“We had our tents. So we thought we’d let everybody else stay inside,” he answered. “You couldn’t sleep either?”
“No,” I whispered, and told him sheepishly, “I keep imagining being buried under mud. Lame, huh?”
“Not even.”
Moonlight bathed us through a parting of clouds. I was good at the chase, even better at the breakup. No depth required. And I knew how our story would go unless I made a decision: Boy ruins Girl’s photo shoot. Boy chases Girl on the Inca Trail. Girl loses Boy because she’s too much of a coward to ask him one question: How do you feel about me?
For crying out loud, this was a guy who’d searched for me when disaster struck. What was I waiting for? Just grab his hand. That’d be a start.
Naturally, this had to be the one moment on the entire trip when my palms went slick with cold sweat. Naturally. So much for my plan to go all bold. But it was Quattro who cocked his head over at the small grouping of tents. I nodded. I was more than a little relieved and nervous to spend time with him. We found a log to sit on. For a long minute, Quattro didn’t say a word. I didn’t either.
Finally, I asked, “What were you doing out here?”
“Thinking about my mom,” he said simply. “I just haven’t had any time with everything going on. In a weird way, she would have loved all this.”
“What? The mudslide?”
“Well, not that, but the story she’d tell about it later. She always had a way of making our lives sound a lot more interesting.” He paused, testing different words in his head. “No, more meaningful.”
“What would she say about this?”
“You never know when it’ll be your time. So live it all—not live without regrets. She’d say that was stupid and selfish. But live so you never regret anything you do, any decision you make.”
His face tightened as if he was remembering something painful. I knew I was. Funny how a single word can trigger memories better left for dead. Selfish. The zombie memory of my last conversation with Dom reanimated and staggered to its feet. I could hear Dom’s chilly voice as if he towered over me, all righteous anger the night we broke up.
It was mid-August, and Dom had invited me to a party at his rental house, where beer flowed as easily as stories about summer travels and internships from hell. The night was hot, one of those rare heat spells in Seattle, and I was so relieved that our relationship was back on track. All was forgiven! I had taken special pains with my sexy and sophisticated older-woman disguise: delicately perfumed, hair styled in a messy topknot, the designer sunglasses from Dom perched on top of my head, white skirt with towering wedge heels. And I was drunk, just one sloppy kiss away from saying, “Fine, Dom, tonight.” Why not give in? What the hell was I saving myself for when I knew I was in love with him?
“Half the guys here are staring at you,” Dom said with a smile that verged on smug. He changed out my beer for a glass of red wine, leaning in close to tell me, “You’ll like this. A Montepulciano. When we go to Italy…” It didn’t matter how he finished that thought, not with that self-assured “You’ll like this,” not with that exotic “Montepulciano,” and definitely not with the delicious clincher: “When we go to Italy.” What more proof did I need that Dom thought of us as the It Couple? And even better, the kind of couple who lived my kind of future: adventure and travel. Just as I leaned into him, just as I tilted my head up at him and pursed my lips in the way that drove him crazy, he was wrenched out of my arms.
My brother Max loomed in my vision. Unlike everyone else at this business school party, he had completed his MBA and was about to relocate to San Francisco. That’s why I didn’t expect him to show up. He started shoving Dom, not caring that the party had gone graveyard silent or that everyone was staring at him, at us. I didn’t realize then that it would be the last time I could ever consider Dom and me an “us.”
“Do you even know how old she is?” Max demanded, his face right up in Dom’s.
“Stop,” I protested, not knowing whether I was begging Max to keep from hitting Dom or from revealing my secret.
“She’s a sophomore.” Shove. “In high school.”
Dom’s accusatory expression landed on me. More than pointless, I knew my words would only make things worse, but still I corrected Max softly: “Junior.”
Dom glanced around the living room, his face flushed bright red with embarrassment. A minute or two later, I was running after him to the street. His shame became rage. His face twisted as he yelled at me, “You could have ruined my life!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t you think you should have told me you were underage?”
“Dom, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Dom glared at me with poison and contempt and regret. He spat, “Selfish. That’s exactly what you are! God, I wish I had never met you.”