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Although I don’t have too many hopes at this point. I have screwed up things too badly for hopes.
Is it too late to start believing in God?
The minute I see him, my heart jumps in my throat. He must be jet-lagged and exhausted, but he doesn’t look it. He looks relaxed and calm, and his eyes have that shining quiet contentment about them. He looks like a different person than the one I met last year.
He is happy.
He is glowing so much he’s practically the sun. And as soon as I see the girl he’s got his arm around, I get why. She’s not a girl; she’s an Amazon. She’s tall and sunny and has a smile for days. She hugs me warmly, while Spence tells me that I’ve lost weight in his dad-voice.
“Oh, I was fine,” I tell him. “This all happened since I came to Greece. I haven’t worked so hard in my life.”
“That is unacceptable,” Ari says.
Wes nods in agreement. “We’ll have to feed you then, won’t we?”
His eyes turn serious as he grips my arm and leans in to quietly thank me for what I’m doing.
“What am I doing?” I retort. “Watching pink sunsets and sipping rich red wine for two weeks straight? This place is made entirely of poetry, history and beauty. And water. So much calm, clear water. A sacrifice indeed.”
“Ah,” he leans back, a satisfied sparkle in his eye. “So it got to you too, did it? There’s magic here, mate, I’m telling you. This place changes you.”
I shrug. Is he right? Am I changing? I realize I haven’t complained about the tour in days. I’ve just been working my ass off and enjoying every single minute of it. And I haven’t been blocked since Eden. And Greece. The combination of these two has been my own personal renaissance.
Let’s see if I will destroy the beautiful memories of this place as thoroughly as I have destroyed my already brittle relationship with Eden. I absolutely loathe myself.
“You know James, right?” I turn to Ari, whose face immediately lights up. That’s weird; no one reacts to the mention of my insufferable brother like that, but she genuinely has the biggest smile on her face right now. “I think he said you were friends. I must have heard wrong. He never says that about anyone.”
“No one was more surprised than me,” Ari replies, and her laugh sounds like music. “But it’s true. Pan and I have been through… stuff together.” Everyone apart from me and mom calls James ‘Pan’, after his last name. He’s that important. (Or he thinks he is). “I haven’t spent a ton of time with him, but those shared experiences we had… they forged a strong bond between us. Traumatic experiences tend to do that, don’t you think?”
“I definitely think that’s true.” I think of Eden and me.
Then again, when do I not think of Eden and me? She is always on my mind. I bite my lip.Don’t think about her, don’t.
Ari is studying my face, and I don’t mind, for once. Almost everyone does this when they meet me face-to-face for the first time.
“Gosh, you’re beautiful,” she says and she sounds so earnest and mesmerized, I burst out laughing.
“I’m literally standing right here,” Spencer sounds half-teasing half-irritated.
She turns around and slings an arm around his shoulders. “You look good too, babe,” she tells him and he pretends to be mad.
I have to look away. Seeing them so happy together, so at ease with each other, so comfortably in love, sends a pain so sharp through me it steals my breath. Suddenly, in my brain, it’s not Ari and Wes, it’s Eden and me. And instead of being surrounded by steep cliffs coated in pine trees and a clear, blue sky, I’m back in the brown and orange woods of Massachusetts.
I’m back there.
In our woods.
…
“Tell me I’m pretty,” she said in that serious voice of hers.
I got a lump in my throat. How could I tell her that without telling her she was everything? I’d start by saying she was pretty and I’d never stop.
“You are the moon and the stars.” My voice cracked.
She rolled her eyes. She never used to flinch at my sudden movements back then, or slouch or avoid my eyes. She was sharp and clear like a jewel.
“Just say the words, say, ‘you’re pretty.”
