She stares at it like it might bite her. “You’re cold. Take it,” I say.
She opens her mouth to argue but I push it into her arms. “You can throw it out when you’re done with it. I don’t need it back.”
I feel like a dick when I see the hurt flash across her face, but I’d be digging myself a bigger hole if I took the sweater back after she wore it. It would only serve as a reminder of her, the best friend that I lost…the best friend that I’d loved.
“Thank you,” she says quieter now, holding up the sweater with a small smile. “For the sweater and for bringing us here.”
I hold her gaze for a moment longer, memorizing the radiant green of them before I give a quick nod and walk out of the hospital and straight to my car.
But I don’t drive home. I stay until her parents arrive. I stay until they leave the hospital, Zalea wearing my sweater while holding a bandaged Sprinkles close to her chest as they walk to their car. I stay until they’re long gone, wondering how she managed to embed herself so deeply into my heart that three years apart has changed nothing about how it races around her.
I decide I’m done with this friends-to-strangers business and I drive straight for her house without a second thought.
It’s already dark out by the time I arrive. I park a few houses down and work my way around the rose bushes that line her house. When I round the corner, I spot a light on in her bedroom, and I bend down to pick up a pebble before tossing it at her window, hearing it tap the glass before it drops back to the ground.
Seconds later, Zalea pops her head out the window, still wearing my sweater.
“Gabriel?” She sounds shocked and confused as she stares down at me.
“Is our pact still on?” I whisper-shout.
“What?”
“Our marriage pact.” A small smile curls on my lips. “Are we still getting married when you’re thirty if we’re both single?”
She stares down at me for a long while, and then suddenly she smiles, her eyes sparkling joyfully. “Yeah,” she says softly. “It’s still on.”
I grin at her, but when the light next to her’s turns on and her mother peers out at me, I know it’s time to go.
“See you in the water, Red.”
“See you,” she says, her giggle music to my ears.
EIGHT
ZALEA | FLORENCE
“Welcome to the Uffizi Gallery,”Giovanna says as she leads our small group of eight students down a narrow hall. “And to the first day of our program.”
I’d met up with the rest of the group early this morning at the Piazza del Popolo in Rome, where we boarded the bus that Giovanna had arranged to take us to Florence. It was a three hour bus ride that I mostly slept through.
“I will assign each of you a painting to study every day this week.”
I look around but no one else seems as confused as I am so I raise my hand and wait for Giovanna to notice me. “What do you mean by study?”
“Most people try to figure out the meaning behind art. Instead, I want you to observe the colour temperatures the artist chose to use, the negative space, where your eyes naturally rest, things of that nature.”
“I see,” I say, staring up at the wall of paintings wondering which one will be assigned to me.
Giovanna spends the next ten minutes assigning paintings to each student, and answering any other questions beforeshe comes to stand next to me as the group scatters to their paintings.
“I left my favourite for you,” she says, coming to stand next to me and looking up at the painting that’s caught my attention. “But it looks like you found it all on your own.”
The plaque under the painting readsPrimaveraby Sandro Botticelli. It’s a stunning piece of art, soft looking, but the longer I stare at it the more I see, and I think I’m beginning to understand what Giovanna meant when she said to observe.
“I have three questions I’d like you to consider this week as you come back to this painting, and I’ll ask you to answer them for me on the last day,” she says, gently calling my attention back to her.
I flip open the notebook I bought yesterday to take notes in, and bring my pen to the page. She stares down at the book with an amused smile, and I assume it’s because I’m probably the only student of hers treating this program like I would school.
