Chapter One #2
Of course, there was always Eddie, but she’d be caught dead before taking a trip like this with him.
Nothing was worse than when people asked if they were dating.
Gross. Besides, they got along fine—she might even consider them “friends” given how much time they hung out together with Theo—but things were different now that Theo was gone.
It was almost as if his absence was an elephant in the room whenever they got together and they didn’t know how to act around each other without him there.
Most of Dani’s other friends had left Grand Rapids straight after high school, and those who hadn’t, well, there was nothing like showing her face again after moving back home only a few weeks into college.
Sure, Dani, the dutiful daughter that she was, could point to her dad’s accident as the justification for her return to Grand Rapids. But she’d heard the rumors:
Did you hear Daniela Guiterrez couldn’t hack it at the University of Michigan?
I heard she flunked out.
I knew she was nothing but talk.
She thought she was so much better than us, and look at her now.
Ah yes, look at her now. Single. Midthirties.
And working in the library, of all places.
Served her right for that stunt she pulled in tenth grade, reshelving all the books in their high school library by “vibes” rather than author name and genre.
Back then, she’d never been one to turn down a dare.
But that was then.
Once voted “most likely to bungie jump off the Eiffel Tower,” now Dani would probably be more accurately described as “most likely to die of actual boredom.” The only times she felt like her old self were the times when Theo visited.
We figured you needed us, her parents had explained, sitting her down at the dinner table to break the news about their impending move.
You seemed so unhappy and sad all the time.
We thought you wanted to come home. It was difficult to recall the discussion surrounding her return home all these years later.
She remembered saying she’d come home without hesitation when her mom first told her about her dad falling down a manhole working for the city’s public works department during a storm event and how he’d be out of work for at least a few months.
She’d volunteered because they’d asked. Hadn’t they?
The conversation was a little hazy now.
Her return had nothing to do with the fact that she was homesick. Or that she didn’t get into all the classes she’d wanted. Or that she and her new roommate weren’t getting along. Or that she missed her old friends and family.
Home made sense. At least it did back then.
Could she even call it that anymore, though, when her home was literally being taken from her?
“I’m sorry. There I go, being nosy again,” Harold said.
Dani smiled and put her hand on his arm. “It’s fine. Really. My life right now…it’s…it’s complicated.”
That was one way to put it. Definitely too complicated to get into in the last ten minutes of their bus ride to the palace of Knossos where soon they’d be crawling around ten square kilometers of sprawling ruins, learning about the lives of the Minoan civilization with thousands of other tourists.
At least they were going in the latter half of the day after the crowds had hopefully thinned out.
“Well, then, you can tell me all about it over dinner tonight,” Harold said with a wink. “Only as friends. I promise.”
Dani smiled. “Okay. Friends.”
“I was only teasing about the date thing earlier, you know. I know I’m here on this whole single seniors’ thing, but ever since my Patricia passed away five years ago, I haven’t been able to imagine life with someone else.
” There was a crack in his voice, and suddenly he stopped talking, pulling his lip in to keep it from trembling.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to get morose. You probably came here to enjoy an adventure, not think about dead people. ”
Dead.
The word thumped in her chest. Suddenly the words that she still refused to accept flashed through her mind:
Greek American Archaeologist Presumed Dead
By the time the newspapers printed that headline, the story of Dr. Theo Galanis’s disappearance had already been blasted all over the news and social media.
When Dani had first learned that he’d gone missing, his last known whereabouts being a marina where he’d chartered a boat for a journey off the coast of Neapoli, she hadn’t been able to breathe.
Theo had arrived in Greece one week earlier.
He was supposed to have been there for only a couple of months, six tops, having been contacted by his old friend on behalf of some archaeological society to assist with a dig on the Peloponnesian peninsula given his expertise in ancient Greek archaeology.
The details were a little fuzzy, as was any paper trail with the specifics.
In the weeks that followed, they’d come to find out that his friend hadn’t actually contacted him and the alleged archaeological society didn’t actually exist. The supposed Peloponnesian dig site, unheard of.
So after he’d been missing for four months and the boat was found beaten up and washed ashore on Kythira—without any sign of survivors—well, everyone had assumed the worst.
Dr. Theo Galanis, the love of Dani’s life, was dead.
And she’d never even told him how she’d felt.
A solid thirteen months had passed since he’d vanished.
At the one-year anniversary, his family held a memorial service, even though it was too early to declare him legally dead.
The family had intended the service to give them all closure, but the only thing it had done was make Dani restless.
She still couldn’t picture life without Theo in it, even if only in his role as Eddie’s best friend.
Maybe she and Harold had more in common than she thought, being unable to imagine life without that one special person.
But this trip was supposed to be her opportunity to get out and finally see the world.
To do all the things she’d planned to do after high school.
And if the memorial couldn’t give her closure, hopefully this trip would.
She’d go to Greece, the country of Theo’s heart. See the sights. Taste the food. Soak in that Mediterranean air. Go to all the places he’d talked about from his travels. And then she’d say goodbye to him forever. Finally get busy living her life, instead of someone else’s.
The singles thing was supposed to be an added bonus. Maybe she’d meet someone on the trip who could make her stomach swirl the way Theo could. Wouldn’t that be fitting, after all? To meet a new man of her dreams in the very place she’d lost her first love?
Okay, maybe not actual love. They’d never even kissed. But she felt something for Theo she’d never felt with anyone else. And now, she’d never know what it could have been.
“Attention, Silvers!” Cosmo called out on the bus PA system.
“We’re arriving at Knossos. We’ve got two hours here before closing.
Now, let me take you back in time,” he said, waving his hands in the air like a mystic and hunkering down as he lowered his voice, “to the seventeenth century BC, when the Minoans ruled the region. We’ll traverse the ruins and picture our lives behind the walls, with creatures lurking in the depths of the palace.
But don’t get lost, or the BEAST might get you!
” he said, bringing up his hands like a grizzly bear attacking its prey.
Plenty of oohs and aahs from the group accompanied his description.
“Or,” he said, matter-of-factly, standing straight and dropping his arms along with the mysticism, “there is a self-guided tour available at the ticket office that you can listen to on your phone at your own leisure. Either way, we’ll meet back at the bus at sixteen forty-five to depart at seventeen hundred on the dot. Do not be late.”
With that, the bus lurched to a stop and the group of fifteen unloaded, shuffling their way in a wad toward the entrance gates after Cosmo scanned the tour group through.
The grounds appeared unassuming as they first passed through the ticket turnstiles.
The site was much more tree covered than Dani had imagined based on the research she’d done before the trip.
It honestly wasn’t at all the grand castle that she’d pictured in her head.
There were some giant pits called kouloures at the entrance of the West Court, which Cosmo explained may have been used to store grains.
A processional corridor. But as they followed a pathway to the right and then finally rounded a corner, the palace and all its glory came into view.
A giant courtyard at least the size of four football fields sat in the center with partially reconstructed limestone buildings on either side.
Some were still in a state of repair and excavation.
Others were reimaginings of explorers who’d come before.
Painted frescoes with depictions of Minoan life lined the walls—re-creations, Cosmo explained, of Sir Arthur Evans, the British archaeologist who staked claim to the discovery of Knossos.
There was an air of disdain in Cosmo’s voice—apparently, Evans had taken some liberties in his reconstructions—but the paintings were works of art, nonetheless.
They climbed stairs. Snapped pictures of giant jugs. Squeezed into the “throne room,” even though the worn slab apparently might not have been a throne at all. But it made for a better story.