“No piña coladas… but will a San Pellegrino do?” Mari unzips the small fabric cooler she brought along.
I happily take a bottle and glug down a few gulps. It doesn’t even matter what I’m drinking because vacation has officially started. Our towels are rolled out right in front of the glimmering waters of the Mediterranean. I squint my right eye closed and watch a prism of light shimmer through the green glass of the San Pellegrino bottle, casting every color of the rainbow onto the corner of my towel.
So much of my brainpower the past year has been spent transporting myself to this very moment—basking in the sun, living the routine of Sailor Foster. I check her Instagram stories, and wouldn’t you know, she’s doing the exact thing we are right now. I flash my phone screen to Anya and Mari, showing them Sailor’s story, which pans over a beachside view, one that doesn’t look too much different from ours. Sailor and I were basically living the exact same existence at this point. Life had peaked.
The towels we smuggled from our hotel room are laid out on the stony beach, and even though it’s kind of lumpy and uncomfortable, we saved twenty euro each by not renting beach chairs and umbrellas. Everything is a trade-off when you have a limited budget. I sell it to myself like I’m simply lying on an acupressure mat, and this is a two-for-one wellness experience, as each jagged stone juts into my skin. I prop myself up on my elbows, looking out across the smattering of boats and yachts, wiggling mytoes. I’d spent an extra dollar per toe to get tiny lemon decals drawn onto them.
I close my eyes and breathe in the salt air. This is paradise. I’m still riding the high of seeing Wes last night. I had hoped to get a good-night kiss or a proper goodbye, but there were too many people around. Luckily, there are many more nights ahead of us.
So I’ll be hanging out on cloud nine all day.
“Whoa, Soraya—that guy over there is an exact doppelgänger for Wes.” Anya points to a chair by the water.
All the tiny hairs on my arms stick straight up. I can’t bring myself to look. Is it him? If it is, I’ll be in hot water, trying to explain why we aren’t shocked to see each other. I finally force my eyes to where Anya is pointing—and relax. While there is a likeness—tall, lean, athletic build and sun-kissed blond hair—it’s not Wes. “He does, kind of.”
“Or maybe not. Maybe I’m forgetting what he looks like.” Anya shakes her head. “Haven’t seen him since junior prom.”
“What a night that was.” Mari rolls her eyes.
My insides clench. Mari and Anya love to fixate on all Wes’s wrongdoings. At prom he was young and immature and about to head off to college. If only they saw how he was last night. Aren’t people allowed to change?
“So happy you finally took out the trash,” Anya says.
I nod, silent, praying for a change in subject.
“Look at this!” Mari holds up the book she took fromthe table yesterday. “Someone has written notes in the margins.” It’s not hard to see that Mari is charmed—she is using her phone to translate the phrases.
“What does it say?” Anya asks.
“Okay—so it says:Gardens represent paradise and renewal, flooded with green and growth. When in a garden, one should feel harmony to nature and the interconnectedness of life.” Mari looks at us, putting a hand over her heart. “This is so profound. Who is this person? I want to be their friend.”
“More than friend. This seriously would be how you meet your soulmate. A meet-cute worthy of the 1800s,” I say. I look down to a text from Wes:Can you be addicted to someone? Asking for a friend.I bite down on my lower lip to keep from grinning.
“I wish. Nothing that perfect happens in real life.” Mari shrugs, but she’s now scribbling her own notes in the margins. My perpetual hopeless romantic.
“You never know!” I rotate slightly on my towel, flooded with newfound optimism for love, to pull out the book I brought from my bag. Soon the pages will be crinkly from water and smudged with oily lotion stains. I could do this every single day: stay out late with Wes, roll out of bed in the morning, and lay comatose on the beach, roasting, setting a timer to flip every two hours.
Marisol sets her book down to answer a FaceTime from her family. Our lunch is their early breakfast, so they’re around the kitchen table, cereal bowls in front ofseven kids and her parents. Mari pans the camera over us, and I smile.
“Bellissima!” someone off-screen yells from thousands of miles away.
“Happy graduation day, Lorena!” I wave to Marisol’s sister when the camera pauses on her. It wasn’t like Mari to miss out on something like Lorena’s middle school graduation, but this trip is extenuating circumstances. A once-in-a-lifetime.
Lorena beams, lighting up the screen. Mari’s mom blows us kisses as she gets up to tend to stuffing sandwiches and chips in her assembly line of bag lunches. Moments later they say their goodbyes and get back to their busy day.
I readjust on my towel and fix my swimsuit. It’s neon orange and made from that crinkly material that is a tenth the size until you stretch it out to put on. The sun is rising in the sky, and it’s starting to get so hot that the pebbles burn through the towel. “Should we go into the water?”
“Yes!” Mari says, popping up.
We run over the stones like they’re hot coals, racing each other to the water. Anya and Mari charge in, creating quite the scene, splashing, shrieking, all of it.
I, on the other hand, gingerly step into the water. The cold pools around my ankles and zaps me like a shock. At first it’s all pins and needles, but it morphs quickly into a warm numbness. It feels good. Really good. A girl bounds out of the water right in front of me and hands me aninflatable float in the shape of a cone of gelato. She’s speaking Italian, and I can’t understand what she’s saying, but I do pick up on the meaning behind her hand gestures. She’s leaving and is offering me her float. I gratefully accept it and say “Grazie” five times in a row before sailing off, belly first.
I paddle out toward the horizon, after Mari and Anya, as my float bobs up and down in the deep blue water. I slick my hair back and pivot around to face them. Behind us is the picturesque beach, dotted with striped umbrellas, packed with sunbathers, scattered with small sailboats waiting to be taken out.
“This light, you guys. It’s better than any filter.” The sun has washed us in a golden shimmer. I paddle to stay in place while Anya and Mari tread water around me. My arms dangle in the sea; it’s cold but refreshing. It injects me with an ounce of bravery, and I broach the biggest pain point of our friendship. “Okay, hear me out for a second.”
“Okay…” Anya says, already suspicious.
