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Before I can interrogate her, someone calls my name from farther up the beach.

“Nora?”

I turn and find a woman standing near the water with her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. It takes me a second to place her, and then my mouth falls open.

“No fucking way.”

“Nora!”

“Gianna!”

I run.

She meets me halfway and throws her arms around me so hard we almost fall into the water.

“Oh mio Dio! Quando sei arrivata?”

“Yesterday!”

She pulls back, grabs my face between her hands and stares at me. “Look at you!”

“Look at you!”

Another familiar face appears behind her and suddenly I'm screaming.

“FRANCESCA!”

For the next few minutes, there are arms everywhere. Hugs, kisses on cheeks and questions thrown at me so fast I can barely answer one before another comes. When did I arrive? How long am I staying? Where's Chiara? Is that really Chiara? Why didn't we tell anyone we were coming?

Someone calls someone else over, and somehow within ten minutes there are people around us I haven't seen in years. Childhood friends, people I used to spend entire summers with, people who knew me before Chicago and before America.

Before Damiano. Before everything.

And for a little while, I'm just Nora again.

At some point someone produces a volleyball. I have no idea where it comes from, but one minute we're talking and the next Gianna is dragging me toward the net farther down the beach.

“No, no, no. Absolutely not.”

“You used to play!”

“When I was eleven!”

“So?”

“So I'm twenty-seven!”

“You're talking like you're eighty!”

Chiara laughs. “She's always been dramatic.”

“Traitor!”

Teams are decided without anyone actually deciding anything, which feels appropriately Italian, and somehow Lexy and Dex get dragged into it too.

“I don't play volleyball!” Lexy protests.

“Neither does Nora!” Chiara yells.