*
When I enter the store, Holly practically runs to the front doors to wrap her arms around me. “Tell me everything,” she says. We sit at the counter and I tell her about riding the train from Spain into southern France; about the retired couple I met who had been traveling through Europe for over a year and let me ride with them through Genoa and down into Italy. I tell her about the aqua water and the towns that cling to the white cliffs that rise up from the sea. I tell her about getting the museum pass in France, and the miles and miles of gorgeous art, how inspiring it all was, how I’ve been keeping a sketchbook as I go and photographing everything. She’s thrilled to hear about my flower shop job halfway across the world. Yet when I’m done, she leans forward and asks, “What about Tate?”
I haven’t heard his name spoken out loud in so long that it sends goose bumps down my arms. Traveling through Europe has been a nice distraction, and it’s helped me resist Googling his name to see how the tour is going, see how he looks, see if he’s back to his old ways: hot girls, late nights, too much of everything. The last time I saw him was in the hospital room. But I’ve thought about him more often than I’d like to admit. “I haven’t seen him,” I say.
“But you miss him?”
I nod. “I can’t help it.”
“He was your first love, those are always the toughest to get over. And you’ve sure gone out of your way to get as far away from him as you can.”
“I didn’t leave LA to escape him,” I say.
“It may not have been your only reason for leaving, but if it wasn’t for him, you might never have realized that you needed to experience the world.” I know she’s right, but it’s still hard to admit that anything good came from Tate and I being together. It feels more like he tore me down the center, my heart spilling onto the floor.
“Keep sending me postcards,” Holly says when she hugs me good-bye at the front of the store. “My refrigerator is covered with them.”
She kisses me on the forehead before I go. Tears well in both of our eyes as we wave good-bye.
I drive down all the old streets. I can’t help but remember the rides with Tate along the same roads, and all the places we went to together. I lived here my entire life, yet everything reminds me of those brief few months with him. I wish I could forget.
But I can’t. I don’t think I ever will.
TWENTY-SIX
AFTER ONLY FIVE DAYS AT home, I’m escaping the city once again. The first leg is to New York, and then I’ll go on to Rome from there. I shuffle down the aisle of the plane and find my seat: the window seat in the second-to-last row. I’m relieved to be leaving. I’m not ready to be back in LA, to face the real world and the rest of my life just yet. Being here for five days was hard enough.
People are still shoving their luggage into the overhead bins and trying to locate their seats when a flight attendant weaves her way down the aisle. I buckle my seat belt, and when I glance back up, the flight attendant has stopped beside my row. She leans over the man in a suit sitting in the aisle seat. “Charlotte Reed?” she asks. In her hand is a folded piece of paper.
“Yes?” I say
“You’ve been upgraded.”
“Excuse me?”
“To first class, you’ve been bumped up to first class. Would you like to follow me?”
I don’t move—for a moment, my mind goes blank.
“Must be your lucky day,” the man in the suit says, smiling at me. But I just blink across the empty middle seat at him.
“Are you sure?” I ask, gazing up at the flight attendant.
“You’re the only Charlotte Reed we have on the plane, so pretty sure.”
“Don’t argue with the woman,” the man says good-heartedly, raising a bushy eyebrow. “Take your upgrade before they give it to someone else.” He stands up and takes a step back, making room for me to exit the row. I grab my neck pillow and my bag filled with books for the flight, and follow the flight attendant to the front of the plane.
As we near first class, I keep waiting for her to turn around, to realize her mistake and usher me back to my cramped seat. But when we pass through the blue curtain dividing the first-class cabin from the rest of the seats, nerves begin to rise up inside me, remembering the last time I sat in first class. I don’t want to think it, but I can’t help it: Did Tate do this?
But when the woman stops and gestures to my seat, I see that the row is empty. No Tate. I exhale an audible sigh of relief and settle in beside the window. She returns a moment later with a bottle of chilled water and a cool, damp towel that smells like cucumbers. I tilt my head back, closing my eyes.
Faintly, I hear two flight attendants talking at the front of the plane, and I open my eyes to look at them. Their faces are close together, saying something I can’t hear, and then their gazes lift, both smiling.