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A girl I haven’t seen in years, who I made sure no longer exists.
The version of myself I left behind a long time ago.
2
BROOKE
I drag the cursor of my laptop inward slightly, minimizing the size of my thigh to Barbie perfection. My smiling face stares back at me from the screen, my body contorted into the pose I’ve practiced to precision: arm popped out to appear as thin as possible, torso slightly turned away from the camera, stomach tight.
Bored with the futility of the task at hand, I lean back in my chair with a sigh. There are a few guests milling about the Tiki Palms, but given that it’s between the breakfast and lunch rush, the official open-air restaurant and beach bar of the Koh Sang Dive Resort is relatively empty. I take another sip from the iced coffee I’ve been nursing for the last hour. Despite how cheap things are here, I don’t have the spare baht to spend on a second cup.
Unlike most of the clientele, I chose a seat in the corner of the restaurant, with my back toward the ocean. After two weeks on the island, I’ve become accustomed to the stunning aquamarine waters lapping gently against white sand, the colors oversaturated, like everything is draped in an Instagram filter. So I face towardthe resort, monitoring the guests coming and going. A much more interesting view.
The resort itself is carved into the side of a hill, as are most places that line the perimeter of the jagged island. From my vantage point, I can see the path from the beach sharply ascend to the main road. Perfectly trimmed palm trees and clusters of magenta flowers decorate guest rooms grouped in motel-style buildings. Two pools—one for lazing and one for training—dot the hill at the one place where an extended flat area makes their existence possible. Past the pools, one of the island’s main roads bisects the resort, but the resort grounds continue even further on. Another bigger infinity pool—the resort’s designated party pool—along with the spa, fitness center and yoga studio, and even more guest rooms graze the northern half of the resort. All in all, the mile of landscaped grounds covers nearly a quarter of the island.
I watch as a group of divers descends the sharp incline, fins in hand and masks hanging from their wrists, evidently heading toward the dive shop, the resort’s main draw. “Koh Sang: a scuba diving island with a party problem” reads the back of the T-shirts they sell in the resort lobby. But my eyes skirt over them to a small figure who follows about twenty feet behind. Unlike the divers, she’s not carrying anything. She’s petite with delicate features and fine, light brown hair.
Normally I wouldn’t give her the time of day, except her eyes lock on mine. I hold her gaze for a second, convinced that she’ll stop staring, but she doesn’t. She’s familiar in a way, reminding me of someone. I scroll through a mental list of past acquaintances, Instagram connections, and even family members, but I come up empty.
I know what this must be: a follower who recognizes their favorite Instagram influencer in the wild. I’ve only been approached by my social media followers a few times in person, but it always makes me uncomfortable. I know what they expect from me: the bubbly, upbeat, slightly ditzy personality I post all over my @BrookeaTrip social media pages.
But Real World Me isn’t the walking Barbie they expect. Unfortunately, Instagram still hasn’t made a life filter that can permanently smooth away my rough edges.
I’m not in the mood this morning to plaster on my @BrookeaTrip smile. Hoping the approaching girl will take the hint, I divert my eyes, pretending to focus back on my laptop screen.
After a moment, I can’t help but look up again. Unlike the divers walking in front of her, who veered right off the path to head to the dive shop, she continues toward the restaurant, her eyes still fixed on mine. Something in me tenses, and my fingers curl into my palms.
“I figured I’d bring options.”
The voice close to my ear makes me jump.
“Jesus!” My pulse spikes until I turn around, realizing who it is. “God, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” I scold, but I can’t keep the smile from my voice.
“Sorry!” Neil smiles at me goofily. “I didn’t know what kind of drink you’d want, so I figured I’d bring options.” He gestures toward the table in front of us where he’s deposited three beverages: a green bottle of Chang beer, a pink cocktail topped with an umbrella, and a smoothie.
He’s big, with a body more akin to a teddy bear’s than the chiseled muscles most of the guys here spend hours in the gym refiningeach day. Freckles dominate the majority of his face, with a few stray dots sneaking onto his pink lips. His fire-red hair is wet and plastered to one side. I watch as a drop of water emerges from the end of one sodden strand, dangling before dropping onto my arm.
“Sorry,” Neil says with a chuckle as the water hits my skin. “Just got out of a dive.”
That explains it. He must have dropped his stuff off at the dive shop and entered the restaurant from the beach side. I was so transfixed by the girl that I never even heard him order.
The girl.
I immediately turn back to the resort, but she’s gone. That’s strange. I could have sworn she was coming to talk to me. I look up and down the hill, even scanning the beach, but I don’t see her anywhere. It’s like she disappeared.
“I saw you up here and thought you could use some company.” The boldness of Neil’s flirtation brings me back to the present, and despite myself, I can’t help but blush.
I met Neil last week when Cass dragged me to Frangipani Bar, an expat-dominated dive bar located a mile or so up from the beach that Cass’s boyfriend—and apparently now fiancé, according to the text I received from her late last night—owns. Cass pointed Neil out as her coworker, one of only three dive instructors at the resort. I tried to ignore the flutter in my stomach as he shook my hand in greeting and introduced himself in his British accent, but my disloyal face flushed every time I felt his eyes on me that night. It wasn’t just his looks that set him apart; it was how he was so unabashedly himself, unconcerned with whatever anyone else thought. His originality radiated charm.
Every time I stole a glance at him that night, he would lookback, a glint in his eyes. I tried to hide the flush in my cheeks, drowning it out with irritation at my own naivete. I knew what Neil likely saw when he looked at me: the same thing every other guy did. A fit body, a perfectly made-up face, and absolutely nothing underneath. A person who morphs from beautiful to shrill whenever a guy realizes she actually has something to say. Believe me, I’ve read the comments on my Instagram page.
Since that first night, I’ve run into him on a few other occasions, whenever Cass brought me along to a group event: karaoke at the Tiki Palms, an afternoon picnic and beach volleyball game in the gloriously empty Lamphan beach over on the opposite side of the island, where tourists don’t bother to venture.
I would secretly dread those get-togethers, but I never had a good enough excuse to decline the invite. I had seen how that group of friends—the Permanents, they called themselves—interacted with one another. They were so close that it didn’t seem like there was room for anyone else. Cass did the best she could to keep me involved, but eventually she would end up next to Logan, the two of them losing themselves in some romantic revelry. And I would always end up drifting off to the outskirts of the group. Alone.
But Neil would always be the one to save me. He’d drag up a seat next to me in the sand or at a Tiki Palms picnic table and pull me into conversation with one of his stupid dad jokes. Making me feel like I belonged, as if he actually wanted to get to know me. The real me, not @BrookeaTrip. It was a feeling I couldn’t seem to shake for hours after we’d separate, a sugary hangover that filled me with a warmth that seemed lacking here, despite Koh Sang’s blistering temperatures.
Something about this moment though—us, here in the TikiPalms—feels different from those other times. Without Doug somewhere behind us cracking dirty jokes to Greta, or Cass shooting me knowing smiles, silently taking the credit for us hitting it off, it’s just the two of us. Neil and I have never been just one-on-one without the other Permanents. There’s something oddly intimate about it.
