Tuesday, July 5

AMSTERDAM to PRAGUE via BERLIN

That night, Aubrey’s dreams were made of something soft and drowsy. A stage lit with shimmering lights. A set made to look like a city with every detail exact: rain gutters on the buildings, scuff marks on the sidewalks. Everything in blues and grays. Aubrey wasn’t an artist, but somehow, she knew she’d designed it all. She’d filled the canals with water; she’d hung the stars from the rafters and whispered voices into the cardboard buildings. This was her city, she thought. It would be here even when she left it behind.

She woke up, but the dream lingered around her. It distracted her as she packed up her stuff and took the bus to the station with her friends. It followed her when they boarded the train, and she sent her mom a text to let her know they’d made it okay.

Their compartment was small, with two rows of three seats facing one another. Jonah and Clara sprawled out and crashed before they’d even left the station. Rae stayed awake for a little bit longer, but she seemed exhausted, too. Her eyes kept closing, her head dipping toward the window. Aubrey couldn’t sleep. Maybe because traveling always made her extra panicky. She had this feeling that she’d forgotten to do something important, that something wasn’t quite right.

She checked over the train schedule on her phone to make sure their layover time still looked okay—they would arrive in Berlin early that afternoon and then they would have nearly an hour before their connection to Prague.

Was that what was bugging her? That they could somehow miss their train? Or was this really just about last night?

About how, when she and Gabe had helped Jonah to his room after the party, he had only talked about one thing: Leah. Her amazing internship, what classes she’d taken last year, what shows she wanted to see with him in New York. He stirred in his sleep now, and Aubrey touched the tips of his hair, which looked golden in the early-morning sun. The fabric of his favorite navy-blue hoodie was soft and faded in patches. It smelled like his cologne and like his room in London. It made Aubrey remember borrowing it from him in cold movie theaters and the times she’d worn it to walk home in the rain, the hood pulled tightly around her ears. These were the things she was worried about forgetting—these small, familiar pieces of her old life. These fragments of moments she would never get back again.

“Hey,” a voice whispered.

Aubrey looked over Jonah’s head at Gabe. “Hey,” she whispered back.

“Everyone’s asleep,” he said. “Should we, like, draw on their faces?”

“Do you have a Sharpie?” Aubrey asked.

“No. But do you have nail polish? We could use that.”

“Hmmm. The fumes might give us away.”

Gabe rested his long legs across the aisle. He wasn’t hungover, but he looked a little crumpled, like he’d probably rolled out of bed only a few minutes before leaving the hostel that morning. “How’s it going, Bryce?” he asked. “You seem worried.”

“I’m not really.” She glanced down at her lap, some of her hair falling out of her ponytail and in her face. “I was just thinking—we don’t have that much time left together, and everyone keeps sleeping through it. Doesn’t that seem like a waste to you?”

“I don’t know. People do need sleep. And this is only the train part.”

“But the train part is half the point,” Aubrey insisted. “I mean, that’s why people go interrailing in the first place, isn’t it? So they can look outside at everything they might never have seen otherwise. And have all these extra hours to talk to each other. That’s the romance of trains. That’s the whole reason we’re here.” She felt silly for getting so swept away—these were her sixth-grade fantasies of what this trip would be like. She’d never talked about those with anyone except Rae. And even then, it was when they were twelve years old, watching movies like North by Northwest and planning for their grand, mysterious futures.

Gabe looked at her intently. “Okay.” He reached over Jonah’s sleeping body. “Let’s do this.”

“Do what?”

He wiggled his fingers. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Are you trying to high-five me?”

“Bryce! Yes! It’s guaranteed to wake everyone up. That way, we can talk and bond and look at the country and whatever else you said we should do. Awesome idea, yeah?” His eyes pleaded.

Aubrey twisted her lips to the side. It was kind of a stupid idea, actually. But it made her think of last night, of the tenuous connection they’d somehow managed to form again. She raised her hand and clapped it with his, the sound reverberating through the compartment.

Clara groaned. “What the hell was that?”

“Nothing,” Aubrey said.

“Maybe birds?” Gabe said.

“Right!” Aubrey choked down a laugh. “Birds.”

“The infamous clapping birds of Europe,” Gabe said.

Clara pouted and slumped lower in her seat. “Are you two drunk?”

“Hate to remind you,” Aubrey said, “but I think you drank enough for all of us last night.”

“I can’t take your jokes right now.” Clara pushed her cat-eye pink sunglasses from her forehead down to her nose. The train bumped along, and Aubrey and Gabe exchanged quick, amused looks. Outside the window, a small cluster of houses appeared by the tracks and then disappeared into a blur of trees. Aubrey felt guilty for thinking it, but she wished Clara hadn’t woken up. It was easier to talk to Gabe when it was only the two of them, easier to feel like their friendship made sense again.

“Shit.” Clara jumped up and ran out of the compartment. The door slammed shut behind her, bouncing in its frame.

“S’okay.” Rae groggily stood up. “Everything’s okay. I’ll go check on her.”

Jonah woke up, too. “I thought I was home,” he mumbled. “I thought I was home, and I was eating one of those fucking awesome grilled cheese sandwiches my mom makes. You know the ones I mean?”

“Four different types of cheese and a bag of Doritos.” Gabe nodded solemnly. “I’m well-acquainted with the Jonah Hangover Special.”

“That you are,” Jonah said. He and Gabe fist-bumped.

Aubrey felt herself bristle a little. Maybe she’d been right before. Maybe her mood did have something to do with Jonah—with the fact that he’d been so drunk last night, or that he’d spent almost an entire day and evening ignoring her. And worst of all, he didn’t even seem sorry about it.

Gabe stood and stretched. “I’m going to the dining car. You guys want anything?”

“Soda,” Jonah said. “Lots of soda. And Doritos if they have them. Thanks, man.”

Gabe looked at Aubrey before he left, but she just gave him a small smile and shook her head.

“This feeling is… not great,” Jonah said.

“Yeah,” Aubrey said. “That’s what drinking most of the tequila in Holland will do to you.”

Jonah pulled the cuffs of his sweatshirt over his palms. “Where did you guys end up last night?”

“Nowhere.”

“Well, you clearly ended up somewhere. You were gone for hours.”

She shrugged. “We went for a walk.”

“Okay. But just so you know, you did kind of hurt Leah’s feelings.”

Aubrey glared out the window, her jaw clenching. “Somehow, I think she’ll survive.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jonah asked.

“Nothing. Forget it.” The countryside was speeding by so fast, too fast for her to catch on to. She didn’t want to pick a fight with Jonah—but also, she couldn’t pretend everything was okay.

“Did Leah do something to piss you off?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” she said. “But it’s not like she was so desperate to spend time with me or anything.”

Jonah frowned. “She spent all day with you.”

“She spent all day with you. I was—extra baggage.”

He sat forward. “You didn’t say any of this yesterday.”

“How could I? You were both so absorbed in each other I could barely get a word in edgewise. You didn’t even listen when I told you which museums I wanted to see.”

“Those museums were expensive and overrated,” he said. “Leah explained that. Besides, there are tons of museums in New York.”

“But we weren’t in New York,” she said. “We were in Amsterdam for one day. I might never get another chance to see the Rijksmuseum.”

“Come on, Aubs. We didn’t go on this trip to have an educational experience. We’re here to find out what the world is like when we’re on our own. Not just do all the bullshit things our parents tell us we should.”

Aubrey felt stubborn. “Well. I wanted to see museums.”

Jonah grunted. “I don’t get where all of this is coming from. I mean, you’ve always been sort of weird around Leah, but I figured you’d be over it by now. I figured you’d be more grown up.”

“Grown up?” she snapped. “And by grown up, do you mean I wouldn’t notice the way you worship at her feet? Or the way you hang on every word she says?”

“No,” he snapped back. “It means you’d be able to include yourself in our conversation. You’d be able to say something when she talks to you.”

“I’m sorry. So I’m only grown up if I can sit in a dingy bar, drink cheap wine, and have super-obnoxious conversations about Anton Chekhov? Is that right?”

“That isn’t what we’re like.”

“It’s exactly what you’re like. Whenever you’re around her.”

“Yeah, well! She’s my friend!”

Aubrey stood now, her breathing rapid, her legs wobbly as the train took a turn. “I know that, Jonah! But I wish it didn’t feel like she’s the person you imagine being with when you imagine living in New York. I wish you didn’t expect me to just fit into the life you’re planning to have with her.”

Jonah pressed his fingertips to his forehead. The train sounded like a storm beneath them. And he seemed so exhausted, so hungover, so weighed down by everything she was saying. But Aubrey had to tell him this. She had to let him know what she was terrified of before she gave up her whole world and everything that felt like it belonged to her.

“Whenever we talk about next year,” she said, “we talk about you. We talk about NYU and theater and what you want your life to be like, and that’s great. But I’m going to Columbia. I want to study. I want to work hard and spend hours in the library and take really difficult classes that will change my life.”

“So do that.” He refused to look up. “I’m not stopping you.”

“But you won’t be with me. You won’t come uptown to hang out with me after class. You won’t spend a weekend getting to know the friends I make there. Will you?”

“I have no clue how you want me to respond to that,” he said.

She wanted him to say Of course I will. She wanted him to say It would never be like that, because I care about you. Because I think about what you want just as much as I think about what I want.

But he didn’t say any of those things.

And all of a sudden, Aubrey knew what had been bothering her all morning. What she hadn’t been able to put her finger on: Jonah didn’t picture their lives together the way she did—he never would.

“Jonah.” She sat down across from him and took a long breath, then let it out slowly. “I think we should break up.”

His head snapped up. “What?”

“We should break up,” she said again. “If college is going to be anything like yesterday, I’m going to hate it. And if I hate it, you’ll hate me, so why don’t we save ourselves the trouble and get it over with now?” Her chest was compressing; she couldn’t get enough air. Even though she was saying all this, she didn’t actually want to break up with Jonah. She didn’t want to lose him. But also, she didn’t have a choice. If she stayed with him, she’d feel the way she had at that houseboat party for the next four years. She’d never think of herself as anything except small and unimportant.

“Are you really breaking up with me?” he asked. “Is that really what’s happening?”

“No,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know. Just—tell me that all the things I’m worried about aren’t real. Tell me that you’ll come to Columbia. That you’ll be a part of my life there, too.”

“Aubs.” His expression went heavy. “I want to be there for you, but I can’t just run uptown all the time. NYU’s a really big deal for me. I need to concentrate on that.”

Everything inside of her began to unsnap. “Okay,” she said. “So. That’s it. We’re done.”

He got up. “I need to walk. I need to get the fuck out of here right now.” He left Aubrey alone, in a compartment where all her friends should have been, too.

She inhaled. She exhaled. She tried to remind herself that she wasn’t actually alone. But that wasn’t true.

She was.