Chapter Twenty-Six
Basil
Challenge: Take a day trip to a new town
I rocked back in my seat, confused by Chelsea’s complete refusal to even consider the opportunity. Things had been perfect, beyond perfect, for the past several days. When she’d finally let me get past that massive wall of resistance, she gave me everything. She didn’t hold back in words or actions. She said she loved me, and every time she said those words, I nearly broke down and cried with joy and relief and the freedom to finally shower her with the full depth of my feelings for her.
But somewhere there had been a massive breakdown in communication, and now we weren’t speaking at all.
I knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer. So I called, “I’ve brought you your dinner.”
I set the covered plate by her door. Then I went out to the water to stare at the reflection of the moonlight rippling on the gentle waves and think.
I’d been clear from day one that I might end up staying in Greece. Had she been living in denial? Or maybe I’d deluded myself into believing she finally trusted me enough to take the next step in our relationship.
What if she hadn’t meant any of it? What if it had all been a trick to coax me home?
I picked up a rock and tossed it into the water. The moonlight exploded, matching the total wreckage of my emotions.
No. There was no way the past couple of days had been a lie. None. Everything that had passed between us had been so powerful, I couldn’t let myself believe she’d made promises just to lure me away from Greece. If we were real, then something else was wrong, and I couldn’t for the life of me identify it.
Maybe she needed more time to process, but it stunned me she’d never once considered the possibility of staying here together. With me. It was the obvious consequence of everything we’d been through, everything we both wanted.
In truth, I’d considered abandoning my post here when I first started. I missed her, and she was more important to me than some job. But the reality of our new relationship resolved me to stay. I couldn’t support a family on an hourly wage. I needed to think about building a future for us, and my only practical opportunity was right here. My uncle was giving me a foot in the door. I could work here a year or two and build my résumé. Here, I could finally be worthy of Chelsea.
She had to understand why I couldn’t go home yet, not until I’d made something of myself. I was nearly thirty and needed more than a dead-end job and a stalled relationship. That she’d decided to finally embark on something romantic with me didn’t change the fact that I’d always be a failure at home. She’d been the very one to encourage me to aim higher.
As much as she loved traveling across the countryside, and as many times as she’d told me she longed to live abroad and experience new cultures, I naturally assumed she’d jump at the chance to spend a year or so in Greece. With or without me. She dripped with envy and longing whenever I’d suggested I might move here, but now that I was offering her the world, she wanted to crawl home. I didn’t get it.
Was she just scared? Or was it me? If she didn’t want me, then why’d she want to drag me back with her?
It wasn’t for her job. Or her family. Would she choose Elizabeth over me?
Saturday morning, she came out of her room and met me for breakfast. She sat across from me in silence, so I talked.
“We’re going over to my uncle’s this morning. I hope you’re up for round two of My Big Fat Greek Family. You’ll get to meet my grandmom, my yia yia. She’s so happy I finally came over to visit, and she wants to meet you.”
Chelsea drank her coffee and stared out over the dark blue water. I wished I could read her thoughts.
When we got in the car, I said, “I hope you’ll at least talk to my family.”
She said, “Do they speak English?”
I frowned. My uncle did, but otherwise… “No.”
We drove on with just the company of the radio. Theo Kostas had his own three-story square house, typical of the area, but he lived away from the coast, up in a suburb called Panorama in Voula. When I’d been here the week before, I’d imagined reminding Chelsea of our trip to the apple orchard last fall and then pointing out how apt the name was, since it had views all around. But with her in this mood, I only noticed how dry and rocky the terrain looked, how worn the stone wall outside my uncle’s had become, how brown and leafless the grass and trees were.
The house itself was a bright coral, but it sat isolated from other homes. The side yard sported an abandoned car and some litter. One of my younger cousins came running out, shouting welcome to us.
Thea Daphne and Yia Yia warmly invited us to come share their table with them. They asked questions to Chelsea through me, but mostly they smiled at her. She nodded, politely, nibbling at her food, shrinking into her chair. Only my uncle spoke English, but once we sat at the table, he lost any interest in Chelsea and spoke to me about plans for the restaurant.
Bringing Chelsea here had been a mistake. I needed her to warm to the adventure of living in Greece, but I hadn’t considered how hard the language would be on her. She’d been so adamant about wanting to immerse herself in another culture, I thought she’d relish the opportunity to absorb everything, including the language. That must’ve been before she’d decided Greece was her enemy.
After we ate, Theo Kostas led me to a study, and I was forced to leave Chelsea in the awkward company of my aunt and yia yia. He rummaged through a drawer in a huge mahogany desk and handed me a key to an apartment in Athens he’d been holding, confident I’d take the job. He offered to drive me over to check it out, but Chelsea didn’t need the added pressure, so I got the address and directions.
Then I went and saved Chelsea. “I want to show you something.”
We drove into the city, and I hoped she’d cheer up once we got around shops and restaurants and people. I wanted to show her the Acropolis and make my dumb jokes. The last time I’d seen her laugh had been at the ruins of Mycenae before we’d driven out to the hotel. The streets were skinny with nearly identical-looking buildings crowded together. I got lost a couple of times but ultimately found the apartment my uncle had indicated. Graffiti marred the outside walls, and an enormous eyesore of a dumpster sat on the alley corner. The curbs along the road were cracked, and the building itself seemed a bit dilapidated.
We went up three flights, and I unlocked the door onto a depressingly empty, unfurnished apartment with a tiny white kitchenette and Pergo flooring.
She walked in and went straight to the sliding doors, where she peered out onto the balcony. I joined her. Our view consisted of the balcony on the apartment across the street.
Her hand lifted to her cheek, and I saw the tear streaks. How long had she been crying?
“Chelsea?”
She rested her forehead against the glass.
I backed against the wall, regretting how terrible everything had been since we’d gotten to the hotel. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
She rolled her head around so she could glare at me. “You’re seriously just going to move ahead with this decision without me?” She held her hand out toward the unimpressive apartment. “You want this over what you have at home? Over me?”
“I don’t want anything over you, Chelsea. I want this with you.”
“But what if I don’t want this?” She slid down the glass and sat hard on the floor. “I can’t believe you told me to jump and expected me to ask, ‘How high?’”
I dropped down beside her and rubbed her arm. “You wouldn’t even try it? What’s so exciting back home that you’re suddenly homesick?”
“That isn’t even the point.”
I sucked on my teeth, irritated at her for behaving like this was a death sentence. “When you promised me wherever you go , did it ever occur to you we might stay here ? Or was that a one-way proposition? As long as I’m following you?”
“That’s not fair.”
“This is where things get real. Either we make a change that benefits us both, or we go our separate ways. There is nothing for me, for us , in Virginia.”
“Can’t you see this is already a big enough risk without throwing in a whole new country?” She wiped her face on her skirt.
“Do you really think I’m a risk?”
“Yes,” she ground out. “Dr. Rubin always reminds me that communication is the key to a solid relationship. How can we work if you’re constantly hiding things from me?”
“I’m not hiding anything. I’ve been talking about the possibility of staying since I met you in France.”
“And I told you the reality of moving abroad makes me panic.”
“But you wouldn’t be alone.” I stared up at the ceiling. There was a spidery crack running from one wall to the other. It was amazing the place still stood. I turned back to Chelsea. “What are you really afraid of?”
She leaned her head back, eyes probably tracing the same black line across the ceiling. A fresh teardrop charted a new course, and she shuddered out a shaky breath.
“My mom put herself second, chasing after love, blind to the warning signs. But I keep my eyes open, and this whole thing is one big red flag.”
“I don’t see it that way.” My entire body sagged. “I’d hoped this could be a new life for both of us, together. An adventure. But I get it. You’re not ready. You want an easy, no-risk life where everyone is available on your schedule. I played by your rules, Chelsea. I really did. And then you know what I did? I made plans based on the future you said you wanted.”
“And you made them without me. How can I trust a future with you if you’re shutting me out of decisions right at the very beginning?”
God, she was never going to let that go. “I swear, I thought we were on the same page, and I’m hoping to have that conversation now. Is there nothing about this that would make you want to stay? Not even me?”
She rubbed her forearm across her nose. “If you loved me at all, you’d put my needs first.”
I gritted my teeth. She couldn’t see that she was asking me to do the very thing she was refusing to do. She wanted to be in control. She wanted my life to revolve around hers.
“Believe it or not, I am.” I thought we were past all this, but she was sounding like when we’d first met, like the girl too scared to make commitments. “This is where everything makes the most sense. For us. For our future.”
She rasped, “You said you loved me.”
“Of course, I love you, λατρε?α μου.” My love. My worship. My heart was breaking in two.
“But you’re letting me go.”
“That’s your choice,” I said. “But I’m not going home.”
“Fine.” Her eyes could have thrown fire.
“Fine? What’s fine?”
“Stay, Bas. Stay here.”
“And you’ll stay?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hope she’d change her mind.
She shook her head. “I can’t uproot my whole life just to be with you. I can’t be that girl.”
My head rolled back. I closed my eyes and counted to eleven. I was torn between appeasing her and making a stand for something more, better for both of us. I never should have believed her copious professions of wanderlust when she showed me time and again how much she craved safety, familiarity, stability.
She still had a lot of growing up to do.
And I had commitments here now. I’d made actual promises I wasn’t going to break. She understood what that meant to me. I couldn’t change course just to prove I loved her. Either she believed me or she didn’t. I was done playing games.
Her breath shuddered out, and I wanted to wrap her in my arms, tell her we could still be friends, keep in touch long-distance, but that conversation would have to wait. And this conversation needed to end before I said anything I couldn’t take back.
“Come on.” I stood and held out a hand to help her up. “Let’s at least check out the sites. I don’t want to spend our remaining time fighting in a dilapidated apartment.”
She gave me one long, appraising look, and I wasn’t so sure about my assumption we could remain friends. It gutted me that I’d done the one thing I’d wanted to avoid: gain her trust only to break it. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever speak to me again after she got on that plane. But we’d come to the end of the line. This was where she had to finally take a leap of faith.