It never is, though. And as the shadows around the pool get longer and the crowds start to thin out as people go back to their room to get ready for dinner, I start to wonder if there’s some reason for his absence that goes beyond him deciding to pop out on his own for a bit. Something involving me, say. And last night.
I wrack my brain, trying to figure out what I could have done that might make him want to avoid me for an entire day, but, try as I might, there’s nothing there. I know I had too much to drink in the bar, obviously; that much is obvious. But he still took me up to his room; he still looked after me and made sure I was okay. So I can’t have done anythingthatbad, surely?
So where is he?
“Peace offering?”
I look up from my lounger to see Chloe standing next to it, holding out a giant ice cream, which has already started to melt. I instantly think about the one Alex bought me last night, and push it away.
“I don’t think an ice cream is going to cut it somehow, do you?” I tell Chloe, struggling into a sitting position, my head woozy from the sun.
“No, of course not,” she sighs, passing me the cone anyway. “But I have to start somewhere, don’t I?”
I look at her over the top of my sunglasses. I know I’m going to have to talk to her about this at some point, it’s just… does it have to benow, when I haven’t worked out what I want to say about it yet? And do I have to be holding a huge, rapidly melting ice cream for it?
Why do people keep giving me giant cones to carry?
“I don’t really know what to say,” Chloe tells me, suggesting this is going to be a very short conversation, given that I don’t know either. She sits down and I notice she isn’t wearing any makeup. This must be her way of proving how upset she is: Chloe never goes anywhere without makeup.
“Look, I’m a shitty friend, okay?” she says, looking me in the eye. “I totally get it. I’ve felt guilty about what I did ever since it happened. I know that doesn’t make it okay, but I just want you to know that I’mnot going to try to make excuses, and I don’t blame you if you hate me.”
“You must havesomeexcuse, though?” I say, reluctantly curious. “I mean, you didn’t just do it for no reason, did you? I didn’t even think you liked Jamie that way?”
“I didn’t,” she shrugs. She starts picking at the polish on her pointed nails, and, for just a second, I get a glimpse of the girl she used to be — the one with the flat feet and thick glasses — before she’s gone again.
“I was just jealous,” she says, still staring at her hands. “That’s all it was. And I knew the second I did it that it was wrong, but it was too late by then. I’d already done it.”
“You were jealous?” I ask incredulously. “Of me?”
“Well, yeah,” she says, surprised. “You were so pretty, Summer. And clever. And you could sing, and do stuff that didn’t just involve putting makeup on and doing your hair… so, yeah, I was obviously jealous of you. And I’m sorry. I really am.”
I sit there silently watching the ice cream run down my wrist. I really want to ask her to expand on this, because, God knows, this is probably the only time in my life I’m going to get this many compliments from her, but it doesn’t seem like the right time for it.
“I didn’t realize,” I say instead. “It never even occurred to me that someone like you would be jealous of me.”
“That’s because you need to work on your self-esteem,” she says, sounding more like the old Chloe. “Starting with this karaoke contest tonight. Here.”
She hands me a posh looking shopping bag, and I sit there with it in one hand and the cone in the other, until Chloe takes the ice cream from me and throws it in the nearest bin.
“I know this doesn’t make up for what I did either,” she says, as I poke curiously at the tissue paper on top of the bag. “I’m not, like,trying to buy your friendship back, or anything. But I saw this, and I thought of you, so…”
I open the bag and pull out a gold dress in a beautiful silky fabric that runs through my hands like water. It’s quite possibly the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen; and it looks like it’ll fit me, too. But…
“Chloe, this must have cost a fortune,” I say, holding it up to the light. “I can’t—”
“Yes you can,” she says firmly. “And, like I say, I’m not expecting it to make everything okay between us, but I want you to have it anyway, because it’s going to look amazing on you, and you deserve to look amazing.
“I… I… Thank you,” I tell her simply.
There’s a lot more to be said about all of this, obviously. And we will say it all; I know we will. But it’s going to take a lot more than one quick conversation to unravel years’ worth of me and Chloe and our complicated friendship, and, like she said herself, we have to start somewhere. I guess this can be our start.
“So, what happened with you and Alex last night?” she asks now. “You two looked pretty cozy together when I left.”
I quickly fill her in on everything that’s happened since she left us in the bar last night, up to and including the fact that I haven’t seen the man in question since I snuck out of his room this morning.
“Okay,” says Chloe, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully. “As I see it, one of two things has happened here.”
I take off my sunglasses and look at her hopefully.
