Chapter Four
Hotel breakfasts are one of the most underrated joys this earth has to offer. I’m usually not one for early rising, but the promise of tiny baked goods and slightly overcooked eggs has me bouncing down the stairs by six-thirty a.m. in spite of the jet lag.
I expected to be the first one to reach the breakfast room, a small and brightly lit nook across from the front desk, but someone’s already there when I walk in.
Melanie.
She’s pouring herself a massive cup of coffee, and she wrinkles her nose when she takes a sip.
“This tastes like garbage,” she says cheerfully when she sees me. “I don’t know why I agreed to stay at the hotel with y’all. I could’ve had access to my own coffee maker the whole time we’re in Athens.”
“But then what would you do for tiny pastries?” I ask, clicking the tongs at her before picking out a mini chocolate croissant and a little baklava that the hotel staff has generously put out even though this is, objectively speaking, not a breakfast food.
I respect anyone who shares my worldview that anything can be a breakfast food so long as you believe.
“That and not commuting for an hour to join my mom on the outings,” Melanie says, but she helps herself to a Breakfast Baklava? all the same.
Our plates loaded up with an appropriate amount of breakfast food (read: half the buffet), we make our way to one of the smooth wood tables in the corner. I sit across from her, and Lucy’s words ring in my ears: Be open to the world.
“Where did you disappear to yesterday?” I ask.
Melanie flexes an eyebrow. “Miss me?”
“Desperately,” I say, the corners of my lips quirking up. Maybe being open means I can have a little flirt, as a treat. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Flirting with friends is just a fun, friendly time!
“One of my friends was having a graduation party, so I went over there early to help her get set up,” she says.
My shoulders slump. I’d thought Melanie was younger, like me. “You graduated this year?”
“No,” Melanie says, her tone shockingly bitter.
“Just all my friends. I…” She trails off for a moment, staring into the depths of her coffee.
“I was a sophomore, but most of my friends this year were seniors. From drama club. There was…drama.” She spins the coffee mug between her palms, her eyes still downcast, and I can tell there’s more to the story.
I know what it’s like for people to come at your soul with pliers, though, so I don’t ask her to share anything she hasn’t volunteered already.
Instead, I nod sympathetically. “My sisters are both a billion years older than me. The middle one graduated a couple of weeks ago; the oldest is getting married at the end of the summer. I get what it’s like to feel left behind.”
“Yeah. And, like, what am I going to do next year?” Melanie says. She says it like she’s telling a joke, but her voice carries the weight of thick emotion.
I reach across the table to squeeze her hand. Her skin is soft against mine, our fingers entwining easily, and she gives me a grateful smile.
And listen, I’m a “physical touch is my love language” kind of person.
I’ve held hands with all my friends a million times.
But it’s never felt like this. Our eyes meet over our joined hands, and I catch my heart yearning.
For what, I’m not sure. All I know is the weight of her hand feels natural in mine, like it belongs there.
Maybe it’s simply because we were confiding in each other. Maybe the added weight of this moment just comes from the emotions we’re both bringing to this little breakfast table. For a second, I feel caught in the moment, unsure whether—or how—to lean in or pull away from it.
If you lean in, she’ll see you.
All of you.
And then she’ll run away from you.
Friendship is better. Safer. It gives me room to enjoy our summer together, keeping her at arm’s length until there’s an ocean between us again.
The reminder is enough to make me pull back. I slip my fingers away from hers and back to my side of the table under the guise of taking another bite of baklava. It might as well be cardboard. I chew mechanically, forcing myself to swallow without gagging.
If she notices the spiral behind my eyes, Melanie doesn’t say anything. She just gives me a small smile before taking another sip of her coffee. She doesn’t bother hiding her gag.
“Really, that’s disgusting,” she says. “Who is responsible for this garbage?”
I laugh. “We need to get you another frappé.”
“Immediately,” Melanie says with a nod. She scoots her chair back from the table a bit. “Want to come with? There’s a place around the corner that’s solid.”
I’m ready to say yes. Keep talking as I walk with her around the corner, get a frappé myself, and spend the day giggling together about how jittery and overly caffeinated I am. It sounds nice. Natural, even.
But I know where that leads. An easy, smooth beginning that slides fast into a disastrous chaos of balancing on a tightrope that only grows thinner. There’s no way I’d be able to keep my balance.
Instead, I gesture to my pajamas. “I should probably get ready for the day.”
“Oh.” Melanie looks surprised for a moment, and I shrink under the realization that she expected me to say yes.
To be excited to go with her. The same way Amanda Goldstein reacted when I gave her such a hard no to homecoming.
She tried to hide it, but I could tell that she was hurt for weeks afterward, and we never found our way back to complaining about algebra in quite the same lighthearted tone.
I’m pretty sure her best friend still hates me for it. Worse still, I can’t say I blame her.
Guilt blossoms in my chest, its tendrils wrapping around my lungs.
The small part of me that yearned to hold her hand longer kindles again. Ease the disappointment, take back the way I’ve made her feel.
I stamp out the sparks before they can turn into a flame.
“No worries,” Melanie says, quickly smoothing over the little awkwardness. “See you for the tour?”
“Of course,” I say with a smile. “Next time for the coffee?”
I don’t know why it slips out, but her eyes light up when I say it, so I’m glad I did.
“Next time,” she agrees.
We part ways at the lobby, her heading out and me lingering like a fool before making my way back to the elevator. I slam my fingers into the button for my floor, and it feels like admitting defeat.
—
If I’m sacrificing everything to focus on this stupid project, I should probably focus on it.
That’s what I tell myself as we bustle off the metro and out into the busy streets of Monastiraki.
It’s a flea-market neighborhood surrounded by several important ancient sites, and as soon as we’re aboveground, I’m greeted by an explosion of color.
The stands crowd against each other on both sides of every street, bursting with woven bags made of overlapping colors, fancy glass bottles of olive oil, and linen dresses flapping in the breeze.
The smoke rising from the food vendors’ stands mix in the middle of the street, the smell of crisping meat for Lucy’s next gyro washing over us.
Even the streets themselves, a bright array of small cobblestoned tiles, add to the color of the neighborhood.
The metro exit let us out onto a wide plaza, which breaks off into smaller streets that narrow as they wind upward.
Crowds of people hustle past us as our group gets its bearings, gathering around Ms. Barlowe in a corner of the main square.
Here we’re mostly surrounded by modern apartment buildings, balconies covered in greenery, and local chain restaurants advertising their lunch offerings in loud lettering.
But amid all the chaos of life in the city center juts out the Church of Panagia Pantanassa.
It’s an ancient structure that’s been standing here, watching its surroundings change, since the tenth century.
It is small and unassuming amid the busyness of the square, its ancient stone walls and worn red-tiled roof seemingly stuck out of place and time.
I break away from the group for a quick second to frame the perfect photo, capturing both the church and the bright neon sign of the sandwich place behind it.
The picture joins my camera roll next to a photo I just took of the ruins, discovered by accident when the train tunnels were dug, heaped up in the Monastiraki metro station.
“The whole neighborhood is named for it,” Ms. Barlowe is saying when I return. “It’s the little monastery, and in Greek, aki is a diminutive suffix. Hence, Monastiraki.”
We’re starting the day with a tour of the ancient Roman Forum and shopping around the flea market before spending the afternoon at the National Archaeological Museum and Museum of Cycladic Art.
I can’t wait for any of it. The perfect day to completely immerse myself in the ancient world, in learning, in work on my project. And ignore everything else.
Like the way Melanie’s laughter fills the street.
I fight the urge to turn and stare jealously at whoever made her laugh.
Instead, I force myself to pay attention as Ms. Galanis explains the history of the neighborhood.
None of her words seem to make it through my ears, and the array of colors and spiced smells and overlapping vendor voices from the flea market turn into a dull blur around me.
All I can process is the rush of inescapable thinking.
Everything I said and thought and decided this morning at breakfast with Melanie on loop. A merry-go-round from hell. Wheeeeeee.
We make our way up one of the side streets, crowded on both sides by tourists pushing their way to the market stalls lining the sidewalks.
Ms. Barlowe keeps talking about the agora we’re headed to see, but the voices of the vendors and shoppers around us drown out her explanation.
It’s hard to imagine that anything could fit in this neighborhood other than the goods for sale.