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“Let’stoast to the fact I’ve been inside this treehouse for the past two hours and haven’t freaked out yet.” Nico tips his glass to mine, and we sip on white wine, the first bottle we’ve cracked open for viewing the sunset this evening.
I laugh. “You also won’t go anywhere near the edge.”
“Hey, no need to call me out.”
Nico booked a slight detour a few days after landing in Cyprus. A boutique hotel in a secluded part of the Paphos Forest. It’s probably the most interesting of our stays. We lie on our oversized bed, staring out into a canopy of trees in the roofless bedroom, warm air dampening our skin.
His inventory of distractions seems to have no end. We’ve toured local villages, explored nature hikes, and roasted in the sun on white sand beaches.
A gust of wind blows the lone strip of faded black hair out of Nico’s face. I wrap one of my fingers around his stray curl, playing with the strand. The sky swirls with bursts of bronze and marigold, not a cloud in sight.
“Are you feeling okay?” He nudges his knuckle against my knee, shattering the semblance of peace between us.
I knew it was too good to be true.
I realize I can’t forget my problems forever, but I was content being here today with Nico and not in the fog of worry in my head.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I lie, popping a stray sour grape into my mouth and putting on my best attempt at an Academy Award–winning smile.
“Well, beautiful girl, there’s the nail-biting, the constant phone checking even though we have absolutely no service, and—”
“Alright, I get it.”
Each passing hour has added another notch of weight around my neck. The chain of thoughts pulls me into the ground and makes it more difficult to truly articulate what I’m feeling.
“Lil, you can talk to me. How can I be here for you?”
“I don’t know.” My mind is still overflowing with a jar of what-ifs.
He pulls me closer to him. We lie in silence for a while, watching the last drops of color bleed from the sky until the first stars appear like freckles across the ether.
The courage I’ve been summoning balloons to the surface.
“While we were in the Azores, Ave made me realize something I wasn’t quite ready to come to terms with.”
“You finally figured out I’m the better-looking Navarro brother?” He faces me, a cheesy grin plastered across his face. “I already know that.”
“Still up for debate.” I sigh, angling my face away from him to hide the twinge of frustration nipping at my chest. No matter the situation, there hasn’t been a time when Nico hasn’t tried to brighten the mood with a laugh or a joke, but right now, it only seems to sting.
He glides one of his thumbs along my jaw, tracing my cheekbones until his fingers rake through my hair. “As long as I win in your eyes, I think it’ll be enough.” I give him a half-hearted smirk, feeling more adrift on an island of my own making than when the conversation began. “I’m sorry, Lil, I’m only trying to make you smile. It hurts when we’re together but it’s like you’re somewhere else entirely.”
“I don’t really feel like myself.” I sigh deeper this time, turning back to his comforting gaze.
“Who do you feel like you are right now?”
It’s a question I’ve been grappling with for several days.
“Like a figment of my own imagination. I feel like I’ve put up all these walls around me and now I’m trapped.” Nico brushes the back of his hand along the slope of my neck. “Now, I don’t feel like either Lily or Zoe. I feel like a shell of both.”
“You may not like hearing this, but the person you’ve grown into this summer is much more complex and beautiful than a set of carefully planned identities. I like every part of you I’ve seen. So yeah, love, you may have walls, but after spending every day with you for over two months, I can see those walls are made of glass.” When I doubt there’s a semblance of seriousness in his body, Nico manages to throw me off-kilter, turning into one of the wisest people.
“Glass is fragile and breaks easily.” Maybe that’s exactly who I am now, the same girl I was ten years ago, shattered into a million pieces across the kitchen floor.
“It doesn’t crack under pressure, and it doesn’t shatter when held by the right people.”
“Are we still talking about glass?”
“We’re talking about my favorite person in the world with a mind so sharp, it’s caused me to drop to my knees on several occasions.” Nico places a kiss on my forehead. “Eyes that spend a long time leering at me when I get out of the shower.” He grazes his mouth over my eyes, but I pull away with a giggle.
