Chapter Fourteen
Ms. Barlowe is making us spend the entire day in the library.
“You’ve had enough ‘rotting on the beach’ time,” she insists when Lucy attempts a puppy-dog look.
In truth, it doesn’t take much forcing. As soon as we’re all settled at our worktables, books and laptops scattered over the surfaces, we’re in our element.
Melanie has taken the morning off to visit cousins in Nafplio, probably because watching us flip pages for hours straight bears little possibility for an interesting day.
I’m glad about it. Which probably means all my fears are right, and we’re not meant to be.
Or that I’m just not meant for love. How else could I be relieved that I don’t have to spend the day figuring out how to balance time with her and time with Liam?
Instead, I can sit next to him in easy silence without having to overthink what I’m doing.
He’s typing up the poems he’s scribbled into his notebook at all our sites, and I’m uploading the photos I’ve been taking to my computer, more for the semblance of productivity than anything else.
I stare at the blue line marking the upload’s progress.
Even though Melanie’s not here, my mind is still torn between her and Liam, fixating on the relief in my gut like it’s a scab that might be hiding infection.
I glance at Liam to make sure he’s focused on his project, and then I turn the brightness down on my computer so he can’t read what’s on my screen if he happens to glance over. Moving my fingers quietly on the keyboard, I look up classic love stories.
I’m inundated with my favorite stories from ancient Greek mythology.
Part of what I love about them is how messy their takes on love are.
There isn’t one straightforward love story in the bunch.
It’s part of why Artemis is my favorite too.
No love for her. Just frolicking in the woods with a bunch of sworn single ladies forever. Where can I sign up?
But anywhere else I look, all I see is picture-perfect relationships.
The stuff of rom-coms, where a third-act breakup is just a bump on the relentless road to happily ever after.
The stuff of social media feeds, where everyone is madly in love forever, all traces of past failed loves carefully scrubbed from the archive.
What I have with Melanie can’t possibly measure up to that.
Sure, our first few weeks together have been beautiful.
But we’re living them out in literal paradise.
There’s simply no way it’s enough to power a lasting relationship.
How is everyone so sure?
“How’s it going?” Liam asks, jerking me out of my thought spiral. I jump, reflexively command-W-ing to close the tab I was reading. He snorts. “Deleting your search history?”
“No,” I squeak. “Just done with that article.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “You’re being weird.”
“I’m being so normal.”
“You sure?” he says, his eyes reading mine.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak, and his eyebrows tighten. He can see right through me. He knows. I’m sure of it.
“Melanie and I went on a boat ride together.”
The words, propelled by the worry soaking in my veins, come spilling out of my mouth before I can stop them.
He blinks at me. “Huh?”
“Melanie asked if I wanted to go on a boat ride, and that was something on our bucket list, and we were supposed to do it together, so I’m sorry I did it with her instead.
” I’m talking way too fast, the words crowding against my lips.
I force myself to meet his gaze, desperate to read his expression.
“What are you talking about?” he asks.
I wince. “Our bucket list.”
He closes his notebook, its inky pages slowly flipping shut, and sets it on the table in front of him. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I wanted to,” I say quickly.
“But then…” He trails off, looking at me expectantly. I stare back at him, wide-eyed. My brain is racing faster than my heart, but even with all that work, it still can’t seem to string together a coherent sentence.
“I was just so caught up with Melanie, and I didn’t want to blow her off because I’d already ditched her, and—”
“No, I’m not mad about the stupid bucket list,” Liam says, his eye roll heavy in his tone. “I just don’t get why you’ve been hiding stuff from me all summer.”
“What, so I have to report all my movements to you?” I snap, knowing as I do that this is unfair.
But his words whip up a defensiveness that comes frothing out of me.
He knows how hard dating is for me. We’ve certainly spent enough nights commiserating over the same pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food for him to know what I’m up against here.
Or at least know most of it. Isn’t it fair enough to need a little space?
“No, not report,” Liam says, his voice climbing. Lucy and Amalia glance over at our table and exchange looks. I shrink into the back of my chair as Liam goes on. “It just seems like you’ve been going out of your way to lie to me and hide stuff from me for absolutely no reason.”
“No reason?” His words strike me hard in the chest. An admission that, during all the times I’ve told him how it feels to be trapped in this cycle of questioning everything, of overthinking myself against an unforgiving grindstone, he hasn’t really heard me.
Because, yes, I’ve made mistakes. But they’ve never been for no reason.
All eyes in the cohort are on me, but I’ve never felt more alone.
“I always thought we could tell each other anything,” Liam says.
“Doesn’t mean we’ll always listen, though, it seems,” I snap back.
He leans away from me, so much so that his chair tilts onto its back legs. The shock and hurt are so apparent on his face, I want to run from the sight.
“Well, if that’s how you feel,” Liam says. The front legs of his chair slam onto the floor as he scoops up his things and shoves them into his bag. “Maybe we just need a bit of space.”
“Maybe,” I say, trying to project as unbothered an aura as I can. His words kill me all the same. Space from him is the last thing I want. All I want is to heal this rift, bring us closer. But he’s hitting the eject button before I have a chance to. I can’t exactly stop him from walking away.
So I let him. He storms out of the library, leaving me to stare after him in the resounding silence that follows.
—
Melanie finds me on the beach. An increasingly likely place for me to be.
She hits the sand next to me and joins me in the activity I’ve been indulging in since nightfall: staring at the waves and wondering why I am Like This. The waning moon reflects on the crest of each wave, lighting up a new thought for me to contemplate.
“I heard what happened,” she says softly.
“Lucy loves to share,” I mutter.
“I’m here if you need me,” Melanie says, laying a hand on my upper arm. Her touch is so gentle, it makes me want to cry. It makes me want to lean into it, to let her take care of me right now.
But it’s not built to last, what’s between us. There’s simply no way it is. So why let myself lean on her now, when I know I’ll only fall over later down the line when she’s not there anymore?
It’s probably time I learned to stand on my own two feet. The way I’ve been saying I will this whole time. No romance needed.
“I’m all good,” I tell her instead.
She leans forward, trying to meet my eye.
I don’t let my sight drift from the waves.
They crash forward, relentless, the next one queued up before the first one has even finished moving across the sand.
It’s like seeing into my brain, watching the waves of worry that I always know are coming, that are always jockeying in line, waiting for their turn to rush over the shore and reshape the scenery in their image.
“That can’t possibly be true,” Melanie says.
“I think it is.” I turn my head to meet her gaze. A huge mistake. Her brown eyes are so soft, so full of care, that they’re enough to waver my resolve for a moment.
But I know what I have to do.
I’m not meant for love. I’m not built to handle it. That’s for everyone else—those who walk so surely toward the people they’ve chosen, doubt never flickering in their minds. I’m built on doubt, on questions and worries that crash unrelentingly through me in an endless series.
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” I say softly.
Melanie leans away from me in shock. Lot of that going around today. Her eyes flicker over my face as she takes in my words, like she’s reading a page of a book.
The silence extends between us, but we don’t take our eyes off each other. There’s so much I wish I could speak into this moment: I’m sorry. You’re better off this way. Just trust me.
I can’t bring myself to say any of it.
“If that’s what you want,” she says finally.
It’s not.
“It is.”
“Then…” She gets up, dusting sand off her shorts. “Then I guess I should leave you to it. Give you your space.”
She says space like it’s a dirty word. I turn back to the sea, listening to the sand muffle her footsteps until they disappear.
It’s not until I’m safely ensconced in silence that I let the first tears spill.
I’m itching to call my mom, like I’m five years old and need a kiss and a Band-Aid for my scraped knee.
But I know what she’ll say without my asking.
She’ll remind me that love is worth fighting for—just look at her and Dad all these years later, just look at Lizzie and Andrea and how happy they are.
I don’t need another reminder that I’m fundamentally broken.
So I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and let the waves keep crashing forward into the night.