Monday, July 11

FLORENCE to BARCELONA

On the way to Barcelona, Aubrey sat in a separate carriage from everyone else, reading the same Virginia Woolf book she’d taken with her to Rome.

It was the middle of a long day of travel. Fourteen hours and five tight connections in order to get them from Italy to France to Spain. The train she was on now trundled through the South of France, a misty summer storm leaving streaks of water on the windows. Aubrey balled up her sweatshirt and used it as a pillow. Across the aisle from her, a mom placed plastic animals on her tray table and told a story about them to her toddler. The toddler sipped a juice box, listening closely.

Aubrey turned a page in her copy of The Waves. She’d reached the part where the characters were on a train, too. Six of them, all leaving school. The narrator moved between their thoughts, shifting from fear to hope to ambivalence. Six different people. A track dividing six completely different ways.

A food cart rolled past, and Aubrey emerged from the story. Like she was waking up from the depths of sleep. Like the curtain had fallen at the end of a play.

She ordered a warm cup of tea and sipped it as she watched the rain. And while she did, she thought about Gabe and Rae. She thought about this morning, how, as they’d left the apartment, she’d avoided saying a word to Gabe. How she’d been too embarrassed to talk about last night. Or about Rome, which seemed so far away now.

And she thought about how certain she was that she and Rae weren’t going to be friends like they had been before: attached at the hip; threaded together, so that when one moved, the other followed.

But maybe this was what needed to happen.

Since she’d never figured out how to be alone before, she would figure it out now. She would spend today with this tea and this window and the quiet company of this book. Books were better than friends anyway, because a book had never kissed a girl in Prague and then become all elusive and cagey about it. A book had never gotten bored of her or decided to move to the other side of the world from her or done mysterious things that Aubrey would inevitably find out about through social media—like hang out on a beach in Melbourne with a brand-new, hipster clique or get spur-of-the-moment tattoos and haircuts.

Aubrey’s legs started to cramp. She got up and took her book, picking her way toward the back of the train. After the final carriage, she reached a door that opened onto a small vestibule with long glass panels looking over the tracks—the shadows of trees were spread across them, and a gray stripe of gravel ran beneath. Aubrey stood by the window. The whole scene kept changing in front of her, the tracks falling out from under her feet.

“Aubrey?” a voice said behind her.

She turned and saw Jonah walking toward the open door.

“Jonah,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

“You know.” He shrugged and seemed a little uneasy, but he came over to join her anyway. “I didn’t feel like sitting. And hey, look at this. We found a cool view.”

“Yeah,” she said apprehensively. “I guess we did.”

They watched the scenery pass by for a moment, his reflection next to hers. His hair was sun-bleached, and his clothes were dark. He looked different somehow—a little bit wilder, a little bit looser. It hadn’t even been a week since he’d left, but he seemed almost older, too. Like he was one step closer to becoming the person he would someday be.

“Last night was pretty awkward,” he said to the window.

“You could say that.”

“And that wine,” he said. “That wine was really bad.”

Aubrey glimpsed at him. “How could you tell?”

“Technically, I don’t know shit about wine. But yikes. That stuff tasted like a Cherry Coke that got drunk.”

“Good point.” The sunlight winked in the metal of the tracks; Aubrey tried to count the rushing trees.

“All right.” He let out a breath. “So. Do you want to talk or what?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

He crammed his hands into his pockets. “I want to clear the air, yeah. And I want you to know I’m not with Leah now. We hung out, and she was cool about me staying with her, but I don’t know where things will go from here.”

“Jonah. You can be with anyone you want.”

“I know. But still.”

They stopped talking. Aubrey crossed her arms over her book and looked down. She and Jonah had never really dealt with long silences before—Jonah had always filled them even when Aubrey couldn’t. She stared at the tan forming on top of her feet and at her shoes reflected in the glass. And beyond that, at the train tracks that continued to move beneath them. A seemingly endless string.

“Breaking up really sucks,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “It does.”

She turned to the side to look at him. “Does everyone hate me now? Is that what they’re saying when I’m not around?”

“No.” He turned toward her, too. “Does everyone hate me? For leaving?”

“They were just confused. Well, Clara and Rae were confused. I don’t think they expected us to break up, like, ever.”

“Ever?”

“I know, right?” She pressed her elbow against the glass. “But I don’t think I’d pictured it, either. I thought if it did happen, it would be sometime in the far, distant future. I thought we’d be so mature that maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much. But I guess that was pretty ridiculous.”

“No,” he said. “It wasn’t ridiculous.”

Aubrey nodded. It was funny how even now—even after everything that had happened—she felt okay being around him. She was still comfortable sharing the same space as him.

“I guess you’re pretty mad at me,” she said. “And Gabe. Are you really mad at Gabe? You don’t hate him now, do you?”

“I wouldn’t say hate. I just—I don’t know. I’ll get over it.” His eyes fell to the book in her arms. “What are you reading?”

“The Waves,” she said eagerly. “By Virginia Woolf. Have you read it?”

“That’s more your area than mine, Aubs.” But he took it from her anyway. It was a paperback, a used copy she’d found at a bookstore near Lucy’s antique shop. The cover was a photograph of waves cresting and foaming. The title ran across it in white.

“It’s really perfect,” Aubrey said. “It’s about this group of friends who all go to school together when they’re kids, but then they get older, and they start leading these really different lives. But I think the point is supposed to be that they’re still connected in some way. Even when they don’t talk to each other for years. Even when they’re in completely different parts of the world.”

Jonah opened the first page. “Sounds like an Aubrey book to me.”

Aubrey bit her bottom lip. The train swayed a little, making it look like the tracks swayed, too. But Aubrey didn’t lose her footing. She was here with Jonah, and, in some ways, things still felt the same. He was still cute and sincere and a little bit unkempt. She was still anxious and worried and overthinking everything. And they both still knew each other. They still held so many pieces of each other’s lives. He gave her the book back, and she hugged it to her chest.

“Why did you come back?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“This was our trip,” he said. “I couldn’t miss out on it. Not all of it, anyway.”

Aubrey looked back outside and realized it wasn’t raining any longer.

“And I don’t hate Gabe,” he said. “We’ll probably even hang out again. Not right away, but you never know. Maybe we’ll play some video games over winter break. Hash it out with simulated death.”

“My parents are going to be so unhappy when I tell them we broke up. My mom will definitely still invite you to our Christmas party, though.”

“Cool. But, Aubs. Your mom does remember I’m Jewish, right?”

“Yeah.” Aubrey sighed. “I should probably remind her of that.”

They both turned to face the window again, watching the view like they were watching a movie. Images on a screen. All that reflected light.

Aubrey squeezed her book even tighter. Standing so close to the window, it was almost like they’d let go of the train. Like they were sailing this fast all by themselves. She wanted to stay there for hours as the scenery ran away behind them. Reminding her that they were here, they were here, they were here—and then they were gone.