you came along, which was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but then Matt keeps showing up everywhere, and it’s just been hard. I can’t escape him! I know he’s here by accident and I’m trying to pay attention to Yosef and Lachlan but I can’t really because Matt is here. And I still love him! Even though it hurts! Even though he’s an idiot! I know he makes me miserable, trust me, I know he brings out the worst in me, but he’s so cute with his little sunburn. And Kat is the super-amazing person who is so much better at everything than me and now she’s here too. It’s just too much.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I say. “We’ll figure it all out.”
On that note, she vomits once more while I hold her hair.
I don’t make it to Jackson’s. Leela makes me promise I’ll stay, and I do.
Also, I’m pretty sure I don’t smell my freshest.
Jackson stays in his room, Kat goes to hers, and I sleep in my original bed. I knock twice on the wall.
He knocks back, knock, knock, knock.
My phone pings.
Jackson: Sneak out for a kiss?
Me: K
I carefully and quietly slip on my flip-flops and sneak out of the room.
He’s waiting in the hallway.
“You’re not leaving tomorrow, are you?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “Definitely not.”
“But the day after?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
We’re both silent.
“So this is it?” he asks. “On Wednesday, we just say good-bye?”
“I guess,” I say.
“Syd, I don’t want this to be good-bye. Let’s keep traveling together.”
“The four of us?” I ask. “I wish. But we can’t—being around Matt is making Leela miserable.”
“Then you travel with Leela and I’ll travel with Matt and we’ll meet up at the end of the trip. Just the two of us. In Greece.”
My heart stops. “Greece?”
“Yeah. Maybe you could change your flight home. Instead of leaving from Rome, you can meet me in Greece and fly home from there.”
“But . . . I can’t ditch Leela.”
“Just for a few days.”
“She’d kill me.”
“So travel with me for a few days now, and she can hang out with the Aussies.”
My heart sinks. “She’s not going to travel with people she barely knows. And anyway, they’re going the wrong way.”
“Can’t she travel with Kat?”
“Kat is my friend, not hers.”
“I’m guessing she’s not going to want to travel the three of us.”
“Nope,” I say sadly.
He sighs. “So this is it?”
“I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t. But I can’t leave her. She needs me.”
“Well, I want you.”
I shake my head. I can’t leave Leela. I just can’t. “We can’t always get what we want,” I say. “Look, we’ll do something special tomorrow night. Just us. For real.” I feel the lump in my throat again and kiss him lightly. “Good night.”
“Night,” he says. I can hear the defeat in his voice.
I still feel his lips when I climb into my bed and close my eyes.
My FaceTime starts ringing at 7:10 in the morning.
It’s my sister.
I connect. “Hello?”
She doesn’t say anything. Nothing. The camera is not even facing her. What is she doing? What time is it there? It’s six hours earlier. So that makes it 1:10 a.m.
“Addison? Addison! Addison!” I yell.
“Syd?” I hear. “Hello?”
“Pick up the phone!”
I hear tumbling, and then she’s pointing the camera at herself. “Hi!”
“Happy birthday?” I say.
“Thank you!”
“Where are you?” I ask. It looks like she’s on a street.
“Out!” she says. She’s smiling and laughing. She can’t hold the camera straight.
Goose bumps cover my arms. “Are you drunk?”
“Are you?” she answers back.
Shit. “I’m nineteen and in Europe. You’re sixteen and in America.”
“Seventeen today,” she sings.
Leela is sitting up in bed, wide awake.
“You’re not driving, are you?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Addi! Who’s driving?”
“Um . . . Sloane!”
Who is this goddamn Sloane? “Did she drink too?”
“Um . . .” Addison drops the phone on the pavement. “Sorry! One sec!”
“Listen, Addi?” I say. “You have to call a cab.”
“We don’t have any money,” she says.
“Do you have Uber on your phone?”
“No,” she says. “I think my phone’s going to die. Soon.”
“Call Dad,” I say. “He’ll come get you.”
“No,” she says. “I can’t call Dad. Shit. What do I do? Can you come get me?”
“Are you kidding?”
“You promised. You said you’d come home if I needed you. I need you!”
My head pounds. “Addi, how drunk are you? I can’t fly home to pick you up. It would take me a day to get to you.”
“I can’t believe you just left me. And that you won’t help me!”
“Call Dad! Now!”
“No. I don’t want to call Dad. I want to call Mom.”
My heart races. “She won’t drive. If you don’t want to call Dad, call Sloane’s parents!”
“She won’t call her parents. She says she’s fine to drive. But . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Don’t let her. DO NOT get in that car.” I am panicked.
“My phone’s going to die in, like, a minute. I’m calling Mom.”
She disconnects.
Fuck. I stare at my phone. What’s happening?
I call her back. She doesn’t answer. Shit. Should I call my mother? What do I do? I message Addison again.
Me: What’s happening?
Me: Addison?
Three dots.
Addison: I told her she has to come get me or Sloane’s driving. She said she’s coming.
I stare at the phone.
Addison: Phone going bye.
“What’s going on?” Leela asks.
“My sister is drunk and with some person I don’t know who is also drunk, and they just called my mom to pick them up.”
Leela sits up. “Your mom’s going to drive? Isn’t that good?”
“Is it? She hasn’t driven in years. And what if she has a panic attack while she’s on the road? I’m sure she’s freaking out. I’m going to kill my sister.” I’m breathing faster and faster and my heart is thumping. Am I going to have a panic attack? For real?
“It’s going to be okay,” Leela says. She comes over to my bed and puts her arm around me. “It is. Your mom is going to get them. Everything is going to be fine. Can we call your mom and see how she’s doing?”
“She doesn’t have a freakin’ cell phone anymore because she doesn’t leave the house. I don’t even know if she still has a valid license.”
“Let’s call your sister back, then.” She takes my phone and tries to get through on FaceTime. There’s no answer. She tries calling her number. It goes straight to voice mail. “I think her phone is off.”
“It’s dead,” I say. “What do we do?”
She squeezes my shoulder. “We wait.”
It’s two hours later, and I still haven’t heard anything.
Leela is sitting beside me, wrapped in a towel.
I’m freaking out. “They could be in a ditch somewhere. It’s three thirty in the morning there.”
“They’re not in a ditch,” Leela says. “I bet your mom picked Addison up, they went home, and now they’re fast asleep. That’s why they didn’t answer your call.”
“But why wouldn’t they call me?”
“Because they’re sleeping.” She looks around the room. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. This room is depressing and smells like puke.”
“That’s because you vomited all over your suitcase.”
She winces. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I will find a way to wash everything today. But for now, we really have to get out of here.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to leave. What if they call?”
“Go shower. I will watch the phone. I will not let it out of my sight. Then we will find a place with Wi-Fi and coffee.”
I shower. I drench everything in the bathroom but I don’t care. I put on shorts and a T-shirt and we go.
Jackson’s room is quiet. He’s somehow still asleep when I’ve been up for centuries.
We go down to the boulangerie and order coffees. I buy a pain au chocolat, but I’m too nervous to eat, and Leela is too hungover.
“Should I try calling the house again?” I wonder.
“I’m sure they’re just asleep.”
“Is it wrong that I’m Googling car accidents, Maryland, and three women?”
“Stop Googling,” she says. “Gimme your phone.”
I hand it over.
“I’m looking at your pictures,” she says, and scrolls through my photos.
I take a small nibble of the pain au chocolat. But I’m really not hungry.
“Love this shot of us in Switzerland,” she says. “We look shockingly good in wet suits.” Her forehead wrinkles. “Wait. Why do you have a picture of Jackson in Berlin?”
Oh shit.
“It’s not Berlin,” I say.
“Your PhotosMap is telling me that he took this in Berlin. I’m so confused. Was he sending you pictures from Berlin?”
Crap. “Yes.”
“You were in touch with him?”
I close my eyes. “Yes.”
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you wanted nothing to do with him,” I say.
“Yeah, but . . .” Her voice trails off. She stares at me. “Did you plan to meet him here?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I only found out he was coming when we were on the train. And then I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you might not want to come. . . . I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice tight. “You should have told me.”
Neither of us speaks.
“There you are!” we hear. We look up to see Kat at the entrance of the boulangerie. “What’s shaking, ladies?”
I guess it’s time to tell her how fucked up my family is.
“My sister got drunk last night and my mother had to drive to get her in the middle of the night but she hasn’t driven a car on her own since I was twelve. She doesn’t drive at all, actually. She doesn’t even leave the house, and now I haven’t heard anything from them for hours.” I take a breath. “Pain au chocolat?”
“Whoa,” Kat says, sitting down beside me. “So that’s why you didn’t go away to school. To help your mom. And why you were being weird about potentially moving off campus with me?”
I nod.
She gives me a hug. “I am so sorry. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?”
A message pops up on my phone.
Addison: Did I call you last night?
“It’s her!” I FaceTime her right away.
“Mmmph,” she says.
“Omigod, Ad, I’ve been worried sick! What happened? Are you okay?”
Leela and Kat are mouthing things at each other.
“I’m fine,” she says. She looks exhausted. And hungover.
“Did Mom come to get you?” I ask.
“She did,” she says.
I don’t believe it. “That’s incredible. She actually drove?”
“No! She tried to drive, she got in the car, she even turned on the ignition, but then she started to panic and turned it off.”
“So what happened?”
“She called a cab. And she went with the driver to get me, and then picked us up. We dropped Sloane off first, and then came home.”
“Wow. Still. She got in a cab. That’s impressive. She hasn’t been in a cab in years.” I’m proud of her. “And she didn’t have a panic attack along the way?”
“No, she did have a panic attack. The driver had to pull over. But she eventually got back in the car.”
“So you were all fine?” I ask.
“We were all fine,” she says. “She says I’m grounded for life, but we’re fine. Syd, I don’t feel well. I’ll call you later, ’kay? I just wanted to let you know I’m okay.”
“Thanks. Happy birthday. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
We hang up. Leela and Kat are watching me.
“All good?” Kat says.
I nod. And then I burst into tears.
We go back to the room to change into our bathing suits.
“Are you mad at me?” I ask Leela.
“Yes,” Leela says, looking everywhere in the room except at me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
She sighs. “I just can’t believe you’d screw me over for a silly fling.”
I lower my voice. I don’t know if he’s next door or not. “What if it’s not a fling?”
She shakes her head. “Syd. It’s a summer fling.”
I hesitate. “He asked me to go to Greece with him.”
“What?” She turns to me. “He did not.”
“He did.”
“Do you want to go?” she asks.
“Well . . . I said no. I’m not going to leave you by yourself.”
She nods. “Thank you. Because I don’t want to be by myself.
“I said no.”
“I’m glad you agreed not to ditch your best friend, a person who you’ve supposedly missed all year, to travel with someone you barely know and will never see again. That seems like the right move.” Her voice is dripping with sarcasm.
Does she have to be so mean about it?
There’s a knock on the door. “Ladies? It’s me,” Kat says. “Are you ready to go to the beach?”
“Come in,” I say, opening the door.
“I saw Jackson downstairs,” Kat says, shifting the turquoise beach bag on her shoulder. “He’s looking for you. That boy is crazy-pants about you.”
“Of course he is,” Leela says. “It’s still summer.”
“What happens when you leave?” Kat asks. “Are you guys breaking up?”
“We can’t break up if we were never officially together,” I say quietly.
“You’re not going to try and make it work?” Kat asks. “Gavin and I stayed together even though we’re on different continents. You don’t just break up because you’re apart. Not if you have something special.”
Leela snort-laughs. “Come on. There’s no way Sydney and Jackson could have a long-distance relationship.”
I flush.
“Why not?” Kat asks defiantly. “They could so!”
Leela looks at me. “First of all, you are the worst at keeping in touch. The worst. I could never get hold of you.”
“I was busy!” Can’t she cut me some slack?
“I know you were busy. I’m not mad at you for being busy. I’m just saying that if you were too busy to text me back, your best friend for a million years, do you really think you’re going to have time to make a relationship with Jackson work?”
I don’t answer. She’s not wrong.
“And even if you did, would you really trust him? He slept with like twenty-five girls last year, and those are just the ones I happen to know about.”
Every time she talks about him, the number of girls he’s slept with rises. “He didn’t have a girlfriend then.”
“Yeah, well, are you sure he even wants a girlfriend?”
My chest tightens. “I don’t know.”
“Do you even want a boyfriend?”
“I don’t know!” I’ve never really wanted one before. It was always too complicated. And anything with Jackson would be even more complicated.
“And not just any boyfriend,” Leela continues. “A long-distance boyfriend. Are you sure you want one of those? You didn’t seem to want a long-distance best friend.”
Ouch.
Kat’s lips are in a thin line. “Leela, you’re being a bit harsh, don’t you think? Sydney had a lot going on. More than I even knew. I’ve lost touch with most of my New York best friends too. But that doesn’t mean they’re not my best friends. And long distance can work. I’m living proof. Gavin and I have been apart all summer.”
Leela’s eyes shoot venom at Kat. “Are you? You and Eli were getting a little cozy on the train from Monaco. And where did you sleep last night?”
Kat’s face flushes. “In my room! Alone! Eli and I were talking. We’re friends. We were bonding over the fact that we both miss our significant others! Nothing happened! Why would you think anything happened?”
Leela crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Okay. I’m sorry. But just because you’re well-behaved doesn’t mean Jackson will be. He’s going to hurt her. And she doesn’t need that. And anyway, it’s not like she’s going to visit him—” Her voice stops abruptly.
“She might,” Kat says.
Leela just shakes her head. “She’s never come to visit me once.”
“You know I wanted to,” I say, my voice cracking. “And I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but you still check your phone every five minutes,” she says.
“I’m trying to look out for my family!”
“Yeah? Or were you texting Jackson?”
She’s not wrong. I was texting Jackson. But I was also trying to keep tabs on my family. I can’t just forget all about them. They need me.
“Maybe you’ll be able to make it work long distance,” Leela snaps. “At least you write him back.” She grabs her bag, shoves her feet into her flip-flops, and storms off.
I sigh.
“Whoa,” Kat says. “She’s pissed off.”
“Well, I’m pissed off, too.” Pissed off and tired. My sister scared the hell out of me. And maybe this thing with Jackson is just a fling. But I don’t need Leela making me feel like shit about it.
I give her five minutes to calm down and then find her on the beach.
She’s sitting on the sand, facing the ocean.
I sit down beside her. I don’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I was being a total asshole. Again.”
“Yes,” I say. The water laps our ankles. “You were. But I should have told you about Jackson. And I should have been there for you this year.”
“I missed you,” she says. “And I know he’s going to break your heart, Syd. I know him. I do. He’s going to hurt you. And I don’t want you to go through what I’m going through with Matt. It sucks and you have enough shit to deal with.” Her eyes are wet.
I look out at the water. “I want us to have fun. I want you to have fun. I want us to have fun together.”
“I know. I think I need to get out of here. It’s too hard for me to be around Matt even with Lachlan or Yosef around. They’re nice and cute although Yosef’s a little intense and Lachlan talks too much, but mostly they’re not Matt, you know? And I’m totally leading them on, and I’m even leading Sienna on. Yesterday on the beach I think I patted her ass when I was drunk and now she’s avoiding me . . . I just need to go.” She sounds like she’s begging. “Can we leave? Please? Tomorrow morning?”
The thought makes me dizzy. “Tomorrow? Where do you want to go?”
“Venice! Rome! Florence! Tuscany! There’s so much to see in Italy. We’ve been here for four nights already and tonight is going to be night five. That seems like a lot of time to stay in one random beach place. I know leaving Jackson will be hard, but . . . you have to say good-bye eventually, right?”
She’s right. I know she’s right. But I kind of hate that she’s the one to make me do it. “I guess.”
“So we can leave tomorrow?”
“All right. I’ll tell Jackson.”
“Why don’t you spend the night with him? Just you guys? Since it’s your last night.”
Gee, thanks, I almost say, but don’t.
I find Jackson by himself, lying on a towel in the sand, reading The Beach.
I sit down beside him and fill him in on what happened with my mom and sister.
“You should have found me,” he says. “I heard noises in your room, but I thought it was just Leela getting sick.”
“Nope.” I squint in the sun. I don’t have my sunglasses.
“So is everything okay now?”
“I guess. Hopefully Addison will never be an idiot again and everything will go back to normal.”
“I guess she’s the Pewter Girl in your house,” he says.
“No, she’s not,” I say quickly. “I would never call her that.”
“Well, maybe now that your mom got into a cab, she’ll be more mobile. Or maybe it was a first step. Maybe she’ll start getting better.”
I shake my head. “She’s not going to get better. She had a panic attack in the cab. The whole thing probably made it worse. Now she’ll never get in a vehicle again.” I shake my head. “I have something else to tell you. Leela wants to leave tomorrow.”
He stares out at the water. “But you don’t have to go. You could stay.”
“Here? Forever?”
“Yes. I’ll stay with you. We’ll rent an apartment on the beach and open a store.”
“What would we sell?” I ask.
“Snow globes,” he says.
“I can’t find a single one here!”
“All the more reason to open a store.” He puts his arm around me, and I inhale the scent of suntan lotion and him. “I’m going to miss you,” he says.
“I know,” I say, and he laughs.
We have dinner, just the two of us, at a small bistro by the water.
He orders a bottle of wine, and I think back to Amsterdam. We laugh and joke and share another Nicoise salad, a cheese plate, and a ratatouille. We’re going all in on French food.
“So this is it,” he says, taking a final bite of the ratatouille. “The last supper.”
“I guess so.”
“And Greece is completely out of the question?”
I sigh. “I can’t go to Greece. I’m flying out of Rome.”
“So I’ll go to Rome with you,” he says. His eyes are hopeful.
“Leela would hate that. I just can’t do that to her. She’d be miserable.”
“Syd, it’s not your responsibility to take care of her,” he says. “It’s not your responsibility to take care of everyone.”
I’m not sure if he’s talking about Leela or my family. “Friends take care of each other,” I say. “People take care of each other. It is my responsibility.”
“Does Leela ever take care of you?”
“Yes! She was with me all morning when I was freaking out.”
“You stay home when she’s sick. You plan everything. You practically carry her bags. It seems like she’s taking advantage of you. You know, I was with Leela all year, and she was fine. She had Matt and her sister and she took care of herself.”
“You don’t understand,” I say, my cheeks burning. “I can’t just leave her after everything she and I have been through. And I’m not going to just ditch my best friend for a fling.”
He stares. “Is that all this is?”
I sink into my chair. I’m so tired. I can’t deal with all this in one day. “Isn’t it? Am I ever going to hear from you again once the summer’s over?”
He looks surprised. “Why wouldn’t you ever hear from me again?”
“Didn’t you sleep with like twenty-five women this year? Have you spoken to any of them again?”
He looks down at his plate. “Is that what you think this is?”
“I don’t know what this is!”
“Well, neither do I.”
My head hurts. “Do you think we should be a thing? Is that what you want? You’re going to call and text me every night from school instead of drinking too many Molsons and hooking up with random girls? Really? When something happens with me, when my mom freaks before my sister’s high school graduation, and won’t come inside, or has a panic attack halfway through, are you going to drop everything to be there for me? Is that what’s going to happen? No. We live in different countries. This isn’t going to work. I’m not saying I don’t want it to, or don’t wish it could, but it just isn’t. I don’t have the energy to worry about you too.”
“I don’t want you worrying about me at all,” he says. He doesn’t say, you wouldn’t have to worry about me.
“We both know the truth,” I say. I make my voice sound strong, but my legs are shaking. “Tonight? This is it.”
“Okay,” he says, looking at his hands. “This is it. Then let’s get out of here.”
I offer to split the bill, but he pays.
“Thank you,” I say. I reach to hold his hand, but he pretends he doesn’t see me do it.
We silently walk back to La Lune.
“Let’s go to Kat’s room,” I say. “She gave me her key.”
I lean over to kiss him but he pulls back.
I feel like I’ve been slapped. “What? You don’t want to?”
“I want you to come to Greece with me.”
“I can’t,” I snap. “I just told you that.”
We both stand there. Staring at each other.
“So you’re not going to come to Kat’s room?” I ask.
“I don’t think so,” he says, his voice cold. “Maybe it’s easier to call it right now. While I’m mad.”
Is he serious? I feel like I’m in free fall. “You want to say good-bye like this?”
“Easier, no?”
My eyes fill with tears. He looks away.
“Okay,” I say. I lean over and kiss him on the cheek. “Good-bye.”
“Au revoir, Sydney.”
I go upstairs and open the door to my room. Leela is already there. She’s folding clothes. “I cleaned my bag and did a wash. I threw in your dirty clothes, too. They’re on your bed.”
There’s a pile of undies and T-shirts on my white sheet. “Thank you,” I say, surprised.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” she says, folding a shirt. “Everything okay?”
“You should roll it,” I say. “It won’t get as wrinkled.”
“Oh. Okay.” She unfolds the shirt and tries to roll it.
“Let me help,” I say, and do it for her.
“So what happened with Jackson?”
“It’s over.” I sit down on my bed. My legs are still shaking.
She sits down next to me. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” I ask, hearing the bitterness in my voice.
She sighs. “Of course I am! You know I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
My head hurts.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.
“No.”
“Okay.”
We’re both silent. I hear a bottle breaking on the street and then shrieks of laugher.
“Do you want to talk about where you want to go tomorrow?” she asks.
Greece, I think, a bitter taste in my mouth. But I’m not going to Greece. I’m taking care of Leela, instead. Just like I didn’t go away to college so I could take care of my mother.
“Syd?” she presses.
I pull out my Travel Europe from my small backpack, and flip to the map of Europe. “Italy?”
“Finally! Yay. Can we go to Venice?” Leela asks.
“Too far. It’s on the eastern side.”
“Milan?”
“Too expensive,” I say. “And I’m running out of money.” At my last bank withdrawal, I had less than eight hundred dollars left. I am cutting it very, very close.
“Florence?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Okay. We can go to Florence. And Pisa is on the way.”
She pauses. “Do you want to invite Kat to come?”
I wasn’t expecting that. “Really?”
“I don’t mind. She’s growing on me. I apologized for saying what I said about Eli. It’s none of my business anyway.”
“What did she say?”
“She said it was no biggie. I think she’s FaceTiming with Gavin right now, actually. So should we ask her to come with us? Do you think she can get more time off work?”
“Seems likely,” I say.
I hear movement in the room next to me. I freeze. Then laughter. Then the door closes. Is he going out? Now? We just broke up, and he’s going out?
“Macarons?” Leela asks. “I have some in my bag.”
“Yes, please,” I say, and take a bite. I will miss you, macarons.
Among other things.