Chapter Nine
My mom always loves to say that things will look better in the morning. I spent my childhood trying to argue with her about that. I was prone to nightmares as a kid, and no assurances that morning would eventually come could ease the frantic distress that came with bedtime.
I’m reminded of her words now, watching the early-morning sunrays ease through the translucent white curtains framing the windows.
The situation does seem easier now that daylight is shining on it.
I’m going to make things right with Liam today, make it all up to him.
As for Melanie—her new hesitancy is for the best. My focus is supposed to be on Liam, on the competition.
How many times do I have to tell myself that romance will just suck all the life out of everything?
I throw the light comforter off me and toss myself out of bed, flinching as the soles of my feet meet the cold floor.
I hop my way to the bathroom on the balls of my feet and change into my beach outfit.
Today’s the day to break out my favorite blue bathing suit, which I cover with a gauzy green wrap my mom splurged on when she found out I was going to get to spend the summer in Greece.
Having the wrap fall on my shoulders now makes me feel closer to her, and a sudden wave of homesickness washes over me.
For the first time since I got off the plane, I feel the distance between home and where I am now, like there’s a rope keeping me linked to my house and a heavy weight has just been set on the rope, straining me downward.
I check the family group chat, which I muted a couple of days ago to escape yet another spiraling argument fueled by Lizzie’s anxiety.
There are hundreds of messages to catch up on, most of them related to the aforementioned argument.
Andrea pops in every once in a while to ask questions like Where’s my blue blazer?
, which seem to invite follow-up questions along the lines of Why wouldn’t you walk out of your room to ask Mom out loud?
There is a conspicuous lack of anything like How’s Natalie doing so far from home? The only time I come up directly is when someone is wondering about Paige.
Have they even noticed I’m gone? Or have I fallen so far behind the rest of them that it’s easy to leave me behind?
I think about sending a few photos from the trip, but the possibility of them being drowned out by Lizzie’s latest wedding stress stops me.
I toss my phone into my beach bag with perhaps more force than is necessary.
Slinging the tote over my shoulder, I leave the bathroom and slip into my flip-flops before heading to the breakfast room.
—
Even amid all the problems I’ve created for myself in my own head, I have to pause to admit that this beach has to be the most beautiful place on earth.
It’s larger than the one Melanie took me to in Crete.
The clean, soft sand stretches lazily until it reaches a rocky ledge, huge seaweed-slicked black rocks rising out of the sand and crashing into the sea.
Each wave douses them with a spray of white froth.
Where we are, the water is clear, a shimmering turquoise at the edge of the sand that transforms into a magnetically deep blue as my eyes drift outward to the horizon.
There the clear sky dips into the sea, holding us close in this wide, peaceful space.
This whole trip has us gorging ourselves on the beauty of the world—natural and human-built.
I sit up on my towel, my fingertips drumming against the sun-warmed sand, and drink it all in.
The little waves lap at the soft sand, each one much the same as the one before it, but I could never get tired of watching them.
Liam is laid out on a towel next to mine. My immediate sunburn is a cautionary tale he’s heeded—we’ve only been here for an hour, and he’s already reapplied sunscreen along his shoulders twice.
“Want to go in?” he asks, opening one eye to meet mine.
I look down at him, shading my eyes with my hand. “Eventually.”
Though the warm clarity of the water is tempting, the heat of the sun on my skin is too nice to change for now. I let its rays wash over me, not even minding where they smart at the fading lines of my sunburn.
The rest of the cohort is spread out around us.
Even Melanie joined today, though she’s spent most of it in the water.
But even though the group is technically here together, we don’t feel like the cozy unit we usually are.
There’s no overlapping chatter, no one yelling over one another or carrying on three different conversations at once.
Half of us are buried in books, even at the beach.
The other half are sitting in mostly silence, a stack of closed books quietly nagging at us from the corners of our towels.
I’m in the latter group. My research materials—including several paperback editions of Anne Carson’s poetry that probably count more as pleasure reading, as they are not, strictly speaking, related to Artemis at all—collect sand in their pages from their places weighing down the sides of my towel.
Still, I don’t move to pick any of them up.
Instead, I watch Henry paint the waves. Seeing them through his eyes, his deft fingers capturing the way each wave glimmers in the sun, only makes them more beautiful.
“Should we play a game?” I ask when the awkwardness of the silence becomes too heavy to stand. “I have some rackets.”
Turns out, the only thing more awkward than the silence that came before my question is the one that comes after it.
“Maybe later,” Bodhi says after a beat. He’s in the middle of writing a poem, so fair enough.
But then Lucy, who’s not doing anything, just shrugs a shoulder. “I should really focus on my work.”
Amalia only lifts her notebook in response, without pausing her scribbling for even a moment.
“Bad luck,” Liam whispers to me. I sigh at him.
“What’s gotten into everyone?” I hiss back. “Are we not here to have the best trip of our lives? Together?”
He gives me a look, one I can only interpret as “You have hardly been Ms. Team Bonding yourself lately,” and I duck my eyes.
“It’s the decathlon,” Liam says, dropping his head back onto his towel. His curls fan out around him. “No one knows how to chill when there’s a competition afoot.”
“Afoot?” I tease, and he flicks my shoulder.
“Afoot,” he confirms.
“Well,” I say, nodding to the waves, “wanna come in with me?”
He bounces to his feet faster than I can process his reaction.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he says. “Let’s get in there.”
He offers me his hand, and I let him help me up. The sand is hot underfoot, and we rush to the waves. Liam is a run-right-in kind of person, and he disappears under the water as if someone is in hot pursuit.
I prefer to let the waves lap at my ankles for a while, appreciating the warm gentleness of the water. That is, until Liam sends a splash my way.
“Get in,” he whines playfully.
I groan at him but dunk myself into the water. The rush of water momentarily drowns out my thoughts, and I linger under the surface until the salt stings my squeezed-shut eyes. I break back onto the surface, inhaling deeply.
“Best ever, right?” Liam asks, floating next to me.
I nod. “Could’ve done without the splashing, though.”
He splashes me again, and I dunk him under the water. He sputters as he emerges.
“No fair,” he says.
I scoff at him. “Objectively, so fair.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he says, rearranging himself so that he’s floating on his back. I join him in the same position, and we float side by side, staring at the sky.
“So,” he says, and I can hear him wiggling his eyebrows in the corniness of his tone, “were you with Melanie last night?”
I lift my head so he can see me roll my eyes.
“That’s such a reasonable question,” Liam protests.
“It’s the tone I object to,” I tell him, “not the question.”
“The tone is excessively reasonable,” Liam argues. “You’ve been spending so much time together.”
“You and I spend so much time together,” I say.
I regret it immediately. I’ve handed him the perfect opening to point out that we haven’t been spending much time together at all now that I’m ditching him for Melanie right and left.
I scan his face for signs of upset but find none.
Perhaps he’s becoming a very good actor. “That doesn’t mean we’re in love.”
“There are some key differences,” Liam points out.
“Oh, what, so we’ve established that a man and a woman can be friends, but two lesbians can’t?” I reply hotly.
Liam stands in the waves, water dripping from his shoulders.
“Of course two lesbians can be friends,” he says. “Just maybe not two lesbians who look at each other like that.”
“Like what?” I ask, barely squeaking out the question. Is it that obvious?
“Like you’re madly in love with each other.”
“I barely know her,” I scoff. He opens his mouth to argue, so I duck under the water again.
It’s salty and I can’t breathe, but I’d take that over this conversation any day.
Besides, there’s peace to be found here.
The water dulls my senses, cocooning me in a warm stillness that quiets my brain for a moment. I linger as long as I can.
Eventually, though, my lungs protest, and I’m forced back to the surface.
“Very mature,” Liam says as I gasp for air.
“Anything to escape these accusations,” I tell him.
He laughs. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m trying to help you see what you refuse to see on your own.”
“What difference does it make how I feel?” I ask. “I know how I want to act. That matters more than anything, surely.”
“But,” Liam says, eyeing me, “do you?”