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The ocean lapsagainst the sand and I lean back in my chair. It’s late afternoon. Sunlight cooks my skin. I keep my eyes closed and let myself sink into the warmth and the gentle sound of the waves and the birds crying out up in the sky. A breeze cools the sweat and I flex my hands, stretching the fingers, my knuckles bruised and battered from working out on the heavy bag with Luca this morning. The pain feels good, but it makes me think about him.
“You’re gonna burn, you know.” Kacia flops down beside me with a sigh. “At least use an umbrella.”
I wave her off and try to smile but nothing happens. “I’m fine, honestly. I’ll cover up in a bit.”
“I hope you have on sunscreen at least.”
“I never leave home without it.”
She grins at me and leans back on an elbow. We lapse into comfortable silence as she takes out a tattered paperback and pretends to read. Really, she’s down here checking up on me and making sure I’m not losing my mind. Which is fair, I’ve been weird ever since I came back from Greece—even I can see that. I just can’t find the words to explain what I’m going through.
I know she wants to ask about what happened. I’ve been back in Avalon, New Jersey, ever since Reina put me on a plane and told me to never come back to Greece for as long as I live. I still haven’t processed everything, especially the end, and I don’t know how to explain it to Kacia. Even though she’s my best friend and, of anyone in this world, she’d understand the best, I still can’t put it into words.
I feel like I’m broken again.
Like I’m back in that Russian basement, battered, bruised, and shattered. I know I’m safe—but it’s like losing Peter and whatever we were building sent me back to the beginning again.
Even though my wounds have healed, it’s like I’ve been thrown down the steps, stomped on, drowned.
Reina put it like this:Peter loves you and if you die, it will kill him, so if you care about him at all, you will stop being such a selfish little child and get on the damn plane.
In the end, that’s what did it. Reina’s insistent stare, her disgust, her disregard for what I wanted. My promise to Peter. It all came together to push me into a decision I didn’t want to make. She got me in the car, she got me to the airport, and she dragged me to the gate herself. She waved as I got on the plane.
And on the whole flight back, I just kept thinking that I was making a horrible mistake, that this was all some misunderstanding, that Peter would call and tell me to come right back the second I land.
Instead, I haven’t heard a thing from either of them.
They’re both dead for all I know.
Abandoned. That’s what I feel. Like I was a part of their lives and now I’m not.
I bet they don’t even care.
I look at the scars on my knuckles. They’re the only proof that any of it happened. That I really did learn to fight with Peter, that I really did fall for him, that I really did want him to make me a stronger person.
But now I’m back in the States and I feel myself slipping. I feel myself losing everything I worked so hard to build out there with him.
Boxing with Luca helps, but it’s nowhere near the same.
He doesn’t hit me the way Peter did.
Luca’s too afraid of hurting me.
Not like Peter, who only held back because he didn’t want to kill me—but hurt me? Make me bleed? Bruise me and knock me down and get me dripping with sweat? Peter didn’t mind that at all.
He never treated me like I was fragile, and I think that’s what made me learn to be so strong.
And anyway, I need to try to find whatever comfort I can right now, because it’s all going to disappear tomorrow when Kacia and Luca head to Greece and I fly back to Los Angeles to try to pick up the pieces of my life.
Even though there’s not much life left.
“Listen, I want to say I’m sorry about earlier.” Kacia squints at the ocean. “You know, about the Greece thing. I know you don’t want me to go on this trip and it’s okay that you don’t want to tell me what happened to you out there.”
I close my eyes. I wish I could explain it. How I was a different person for a few glorious weeks, and now—
Now I’m a shell again.
“It’s okay. No, seriously, I should be apologizing. I’ve been moping around here for two weeks and you’ve been really patient with me.”
