CHAPTER 1
Everyone within a twenty-foot radiushas now seen my new lime-green cheeky Tangas.
They also now know I exclusively use super-plus tampons, as they are strewn all over the glossy airport floor like a container of giant Tic Tacs has exploded out from my suitcase.
“Miss, you’re still at fifty-eight pounds.” The desk attendant at the Hartsfield-Jackson Delta counter inspects the scale before casting a vicious, yet impressive, side-eye at me. “You’re looking at an overweight baggage fee of one hundred and fifty dollars.”
“I can recombobulate!” I plead as I frantically attempt to scoop suitcase debris into my overstuffed backpack and purse. This is what I get for buying a luggage scale off Wish.com. There was no more asking for money—Mom and Dad were gone, had squeezed me to death outside after the four-hour drive from Savannah until I screamed that they were bruising my ribs. Looks from worried bystanders eventually shamed them into letting go, but not before Mom forced on me a thermos of Persian teaand Dad handed me the pepper spray he ordered online, despite my explaining TSA’s rules on liquids and weapons in the simplest of terms.
Icannotafford an overweight baggage fee. That money is already spent on limoncello martinis or a private sunset boat ride to Capri or the unlimited cones of pistachio gelato I plan to consume. I refuse to spend it transporting the knockoff UGG slippers over the Atlantic just because they would make a cute addition to an Instagram carousel of lounging on a European train. My phone vibrates uncontrollably and crashes to the floor. I lunge after it, my most precious possession.
“Soraya, breathe.” Anya puts her hands on my shoulders to steady me. Her makeup-free face is stoic and centered. “Just put some of your things in here—it’s fine.” She opens her bag and it’s a minimalist spa. All her clothes are folded and rolled into tiny little cinnamon buns.
“You need to work at Abercrombie. You have a gift,” I say, breathless, as I begin to stuff crumpled shirts, wrinkled dresses, and a pair of polka-dot espadrilles inside. “What’s eight pounds, anyway?”
“A human head,” Marisol pipes in, grinning behind gold-wired hexagon glasses.
“Common misconception. A human head weighs closer to ten pounds,” Anya says.
I awkwardly sit on my luggage to zip it up, then toss my suitcase that most definitely feels a human head lighter back up on the scale.
The numbers on the scale tick upward as I teeter from one scuffed VEJA shoe to the next. The desk attendant’s lips are pencil thin and tense. Eventually, she reads the verdict. “Forty-nine-point-nine pounds.” She hands over my boarding pass, accepting defeat. “Safe travels to Naples.”
“Thank you!” I beam.
I smile creepily at everyone on the way to our gate: the TSA worker checking my passport at security, the bathroom attendant, the coffee shop cashier. I can’t help it! This trip is the beginning of my adult life, and over a year in the making. I’d scraped together graduation gifts, worked endless double babysitting shifts, listed old clothes on Poshmark until my dresser drawers were bare, and now here we are, about to embark on almost three entire months crisscrossing Europe, an homage to our friendship before we head off to college. Nothing could go wrong now.
We make a pit stop at Hudson News to stock up on pretzels, candy, and magazines before settling at our gate. My knees are pressed to my chest cannonball-style on a seat speckled with stains and holes, bags spilling out around us. My heather-gray sweatpants are covered in pretzel crumbs in a matter of minutes.
I admire the feathery eyelash extensions of a woman a row over from us. They’re much nicer than the ones I had done for this trip. I touch my finger to my scratchy lashes before realizing I’ve seen this woman before. “Holy shit, you guys—that’s Sailor Foster!” The influencer is sittingwith rose gold gel patches below her eyes, a neck pillow over her shoulders, head half cocooned by the hood of her Gucci sweatshirt. Her Louis Vuitton duffel sits atop a matching Louis Vuitton roller bag. Effortlessly cool.
“Oh my God, it really is.” Marisol is starstruck, glancing up, then down, afraid to stare.
“Did I not tell you guys that anyone who’sanyoneis heading to the Amalfi Coast this summer?” I couldn’t help but gloat a little. Some slight convincing had to be done to sway Anya from wanting to start the trip in England, and Marisol, France. It was a no-brainer if you asked me and, well, I had my reasons—but what better way to kick off than roasting like a rotisserie chicken on a pebbled Italian beach? In a matter of hours, we would be dipping our toes in a sapphire sea, lounging under lemon trees, eating our weight in pizza at our luxury hotel, Santa Angelica, which was crawling with vines of fuchsia bougainvillea. “I wouldn’t even be surprised if she’s staying at our hotel. Celebritiesonlystay at five-star hotels.”
“That would be so cool,” Marisol says, now fully staring.
“Stop drooling, Mar. You’re still jailbait,” I joke. She’s been chasing her eighteenth birthday all year and still must wait nearly three more months until she joins us in adulthood. Her birthday falls on the last weekend of our trip, which means Anya has to be Mari’s legal chaperone for this vacation.
“Just never seen a celebrity before, is all.” Marisol flushes red. “I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to it—aEuropean summer romance. Not with her… just in general. Any girl. Could you imagine? Having a first date beneath the Eiffel Tower or walking through the streets of Capri? Chills.”
“Yeah, I mean, I’m open to whatever, too.” I shrug just as my phone vibrates.
“For the record, while I have no interest in partaking, I fully support this for you, Sora. Anything to get over Wes,” Anya adds.
Mari quickly seconds. “Literally,anything.”
My heart skips a beat. Wes Mason, bad boy of my dreams, who invented the chase and can play “Twin Flames” by MGK on the guitar. Wes, who wears a fitted white T-shirt better than Chris Hemsworth. Okay, that last part is maybe a stretch, but it’s real close—like Edward-and-Jacob-split-down-the-middle kind of close.
Wes recently finished his freshman year at Armstrong and now that I was off to college too, it was game on. There would be no more hot, cold, on-again, off-again. No more missed meetups because of my curfew and him being slow to respond. It was time for him to see me as a woman. It was finally time for us to do this,officially, as a couple.
He had not-so-subtly alluded to as much, how things would be “so different” once I got to college. I had taken the liberty of filling in the blanks—I’d be his date to all the formals, we’d spend most every night together, and he’d join me for Persian breakfast at my family’s house onChristmas morning. I didn’t want to say it out loud, since Anya and Mari’s main goal in life is to cure me of the Wes Nile virus, but I didn’t have eyes for anyone else.
I rapidly send out a few text messages before my phone vibrates again.
“Who is blowing you up?” Anya’s eyes narrow.
“It’s my parents—you know how they are.” I shield my phone and pivot. “Can we go over the itinerary again?”
