Balt

 

Leaning against a pole on the train platform, I watched as people surged by and glanced again at my phone. I’d texted Piper where I was ten minutes ago and she still hadn’t appeared. Or responded. Shifting from foot to foot, I grit my teeth and glared around. All I wanted to do was get to the hotel, take a damn shower, and get some lunch.

The surge slowed as fewer and fewer people walked by until the platform was empty. Glancing around, I saw Piper was nowhere to be seen. Punching in her number, I called and it went straight to voicemail. Her phone’s dead. Great. Well, I guess we’ll meet at the hotel.

I stormed off, shoving through the crowd and keeping an eye out for her. It was a shadowy station, filled with great splashes of sunlight. As I got outside and got into a cab, I hesitated, suddenly feeling uneasy. But the cabbie was asking me to get in and I obliged.

On the way to the hotel, I tried to even my breathing and calm down. I knew Piper had meant well and I believed the notebook thing was an accident, but I couldn’t reason with myself. My blood pressure went through the roof every time I thought about it. How could she do that?

Further, she was starting to dig in around the careful barriers I’d placed up around the secret of the curse. It was only a matter of time till she found out.

And then she’d start trying to cure it, which was the last thing I wanted. If she got hurt because of my family or me, I’d never forgive myself. She had to stay out of this. I had to convince her of that, no matter what.

Unbidden, in my mind, I saw her shocked and hurt face on the train. My stomach clenched with agony. Everything I did lately seemed to hurt Piper.

At that moment, I realized I hadn’t heard from Desmond. Dez, who always came through and always found an answer. I could feel all of my hope and determination ebbing away as the cabbie pulled up to the hotel. For a moment, I was tempted to tell him to keep driving, but I gamely got out and went in. Time to make amends and move forward. Somehow.

At the desk, I’d expected Piper to have arrived first, but no one had checked in. Uneasy, I called her again and got her voicemail. Stepping to the side in the busy lobby, I looked down at the fesootai and gripped it in my right hand. Nothing.

Panic was starting to outpace anger. I was having flashbacks to that dark day in Malibu when I’d experienced the same numb sensation. Pulling out my phone, I tried to track hers. Nothing.

At that moment, I sucked in a sharp breath and turned, grabbing my bags and rushing back to the front of the hotel. I all but shoved a man out of the way as I dove into the taxi and barked out a request for the airport.

As we drove, I pulled up another way to track Piper. It was one I’d forgotten to tell her about and was glad I did. Her father and I had cooked it up after her kidnapping. A ring that had belonged to her mother had been upgraded.

Sure enough, Piper was at the airport. I took several gulps of air, knowing there was no way she could have gotten a flight that fast.

Once there, I gazed around, trying to figure out where she could be. Then I stopped and stared. On a board overhead, I saw a flight for Athens, Greece was leaving in ten minutes.

“Piper, no,” I breathed, taking off running.

But deep down, I knew it was too late. I swore I could feel it in the minutes trickling by. By the time I got through security, the plane had lifted off the ground. Piper was gone.

She was going to Greece with no idea of what she was getting herself into.

 

Several hours later, I was on standby for another flight to Athens. Piper was probably already there, but every call still went to voicemail. At this point, I was starting to lose my mind. I’d forced myself to eat, but every thought went back to Piper.

It was about six p.m. when I finally boarded. My knees were bouncing as the plane zoomed into the sky and I stared out the window.

Piper, why do you have to make everything so damn difficult?

However, by the end of the two-hour flight, I was no longer angry, but wretched. I should have known Piper wouldn’t let this go. And that she would have leaped into action in the most reckless way possible. She was Kai’s older sister after all.

Suddenly I found myself caught in the memory of that morning in Paris when she’d wrapped her arms around me. I’d listened to her heart and steady breathing. Inhaled her scent, which I could still smell now. She’d been so vulnerable and–

It hit me then and I sucked in a sharp breath. Piper found that letter in London. The morning at Heathrow suddenly showed up in perfect clarity – why she was so upset and confused. Why she wouldn’t talk to me. After everything, it was the letter that had pushed her over the edge.

My throat ached. It was just like when we’d fought about Kai all those years ago. I’d cracked open her vulnerability without meaning to. Piper’s illness had been borne of the influx of new stress coupled with her fight to put things back to the way they were.

Meanwhile, I was caught between wanting so much more and knowing I had to leave.

No wonder why we were fighting.

Thinking back to that morning in Paris, my heart acted strangely in my chest and I stared out the window, remembering. She’d brought up one of my sweetest and most treasured memories.

Piper had recalled a day where I finally accepted moving to America. Other people might forget little things like that, but I never could. Leaving Greece and losing my father had been a maelstrom of things all at once. I hadn’t wanted to learn English or live in America or unpack.

But I couldn’t say otherwise. I knew my uncle had sacrificed a lot to bring us here. I knew he was missing our family as much as I was. Perhaps more.

When Piper had spoken Greek to me, her small, serious face and giant blue eyes filled with nothing but the desire to help – to do something for me – it had filled my seven-year-old heart to the brim. I’d smiled for what seemed like the first time in weeks. A real smile.

You’re here. I’d said to her.

I’m here. She’d said back, blue eyes glowing.

Piper would do anything for me and that was the problem.

 

As the taxi wound through the streets of Athens, lights blossoming out as sunset fell, I was struck with a sense of nostalgia and awe. The last time I’d been here was twenty-seven years ago.

The cab driver was talking my ear off, but I wasn’t paying attention to him. I was letting memories come and go as we drove through the streets. Little blips were recalling bright, hot days with my dad and uncle, laughing as we walked along the beach or through the city. Our visits to ancient temples and my father’s deep voice explaining their significance.

Their banter and brotherhood.

Athens had remained as beautiful as I remembered. The deep, deep blue of the sky, the winding, old-world streets and the sweet smell of flowers everywhere.

I’d always thought Piper’s eyes were like the sky in Greece and I looked up at where the blue of the sky had not been overtaken by twilight, I saw I was right.

The cab driver dropped me off in the Plaka neighborhood where Piper was staying. Marching into the hotel, I could feel my temper rising again, but I tried to hold it in check. After charming the staff, convincing them I was Piper’s husband here to surprise her, they gave me a key and let me into her room. It helped that I knew every last detail about her down to her social security number.

In the room, I sighed when I found it empty. It was a beautiful place, all blue tile, and white walls, with billowing curtains. Her gardenia scent was already light and fragrant on the air. And her suitcase was already upended, clothes everywhere.

Piper is such a slob. I thought with some affection.

I glanced at the canopied bed and saw the blankets were slightly mussed. She must have taken a nap. Putting down my bags, I quickly took a shower and changed. I desperately needed one and I had to blend in more if I were to find her.

Ten minutes later, I set off down the winding streets of Plaka, glad of the deep purple shadows cast by the lights. Flowers burst overhead – the neighborhood was famous for its canopies of blossoms. Tourists were everywhere, snapping pictures and talking eagerly. Meanwhile, locals pushed by, going out to dinner or heading to work at nearby restaurants.

Walking down the streets, I searched everywhere for Piper, but she was elusive. The tracking app created by Elias and I wasn’t precise enough, so I walked in circles for a while. But finally, I rounded a corner and stopped dead. Relief flooded me and my heart started to race.

I’d found her.

She was sitting at an outdoor café, wearing something Soraya must have given her. It was a long and colorful ruffled dress with a slit up the side of the skirt, exposing a long tan leg. Her hair was a cascade of curls down her back and the blue of her eyes seemed to glow.

At that moment, she stood up, sinuous and graceful. But there was a sadness to her movements, a contained kind of grief as she left money and began to walk, the dress rustling around her. The night sky seemed painted and the lights drenched her skin in gold.

I suddenly had the strangest feeling of seeing this before, as though in a dream.

Piper in Greece.

That’s when I’d remembered something – something I’d long ago stashed away in a place of impossible dreams. I’d planned on it before I realized I couldn’t tell Piper how I felt.

I’d wanted to bring Piper here – to Greece. To walk the little streets and show her the old-world beauty. To kiss her in secret and opulent gardens. Whisper how beautiful she was in Greek.

I remembered how I’d pictured her face lighting up and her shy smile.

Gritting my jaw, I followed her and tried to shove it all down, but it wouldn’t stop. Heat was rushing through me and overtaking every last thought. The walls were melting away.

Piper glanced up at the sky and smiled in a way that I knew exactly who she was thinking about. And the final, fragile grip I had on that firestorm of desire and passion dissolved.