Monday, July 4

AMSTERDAM

Aubrey woke up at seven AM, worrying about Rae.

She turned over in her bunk and let her eyes adjust to the hostel room around her—the triangle of light filtering between the curtains, the banged-up set of dresser drawers, the bunk bed where Clara and Rae were curled up under polka-dotted sheets. They hadn’t arrived until after midnight, so Aubrey knew she should still be tired, but she wasn’t. She’d slept fitfully, obsessing over how weird and distant Rae had acted when they’d brought up Australia on the train.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe Rae was keeping something from her. Something about Australia? Something about leaving? Aubrey tossed and turned. Rae was so evasive when it came to college. The first time she’d told Aubrey she was considering Melbourne, she’d sounded uninterested in the whole idea. Like it was no big deal to her. Like she would be living in a separate state rather than a separate hemisphere.

Aubrey pushed back her covers and climbed down the ladder of her bunk, bare feet padding along the cold linoleum floor as she went to sit on Rae’s bed. “Wake up,” she said. “We’re in Amsterdam.”

Rae smashed her face into her pillow. “I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t you want coffee?” Aubrey asked. “Or waffles? I bet they have waffles in Amsterdam.”

“Why are you awake right now? It’s evil and it’s wrong.”

Aubrey’s eyes fell to a spot on the wooden bedpost where someone had scratched two sets of initials inside a heart. She traced her thumb over the indents, feeling a little let down that Rae didn’t want to hang out with her. Feeling a little like it was a sign that Rae was already pulling away, growing distant.

“Fine,” Aubrey said. “I’m going to take a shower.” She grabbed her toiletry bag and some clothes and slipped into the hallway. The bathroom was quiet this early in the morning, and she watched as steam clouded up the light fixtures above her. She let herself think about how much she was going to miss Rae. Soon, she wouldn’t automatically know everything that was going on in her best friend’s life. She wouldn’t be a fixed part of her world anymore. It was like they were both speeding toward a dead end. Like the ground was slipping out from under their feet.

She banged her elbow on the shower’s narrow walls, then stared at the dingy tile and considered how germ-ridden it must be. This was nothing like the spacious shower in the hotel in Paris—it was probably more like the one she would have to deal with in her dorm in New York.

When the water ran cold, Aubrey turned it off and changed into the T-shirt and shorts she’d hung on the back of the stall door. Her dark hair dripped as she combed it out and then put on sunscreen. When she left the bathroom, she instantly walked into Gabe. He stumbled backward, and so did she, toiletries spilling out of her bag.

She ducked down to pick them up. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Not your fault.” Gabe leaned over to help, their heads bending toward each other. “So”—she neatly arranged all her tiny bottles of shampoo and soap—“what are you doing here?”

“Showering,” he said. “Or I was about to. In—um—the bathroom.”

They stood again, Gabe holding her conditioner now, and Aubrey clutching her toothbrush to her chest. He was wearing only boxer shorts and a T-shirt, so she concentrated on the wall beside her, which had a flyer on it advertising an outdoor music festival.

“Gabe?” she said.

“Yeah?” He shifted from foot to foot, obviously uncomfortable.

“Um, you still have my conditioner—”

On the floor above them, a door banged open. In the nearest room, Aubrey could hear someone strumming an acoustic guitar. But her thoughts were louder than anything else: Leave him alone. Give him space. “Anyway”—she grabbed the conditioner from him—“thank you.” And then she ran all the way back to her room.

Aubrey yanked back the curtains and shoved open the window to let in the morning noise.

Clara whimpered and pulled the covers over her head, but Rae barely moved. Neither of them got up.

This was starting to piss Aubrey off. They only had one full day in Amsterdam, and they needed to make the most of it. Her phone buzzed and she lunged for it, desperate for someone to talk to. It was a text from Jonah. He was downstairs and wanted to know if she was awake yet. She grabbed her key and left the room before she’d even replied.

Their hostel sat on the edge of the Vondelpark, and Aubrey opened the front door to see tall, skinny trees and scrubby purple wildflowers, with a rush of bikes clipping past it all.

Jonah was sitting on the front steps, playing with his phone. His hair was pushed back from his forehead, and he was wearing a forest-green shirt—a really cute one that matched the color of his eyes. He stood up when he saw her and handed over a small paper cup. “Good morning,” he said. “They had free coffee in the lobby.”

Aubrey sipped it and coughed.

“Sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you: It’s pretty gross.”

“Yeah.” She tried to swallow the burnt taste in her mouth. “You definitely should have.”

“So, guess what?” He bounced up and down on his heels. “I’ve been looking stuff up, and I’ve come up with a whole plan for today. And I know exactly where we should go first.”

“You came up with a plan?”

“Yeah, you’re not the only one here who can make plans.”

She felt her mood lift. “Clearly.”

They threw their cups in the trash and made their way through the park. Past lush green lawns and small lakes and dainty, idyllic gazebos. It all looked like something from a tourist brochure. Aubrey could picture herself doing this kind of thing soon in New York—probably in Central Park. She and Jonah would crunch over autumn leaves or go ice-skating before winter break or bring a picnic in the spring and do their homework in the sunshine.

They’d been walking for about twenty minutes when they reached a clearing taken over by a group of treehouses, all of them balanced on stilts with rope bridges and ladders hanging from their sides. It was the first part of the park they’d been to that was completely empty.

“What do you think?” Jonah said. “It’s rad, right?”

“Is it a playground?” Aubrey asked.

“A treehouse playground. Don’t you wish you’d had a place like this when you were a kid?”

Aubrey eyed one of the rope ladders. “I was actually pretty afraid of heights.”

“Somehow, I’m unsurprised by that.” Jonah nudged her shoulder. “Okay. Follow me.”

The ladder creaked and shuddered under his weight while Aubrey stood at the bottom, hands braced on the rung in front of her. Of all the things that might happen to her before college, death by horrible treehouse accident wasn’t her favorite option. The ladder slackened when Jonah reached the top. “You have to come up,” he called down to her.

“This seems unsafe,” she called back, gripping the rope as she climbed. “Maybe we’re not supposed to be here.”

“We’re definitely not supposed to be here. We’re not child-size anymore.” He scooted out of her way so she could crawl inside. The walls of the small room were made of slats of wood that let in long stripes of light, and the sanded floor was covered in a layer of sawdust. Even on her hands and knees, Aubrey had to duck so her head wouldn’t hit the low ceiling.

“See?” Jonah sat back. “Told you I’m full of plans.”

Aubrey tipped her head to watch a burst of sun appear between two slats. Silhouettes of leaves shivered against one another. “I can’t believe everyone is missing this,” she said.

“I don’t think we’d all fit.”

“No, I know. It’s just—I thought we’d all go out together this morning. See the sights. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?”

Jonah shrugged. “I guess they’re still tired.”

“I guess.” Aubrey sat beside him. She wanted to tell him about the feeling she’d woken up with—the feeling that Rae was keeping something from her. The feeling that, when Rae left, Aubrey might begin to lose her best friend. But she couldn’t get into all that with Jonah. The nuances of girl friendships tended to confuse him.

“Aubs.” Jonah leaned over to tug on a strand of her hair. “Don’t worry so much.”

“I’m not worrying.”

He tugged her hair again. “You’re always worrying.”

She smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Anyway,” he said, “maybe we don’t want anyone else here.”

Aubrey looked over at his teasing eyes, at the small, adorable lines that appeared by the sides of his mouth whenever he smiled. She realized that, for the first time in a while, they were alone. Not the way they’d been that first night in Paris. Not vomiting and alone. But alone alone. The treehouse was dark and cool, and Jonah was brushing his fingers through the ends of her hair.

“I’ve never seen you like this before,” he said.

“In a treehouse?”

“No.” His voice went low; he seemed to get shy. “By ourselves. First thing in the morning.”

She moved toward him; their mouths touched. And in that single breath, all of Aubrey’s anxiety faded away. The tiny room was crowded with the two of them, so she moved one leg over his lap, and he pulled her closer. The bottom of her T-shirt slid against the bottom of his. Her hands traveled into his hair….

And then his phone vibrated between them, making Aubrey jump, her head smacking the ceiling. “Ow.” She reached back to rub her head. “Jesus.”

She had to move out of his way so he could shimmy his phone from his pocket. “It’s probably just Leah,” he explained.

“Leah?”

“Yeah, I told her to text when she was at the hostel. But I figured she’d be a while.”

Aubrey stopped rubbing her head. “So, Leah’s at the hostel? Right now?”

“I think so. She’s got the whole day off, so I said she should come over here. Show us around.”

“I thought you came up with a plan for today.”

“Exactly. That is the plan.”

A bird fluttered over the treehouse, its shadow moving across the floor. Everything went quiet as Jonah’s thumbs flew over the screen of his phone.

“Actually,” Aubrey said, “I had a few places I really wanted to see.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “But Leah will know all the non-touristy ones. She does live here.”

“She interns here,” Aubrey said, and she could hear the bitterness in her voice. Not that Jonah was listening anymore.

She adjusted her shorts and crawled off his lap. The silence in the treehouse felt overwhelming now. And Aubrey couldn’t seem to shove aside her most anxious thoughts about Leah. Thoughts that Leah would take up all of Jonah’s time and attention. Thoughts that Aubrey would be the one left behind.

Instead, she tried to imagine what this place would be like in a few hours—kids crawling all over it, disappearing in and out of the trees. A day from now, Aubrey wouldn’t even be in Amsterdam anymore. She would be catching another train, racing off to Prague. A few weeks after that, she and her parents would be at Heathrow, boarding the plane that would bring her to New York. But now Aubrey couldn’t shake the thought that maybe this was what her life in New York would be—not the one she’d daydreamed about on their first night in Paris, but one that kept getting interrupted with texts. One that was all about NYU and Alphabet City apartments and Jonah-and-Leah.

Jonah-and-Leah going to hipster bars and concerts downtown. Jonah-and-Leah hanging out while Aubrey studied in the library and stressed out and ate dinner by herself in the school cafeteria. Maybe next year, Jonah would move into that apartment without her.

Maybe he and Leah would grow closer and closer. While he and Aubrey grew further and further apart.