Chapter Thirty-Two
The sun rose somewhere over the Dolomites, but I can’t push through the darkness surrounding me. At Fiumicino, I drag myself to the taxi stand. Paparazzi run down the narrow sidewalk toward me as they shout, “Astoria,” and cameras flash. Luca’s name batters me. The early-morning air is warm and dry and smells of gasoline. The man who organizes the taxis looks curiously at me. I ask for one, speaking in Italian. As soon as he hears his language, he takes my suitcase and signs for the next in line to come forward. He shoves one of the cameramen away and opens the door for me before he puts my bag in the trunk.
I hand him some euros through the window. “Mille grazie.”
I give the driver my address in Italian. He answers in heavily accented English. “You need to get away, no?”
“Yes.” I root around in my backpack for Luca’s glecks I forgot to leave and hide my eyes as cameras flash just outside the window.
“I get you there,” the driver says as he pulls away with a big smile. He tells me he’s from Senegal and chatters to me about how much I’ll like Italy. It’s Sunday morning, so traffic is nonexistent, except for people heading to mass at the Vatican. I scratch at my head and realize the diamond-style pins are still in, so I pull them out. I stare through the window and think the CIA should use paparazzi to find terrorists, since they seem to know everything, while the driver jabbers just outside my thoughts. I’m slowly filling up with an overwhelming sense of emptiness, as if my soul has become the inside of the Grand Canyon. Luca was the first person I’ve really let in since my dad died. Now it’s like Luca’s been swept away from me in a flash flood. Here and then gone, so suddenly it feels as if I’m drowning. The familiar grip of grief washes over me, and I have to remind myself Luca’s still here, somewhere, living and laughing, even if it’s not with me. I want to be angry with him for giving up on us so easily, but I can’t. Being in Scotland with his family has shown me just how formidable his duties are. If all he gets out of this is vet school, at least I’ll have that to be grateful for.
When I step into the flat, my mom is sitting on the sofa with her feet under her, reading her phone. She looks up as I drop my backpack and shuffle toward her. I can’t meet her gaze, and I’m crying again.
“Oh, Story,” she says, and folds me into her arms like an origami doll. “What on earth have you been up to? Why didn’t you answer my texts or calls? I was getting frantic.”
I sob until I’m exhausted by myself. She hands me tissues from the end table and, when I finally quiet down, goes to make some tea.
“Drink,” she orders as she slips the hot mug of chamomile into my hands.
I take a sip, and she brushes tears off my face with her fingers.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I see that. Why don’t you tell me how much of what I’ve read I should believe?”
So I confess every last detail. This must be why Catholics like confession, because the more my crimes spill out of my mouth, the less my heart feels like it’s drowning. I didn’t even realize how much it was all pressing on me. Especially lying to her. I keep saying I’m sorry and she says, “I know,” or, “I can see that.” She bristles that the Kinnairds would think I’m inappropriate, and then she smiles and says, “Who do they think they are, royalty?”
I give her a weak smile and shake my head.
“You’re right, too soon.” She gives me a bear hug and holds on. “You really fell hard for him.”
“So, so hard.”
“Me too. He’s easy to fall for. Even without the title and the Ferrari and all the things I didn’t know about. But it won’t always hurt this much.”
“I’m just not sure how to survive until then.”
“Oh, my darling, you will.”
After a while, she says we should watch a movie. Her hand skims over Roman Holiday and settles on Now, Voyager. We spend the rest of the day on the sofa, while she tries to get me to eat a little bit of this or a tad of that, and our movie marathon retreats into my favorite kids’ movies.
When evening rolls in, she asks if I’m feeling any better.
“You can yell at me now.”
“I think you already know everything I’d say.”
I groan. “If it’s not something you’d tell your mom, then you shouldn’t be doing it.” That’s been her motto since I was little.
She raises her eyebrows. “Now you know why I say it.”
She slips her arm around my shoulders. “These weren’t the best choices, but you went into this with an open heart for a good reason. You haven’t really hurt anyone but yourself. Luca and Jasmine can take care of themselves, I suspect. And while I don’t approve of lying, especially with this whole influencer aspect, you didn’t lie about anything anyone had a right to know about. Plus, this Jasmine girl sounds horrid.”
“She is, Mom. So incredibly horrid.”
“I wish you had taken pictures of that swamp dress.”
I laugh and sniffle.
“It might not have been her who revealed your little secret, though. It could have been someone who works for her.”
I shrug. “At least now I have nothing to hide.”
“Did you even see the reports?”
I shake my head.
“Well, pretending they don’t exist isn’t going to make it go away. You should check your phone.”
She goes to make us dinner, and I reluctantly pull my phone out and turn it on. The notifications are like a fireworks show. All my social media is lit up, along with texts, voicemail, and email.
Andrew has texted, worried I haven’t told him I’m home safely. Anna Maria has texted, because she’s somehow seen it, and she tells me to ring if I need anything. Two of my cousins have sent messages from the States. And Elisa has called from the farm to tell me I don’t need to come in this week if I’d rather not. I can’t tell if she’s worried about me, or the bad publicity it could bring the sanctuary.
There’s a string of texts from Luca, which show me his reaction in real time. First, he can’t find me and is asking where I am, then he sees I’m not in my room and my things are gone, and he keeps asking where I am and if Andrew is with me because he’s missing, too. Then he finds the diamond earrings on his nightstand and the texts stop, except for one that says, We need to talk.
There’s a text from Jack, telling me I’ve got a friend in him if I need one. Kelsey has texted OMG, Story, you must be SO embarrassed. I WOULD DIE, and Guin has texted to tell me she can’t imagine how stupid I feel right now. There’s irony in that and I suppose it would console her to know it’s way past stupid.
The worst, though, is when I open my email. My admissions counselor at Princeton has sent a message that my presence is required Tuesday afternoon for a private teleconference. I’m to report to my high school at three o’clock.
I text Andrew to tell him I got in safely. Thanks for everything. I’ll always remember you. I wait a few moments, but he doesn’t reply.
Then I text Jack. I’m sorry I lied to you. I couldn’t tell anyone. Looks like I’m probably getting my Princeton offer revoked in a couple of days, so you’ll have to be a tiger for both of us.
The idea of losing Princeton feels like some nightmare I can’t quite wrap my mind around. All the years of planning and working and worrying about every grade, every extracurricular, every test now seem to be completely pointless. I wonder what my dad would think, and if he’d be disappointed or if he’d just welcome me to the screwup club.
Jack texts me back, full of worry, so I give him the details of my summons.
Do you want me to go with you? I mean not into the meeting, but at least to it?
That’s really generous considering how I’ve treated you, but I need to do this on my own. Thanks, though.
Listen, Story, I don’t know what went down between you two, but I can tell you one thing. That dude is crazy about you.
Maybe, but not crazy enough to stand up to his family’s disapproval, so it doesn’t matter.
Well, his loss IMO. If you need to talk or change your mind and want me to go with you, I’m here. Keep me posted.
I send him a purple heart emoji. Then I text Anna Maria and explain as much as I can. Well, she says when I’ve answered her questions, don’t let anyone keep you from living the life you want.
I’ll try.The life I want has Luca in every corner of it, though. What I really need to do is learn how to change what I want. I try to picture us together, if he had stood up to his parents, but it doesn’t work. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for him to cave to them, because he could already see how impossible it would be for him to be torn in two directions like that.
Keep me posted.
I set my phone down, grateful for the people who still care about me but already exhausted at the idea of keeping them “posted” on my long spiral down. Andrew hasn’t texted back, but for once, he probably doesn’t know how to handle a situation. Luca hasn’t tried to reach me since he found the earrings. I didn’t expect him to, but it still stings. He’s probably relieved he doesn’t have to explain I’m not suitable enough for a marquess after all. At least he loved me a little bit, and at least Andrew is there for him. I close my eyes and feel Luca’s lips on mine, warm sunshine above and cool sand between my toes, and my heart starts to splinter and crack like a sailboat breaking apart in a storm.
I check the tabloids next and fall into a rabbit hole of hoo boys that keeps getting deeper. Sources close to Jasmine say she and Luca were in the gelateria that day just as friends, and I offered to cover for her so I could get my “hooks” into Luca. According to the source, Luca was chasing her because Rowdy was already in rehab. She only started seeing Luca after Rowdy broke up with her, but they kept up the charade so her fans wouldn’t blame Rowdy. She just wanted to protect Rowdy because she’ll always love him.
Another tab reports sources close to me knew all along this couldn’t be real because I’m not the type of girl Luca Kinnaird would ever date. There were several other girls from my school whom Luca asked to play the part, but they all declined because it seemed wrong, so he was stuck with me. The sources also say I’ve always been a social climber and wannabe influencer, but the whole thing has shocked my former BFF, Guin Behringer, who has ended our friendship now that she knows the truth about me. I consider this last bit of news the silver lining.
Another tab reports Luca paid me to do this, citing sources close to Jasmine. According to this one, Luca bought me a Tesla and has started a charity for people in halfway houses because my dad died of a meth overdose. “It was heroin, but whatever,” I tell my phone.
One Russian tabloid says I’m really a twenty-six-year-old American CIA agent who came here to infiltrate and destroy the British royal institution. It would be funny except I find it deeply concerning that someone somewhere is reading this and believing it. I decide whatever else the tabs have to say, I don’t want to know.
When I check my social media, things really go downhill. There are messages of support. People who can’t believe it or excuse or defend Luca and me. Some feel sorry for me that I’ve been used by Luca and Jasmine so horribly. Most of the comments, though, are from the Jasminers, her die-hard fans, and they range from disparaging to frightening. The names they call me are pretty vile. There are two death threats. One person named Steve9742 invokes a voodoo curse on me.
My mom brings two soup bowls over with rolls, and I hand her my phone. When she’s done fuming, she contacts the platforms to make them take the threats down, letting them know my mother’s contacting them and I’m a minor, even if it is just for a couple more weeks, and she’s an attorney who will “sue them into oblivion so that every regulator in the Western world will take action” if they don’t. Then I pull up the email about my summons to Princeton, and she frowns. “I’m not really surprised. Most likely they just want to scare you into behaving better.”
I want to tell her how sorry I am, but it all seems so pointless. She brushes some hair back from my face and reads my mind, the way she’s done most of my life.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. They have no right to judge you. Between what they do with the NCAA to college athletes and the parade of clowns they’ve matriculated who have gone on to wreak havoc on US politics, you owe them nothing.”
“You wouldn’t be mad if I couldn’t go there?”
“Oh, honey, no. I should never have pushed it on you. It’s just that’s where your dad and I were happiest, when he was playing hockey and we were young and in love and planning such a wonderful life together. I guess it felt like a connection for all of us if you went there, too. But you can go anywhere you like.”
“I want to crawl into a cave in Acadia and go to cyber school and major in how to become a Sasquatch.”
“I think you’d have trouble getting Wi-Fi. Listen, you’ll lick these wounds and face the day tomorrow. It will all work out as it should. If you want Princeton, then fight for it. If you don’t, then tell them to take their concern for your welfare and—”
“I get it.” She kisses my temple, the way Luca used to. Or I guess Luca kissed me the way she always has. “I really lucked out in the mom department, you know that?”
“I do, and I’ve been waiting many years to hear you say it.” She squeezes me. “It’s going to be rough for a while. But it’ll get better.”
I wish I had her confidence. But as I sip enough of the soup to make her happy, the only reason I’m convinced the sun will come up tomorrow is to give me sunburn.