9. Emily
9
EMILY
When the car stops outside the Amalfi Central Hotel, I sprint up the steps. They left me gasping earlier this afternoon—has it even been twenty-four hours since I arrived?—but it doesn’t matter now.
Nothing can slow me down.
I’m moving so fast I bump into the door of my room. I drop the key and it takes me a few more tries before I finally enter.
Calm down. You don’t want to wake up ? —
“Em?” Nadia yawns, sitting up in her bed, flicking on the lamp beside her. She scrubs her eyes. She looks like she just got back from Zebra Club a little while ago.
Blinking blearily at me, she runs her attention from my heels to my dress, then back to my face.
A smug-ass grin spreads on her face. “Did someone have a very fun and exhausting night?”
My belly forms two separate knots. One of them drops into my guts. The other begins to rise in my throat and choke me.
I can’t tell her why I’m back here. I have to lie to her. I can’t ruin her bachelorette trip like this. Just nod and smile and agree, then go into the bathroom and wash up, get changed, plan my escape, then boom. Home free.
But I can’t.
Nadia’s expression morphs from devious to concerned.
“Emily, what’s wrong? You look pale.”
I suck in a rattling breath and feel the sting of tears at the back of my nose. Don’t you fucking do it! Do. Not. Cry. I have to keep myself together if I want to drop the news without ruining everything for her.
“I have to fly back to the States.”
“What? Why?” She jumps up, hurrying to me, her eyes flushed with worry. “What happened? You look as bad as Clara did before she barfed all over the fountain out front. By the way, photos there are canceled. ”
My mouth opens, then shuts. I don’t know how to begin.
Nadia searches my face, then she puts her hands on my shoulders, leaning in cautiously as a protective fire starts burning in her eyes. “Did that guy do something to you?”
“Konstantin?” I give a blank face, thrown off by her assumption. “No, he didn’t do anything.”
“Then why are you leaving?” She lowers her voice. “Emily, what’s wrong?”
I start shaking my head, and then suddenly, I can’t stop.
“My sister is dead,” I whisper, like talking softly can help make it not true. “She died a week ago and I just found out.”
It’s wild that I’m not crying. It’s as if the backs of my eyeballs have been sealed by hard wax that refuses to break.
“Emily, oh my god!” Nadia crushes me in an embrace that threatens to snap my spine. I wish she’d hug me even harder. The pressure is the only thing keeping me together. “I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. Do you know what happened?”
“No,” I say honestly. Mom was talking about Olivia’s habits, but I refuse to believe that she went back to using.
“I just can’t believe it,” I whisper into Nadia’s hair. “I’m still in shock.”
“Of course you are! Who wouldn’t be?”
“I feel terrible for having to leave, but?—”
“No, don’t explain. You don’t have to justify this to me or anyone. Okay?”
My heart swells with immense love for my best friend. “Nadia …”
She guides me to the bed, sitting me down before standing in front of me, her eyes somber, but not unkind. “First, breathe. Second, you need to book a flight.”
I bob my head in agreement. I’m exhausted, burned out, and a hundred other things that on their own would be overwhelming. With Nadia’s help, I pop open Google and search for flights to New York.
It’s nice to have someone guiding my hand.
And instantly, any good feelings that dared to seep into my mind dissolve away as I face reality again.
Not a single flight is under two thousand dollars.
I can feel my heart thudding in my molars. My thumb scrolls through the list, faster and faster, my panic rocketing higher at every new ticket price.
“I can’t afford any of these. What am I supposed to do?” I purchased a round trip already, and that nearly wiped me out.
Why didn’t I think about how expensive this was going to be? And I can’t wait three days to go back. I just can’t.
Nadia yanks my phone out of my grip. I’m too stunned to react, and I watch in disbelief as she taps the screen and walk over to her purse. By the time she whips out her credit card and enters the numbers, I realize what she’s about to do.
But before I can say anything, she taps the screen, and my phone vibrates as the confirmation email comes through.
“Done,” she declares.
“Nadia!” I shout, jumping off the bed. “No! You can’t do that!”
“The hell I can’t!”
“This is too much! I don’t deserve?—”
She jabs a finger at me to shut me up. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
I swallow the words down, choking on them. “It’s too much money.”
“Nothing is too much for you, Emily.” Offering my phone back to me, she cocks her head and smiles. “You worked your ass off to plan me the best bachelorette party in the entire world. You didn’t have to do that, but you did. Because you care about me, right?”
“Right,” I admit weakly.
“Then accept that I care about you too. More than anyone else.” Slipping her hands over mine, she stares into my eyes. “What you’re going through is serious, and I can’t help with the grief you’re about to face. But I can still send you home to face it.”
The tears are harder to fight than ever before. “Thank you. I swear I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”
“Pay me back by taking care of yourself,” she urges me warmly. “Promise me.”
“I will.” Giving her a firm hug, I hold my face against her shoulder a moment. I really don’t think I deserve this act of kindness, but I also need it. I’m desperate for it. Gathering myself, I rush toward the bathroom. “I need to change.”
“I’ll help pack your bag,” she calls after me.
At the large, shell-shaped sink, I rinse off my hands and face. The soap I scrub myself with smells like lemons. I fight back a wave of sadness and instead replace it with something worse:
Hope.
Maybe I’ll cross paths with Konstantin again someday.
I’m a pathetic dreamer. But thinking about him reminds me of something.
“Nadia,” I say as I exit the bathroom, “let me leave your trip itinerary for you. I had a lot planned. I still want you to do all of it.”
“I’ll be sure to take a disgusting number of photos for you,” she says.
I pull out my sheet of notes. It details everything over the next three days. She’s going to love the light blue Fiat I ordered to be dropped off at the hotel tomorrow.
Yet all I can think of is Konstantin’s dark Lamborghini.
With a pen, I scribble new instructions at the bottom of the page.
Someone told me Salerno has great views of the sea. And try the limoncello. They make them with the local lemons, Sfusato Amalfitano. Just remember to sip them, because they’re strong.
Nadia accompanies me on the three-hour long trip to the airport with me, even though I tell her she doesn’t have to. The flight won’t leave for another eight hours.
I’ve changed into cropped tan joggers with a matching hoodie, my ponytail pulled through a yellow baseball cap. I need to do all I can to be comfortable when I’m facing a ten-hour plane ride.
“Have a safe flight, Emily.”
“I will. And please, have as much fun as you still can on this trip without me, okay?”
She clutches me tight, and I wonder if she’ll ever let go. Finally, she releases me, putting her hand on the hood of the taxi waiting to bring her back to the hotel. “Text me when you land.”
“Like you won’t just creep on my flight details online,” I smile.
Nadia’s smile smooths as it hovers between becoming a frown. “Just do it, okay?”
“I will,” I assure her.
Hooking my hand on my bag, I drag it through the airport. My eyes zero in on the Hello Kitty bag tag, and I feel tears threatening to pour from my eyes again.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. You can’t cry right now.
The flight is packed, and boarding becomes a blur of bodies and multiple voices overlapping each other. I’m in my own world, acting on instinct as I make my way to my seat.
“ Mama! Aspetto! ”
A bell-clear giggle shakes me from my stupor. Across the way, in a row of three, is a small girl with her face pressed to the window. Her curly brown hair is pulled into two space buns, but the slightly older girl beside her has left hers wild and loose. They look so much like each other.
Their mother, in the aisle seat, leans over to peer out the window. She smiles at both of them and says something in Italian. Whatever it is, it has both girls laughing with her.
She leans over and kisses them both on the forehead. Across the row from them, her husband leans over and musses both girls’ hair.
I can feel their love from where I sit. But it doesn’t make me smile the way it does the little girls. Watching a family together like this, happy and thriving and whole, is killing me.
Olivia and I never saw our parents like these little girls do.
I brace myself as if the plane is already in the sky. My muscles tremble with such violence I bite down in a desperate search for stability. The engines begin to turn, and the girls cheer. They get louder when their mother reaches over to wrap her arms around them both in a hug.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
But I can’t stop myself anymore.
Wet droplets fall onto my joggers. I scrub at the damp marks, but the floodgates have opened and can’t be closed again.
Everything that was sealed away starts bursting through.
The two little girls turn silent as they watch me. Their wide, curious, ever-innocent eyes remind me too much of a time when I still had my sister in my life.
Olivia and I would have done the same: gawk at the strange woman sobbing on the plane. We would have felt bad because she was sad … and she was alone.
I don’t want their trip to be marred by my misery. Turning away, I lean into the window, curling on myself with my hood over my face. My tears stain the fabric, remaining wet against my cheek as a constant reminder of what I’ve lost.
And what I’ll never get back.