“I miss Greece,” he finally says.
I take a deep breath, trying to block out the pain in my arm. “I miss when life didn’t feel like a curse.”
Theo turns his head to the side, his eyes at half-mast. “You were never the curse,” he murmurs. His eyes shutter closed and I watch him for a long moment, starlight glinting off his lips and lashes.
I shift onto my side, trying to get comfortable on the cold ground, but pain radiates through my arm, making it impossible to think about anything else. After what feels like hours of tossing and turning, I give up on sleep and tiptoe to the hot spring.
I prod my scarlet, swollen stitches with my finger and hiss in pain.
This might be a mistake, but here goes nothing.
I slip my shirt off and step out of my pants. I leave them carefully folded by the edge of the spring and step into the hot water. I sink down until the scalding, soothing water reaches my neck and tip my head back with a sigh as the throbbing in my arm subsides.
Now that it’s gone, I realize the pain was like being in a room with the TV on, the volume inching up little by little. It wasbackground noise until suddenly it was the loudest noise of all, drowning out everything else.
Blissfully, it’s finally quiet. My head clears for the first time since the crash, and an old familiar daydream flickers to life in its absence.
Theo and me in Chicago, taking the train like he’s not one of the most famous people in the world.I invent a hundred reasons why we’d be out together (taking Comet and Wally for a walk, coming home from a Cubs game, running through an entire roll of film on my Polaroid camera), in a hundred different conditions (the first snow of the season, drowning in humidity, crunching leaves under our feet). We take our time, because the world isn’t ending, and no one is dying, and we get to make our own future. The picture is fuzzy around the edges, slipping out of my fingers like a dream the moment you wake up, but I pretend it’s the life we’d have if we were different people in different circumstances.
When I get frustrated with the impossibility of it all, I imagine myself in a crown in Buckingham Palace. Weirdly, this future is easier to see, because it’s not impossible. Theo can never join my world, but I could join his, and we’d follow a path laid out for generations. I tip my head back to gaze at the stars and lie to myself about destiny.
“What about your stitches?”
Theo’s voice startles me. I twist around to see him standing shirtless on the edge of the spring, his toes inches from the water.
I cross my arms over my chest on instinct, though the water’s too dark and murky for him to see anything scandalous. “I’m risking it.”
He nods distractedly and rakes a hand through his hair. “Okay.”
The silence between us stretches paper thin. “You couldn’t sleep either?”
“No. I, um—” He clears his throat and paces the side of the hot spring. “I need to say something.”
My heart beats double-time.
He stops abruptly and spins to face me. His jaw clenches. “You aren’t the reason my life is a mess. I am lucky to know you, Wren Wheeler, and it was criminal for me to imply otherwise. I’m sorry.” He looks like the words were tortured out of him.
“Thank you,” I wheeze. I stopped breathing somewhere around the word “lucky.” “I’m sorry for what I said too. About how I’d be better off if we’d never met.” I knew I was a liar the moment I answered Theo’s Would You Rather question.
His gaze hits the ground as he rubs the back of his neck. I’ve never seen him so unsure.
“Is there something else you wanted to say?”
“Yes, but—” He cuts himself off and looks at the sky. At anywhere but me, it feels like. “Do you want to play another game?” he asks suddenly.
Talk about emotional whiplash. “The last one didn’t go very well.”
His teeth scrape over his bottom lip. “I’m a bit desperate here, and this is the only thing I can think of.”
“What kind of game?”
“We’re each allowed to ask each other three questions, and we can’t lie.”
“That’s not a game, that’s a conversation.”
“Something we’re notoriously good at,” he deadpans.
“Hey! I’ve gotten better.”
