“Um. I never said anything about being ‘in love’ with her.”
“But you are.”
“How on earth do you know that?!”
“Because. You’re my best friend. I know how you act around girls you like, and I know how you act around girls you really like, and you never acted either of those ways around Clara. Which means you must really, reeeeallly like her.”
Rae squirmed. It wasn’t news that Aubrey understood her better than anyone else did, but it was still disturbing to think she’d seen through Rae so easily. Especially since this felt so incredibly private. “I don’t know.” Rae scrambled to change the subject. “Is this because you’re in love with Gabe?”
Aubrey sat on the bed, crossed her arms over her legs, and put her head down on top of them. The light from another apartment building bent through the shutters and over her body.
“Holy shit,” Rae said. “Is that a yes? Are you saying we fell in love at the same time?”
“I’m not saying anything.” Aubrey’s voice was muffled.
“Holy shit!” Rae said again. “This is like if our periods synced. But so much weirder.”
“I just want to go home. I miss my room and my parents and my stuff. I hate tiny bottles of shampoo, and I really hate these beds.”
Rae wondered if the wine was starting to get to her, or if this bizarre long day was finally wearing them both down. She pushed herself off the door and sat with Aubrey. “This whole Clara-and-me thing, it’s—kind of weird to talk about. And it’s still new. Nothing even happened till Prague.”
“But you had a thing for her.” Aubrey lifted her head, her hair falling from her ponytail. There were red wine splatters all over her shirt. “You must have. It explains why you never mentioned liking anyone this year. And why you were so dismissive of everyone you kissed.”
“I guess.” Rae rapped the passport against her thigh. “But people are allowed to keep a few secrets. It’s what humans do.”
“I don’t. Not with you, anyway. I’ve told you every embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me. I told you about stress-crying in the middle of my calculus final. And back in June, when the musical ended, I told you about kissing Gabe.”
Rae felt a brief surge of irritation. “Yeah. And you told me all about you guys going to Rome together. And about making out in Berlin. You didn’t spare me any detail.”
“That’s different!” Aubrey cried. “I wanted to tell you those things, but I—I couldn’t. We haven’t even been speaking. And I was confused. I didn’t understand why Gabe and I kept kissing.”
“Because you’re into him.”
“Yeah.” Aubrey dropped her head to her knees again. “Thanks.”
Rae ran her hand over the shaved patch at the back of her head. This wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped.
“I’m so unbelievably sick of change,” Aubrey said. “I hate that it’s happening all at once.”
“It isn’t,” Rae said. “You used to wear Adventure Time T-shirts every week and watch High School Musical obsessively. You don’t do that anymore.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Aubrey stood up, the floorboards murmuring. “That’s just growing up. It’s gradual. I tried to feel ready for graduation. And I tried to feel ready for this summer—I genuinely wanted my life to get so much bigger than it was. But I thought, when that happened, we’d be in it together.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. We can’t be each other’s security blankets forever.”
“Which you made extra sure of. By choosing to go to Australia.”
“Well, where did you want me to go?” Rae couldn’t hide her exasperation. “New York?”
“Yes!” Aubrey said. “Of course I did!”
Rae shut up. What the hell? Aubrey had never said anything like that to her before. They’d never—never—talked about going to college together.
“It was what we planned.” Aubrey played with the ponytail holder around her wrist. “When we watched those old movies that Lucy likes. We talked about riding sleeper trains all over Europe and getting an apartment somewhere so we could be roommates. We were going to spend every summer in a different country.”
“But we were kids! We also talked about living in Antarctica and rescuing penguins.”
“Yeah.” Aubrey’s voice was almost pleading. “But that doesn’t mean it was all bullshit. Does it?”
Rae feigned an interest in the painting on the wall: the silent, unmoving fields, the sun frozen at midday. Of course it was bullshit. It had always been bullshit. Something fun to think about, something fun to dream about, but not something that was supposed to be real.
The last time they’d talked like that, they’d been twelve, maybe thirteen. And they were eighteen now.
Eighteen was when Rae was supposed to give up high school and her friends and her whole life in London. It was when she was supposed to bulldoze over everything and dive headfirst into whatever came next. Exactly the way her mom had.
But she wasn’t stupid—she’d always known that would be tough. So she’d tried to harden herself to the fear, tried to tell herself she didn’t feel it so much.
Rae thumbed through Aubrey’s passport. It was strange, because now she could see that Aubrey and Clara were pretty similar in one way. They both didn’t want to lose everything they had now. They both didn’t want to throw away their home and all the important memories they’d collected over the last few years. Clara had changed Rae’s mind about so many things. She’d made Rae understand that she wanted to hold on, too—to those small, wonderful hopes she had for her future, to all the moments she’d found with Clara.
But, for some reason, Rae hadn’t been trying to keep Aubrey in the same way. She’d been doing exactly what Aubrey had accused her of doing—pushing her aside, closing her out. And at the same time, she’d been pulling Clara closer.
Because she wasn’t ready to let go of Clara yet.
But, maybe, she was ready to let go of Aubrey.
“Don’t worry,” Aubrey said. “I’m not going to leave now.” But her voice sounded cold and flat.
Rae could only nod and stand up. She put Aubrey’s passport on the bed and left the room, closing the door and listening to it click—putting even more walls between them.
29
Aubrey
Monday, July 11
FLORENCE to BARCELONA
On the way to Barcelona, Aubrey sat in a separate carriage from everyone else, reading the same Virginia Woolf book she’d taken with her to Rome.
It was the middle of a long day of travel. Fourteen hours and five tight connections in order to get them from Italy to France to Spain. The train she was on now trundled through the South of France, a misty summer storm leaving streaks of water on the windows. Aubrey balled up her sweatshirt and used it as a pillow. Across the aisle from her, a mom placed plastic animals on her tray table and told a story about them to her toddler. The toddler sipped a juice box, listening closely.
Aubrey turned a page in her copy of The Waves. She’d reached the part where the characters were on a train, too. Six of them, all leaving school. The narrator moved between their thoughts, shifting from fear to hope to ambivalence. Six different people. A track dividing six completely different ways.
A food cart rolled past, and Aubrey emerged from the story. Like she was waking up from the depths of sleep. Like the curtain had fallen at the end of a play.
She ordered a warm cup of tea and sipped it as she watched the rain. And while she did, she thought about Gabe and Rae. She thought about this morning, how, as they’d left the apartment, she’d avoided saying a word to Gabe. How she’d been too embarrassed to talk about last night. Or about Rome, which seemed so far away now.
And she thought about how certain she was that she and Rae weren’t going to be friends like they had been before: attached at the hip; threaded together, so that when one moved, the other followed.
But maybe this was what needed to happen.
Since she’d never figured out how to be alone before, she would figure it out now. She would spend today with this tea and this window and the quiet company of this book. Books were better than friends anyway, because a book had never kissed a girl in Prague and then become all elusive and cagey about it. A book had never gotten bored of her or decided to move to the other side of the world from her or done mysterious things that Aubrey would inevitably find out about through social media—like hang out on a beach in Melbourne with a brand-new, hipster clique or get spur-of-the-moment tattoos and haircuts.
Aubrey’s legs started to cramp. She got up and took her book, picking her way toward the back of the train. After the final carriage, she reached a door that opened onto a small vestibule with long glass panels looking over the tracks—the shadows of trees were spread across them, and a gray stripe of gravel ran beneath. Aubrey stood by the window. The whole scene kept changing in front of her, the tracks falling out from under her feet.
“Aubrey?” a voice said behind her.
She turned and saw Jonah walking toward the open door.
“Jonah,” she said, “what are you doing here?”
“You know.” He shrugged and seemed a little uneasy, but he came over to join her anyway. “I didn’t feel like sitting. And hey, look at this. We found a cool view.”
“Yeah,” she said apprehensively. “I guess we did.”
They watched the scenery pass by for a moment, his reflection next to hers. His hair was sun-bleached, and his clothes were dark. He looked different somehow—a little bit wilder, a little bit looser. It hadn’t even been a week since he’d left, but he seemed almost older, too. Like he was one step closer to becoming the person he would someday be.
“Last night was pretty awkward,” he said to the window.
“You could say that.”
“And that wine,” he said. “That wine was really bad.”
Aubrey glimpsed at him. “How could you tell?”
“Technically, I don’t know shit about wine. But yikes. That stuff tasted like a Cherry Coke that got drunk.”
“Good point.” The sunlight winked in the metal of the tracks; Aubrey tried to count the rushing trees.
“All right.” He let out a breath. “So. Do you want to talk or what?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
He crammed his hands into his pockets. “I want to clear the air, yeah. And I want you to know I’m not with Leah now. We hung out, and she was cool about me staying with her, but I don’t know where things will go from here.”
“Jonah. You can be with anyone you want.”
“I know. But still.”
They stopped talking. Aubrey crossed her arms over her book and looked down. She and Jonah had never really dealt with long silences before—Jonah had always filled them even when Aubrey couldn’t. She stared at the tan forming on top of her feet and at her shoes reflected in the glass. And beyond that, at the train tracks that continued to move beneath them. A seemingly endless string.
“Breaking up really sucks,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “It does.”
She turned to the side to look at him. “Does everyone hate me now? Is that what they’re saying when I’m not around?”
“No.” He turned toward her, too. “Does everyone hate me? For leaving?”
“They were just confused. Well, Clara and Rae were confused. I don’t think they expected us to break up, like, ever.”
“Ever?”
“I know, right?” She pressed her elbow against the glass. “But I don’t think I’d pictured it, either. I thought if it did happen, it would be sometime in the far, distant future. I thought we’d be so mature that maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much. But I guess that was pretty ridiculous.”
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t ridiculous.”
Aubrey nodded. It was funny how even now—even after everything that had happened—she felt okay being around him. She was still comfortable sharing the same space as him.
“I guess you’re pretty mad at me,” she said. “And Gabe. Are you really mad at Gabe? You don’t hate him now, do you?”
“I wouldn’t say hate. I just—I don’t know. I’ll get over it.” His eyes fell to the book in her arms. “What are you reading?”
“The Waves,” she said eagerly. “By Virginia Woolf. Have you read it?”
“That’s more your area than mine, Aubs.” But he took it from her anyway. It was a paperback, a used copy she’d found at a bookstore near Lucy’s antique shop. The cover was a photograph of waves cresting and foaming. The title ran across it in white.
“It’s really perfect,” Aubrey said. “It’s about this group of friends who all go to school together when they’re kids, but then they get older, and they start leading these really different lives. But I think the point is supposed to be that they’re still connected in some way. Even when they don’t talk to each other for years. Even when they’re in completely different parts of the world.”
Jonah opened the first page. “Sounds like an Aubrey book to me.”
Aubrey bit her bottom lip. The train swayed a little, making it look like the tracks swayed, too. But Aubrey didn’t lose her footing. She was here with Jonah, and, in some ways, things still felt the same. He was still cute and sincere and a little bit unkempt. She was still anxious and worried and overthinking everything. And they both still knew each other. They still held so many pieces of each other’s lives. He gave her the book back, and she hugged it to her chest.
“Why did you come back?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“This was our trip,” he said. “I couldn’t miss out on it. Not all of it, anyway.”
Aubrey looked back outside and realized it wasn’t raining any longer.
“And I don’t hate Gabe,” he said. “We’ll probably even hang out again. Not right away, but you never know. Maybe we’ll play some video games over winter break. Hash it out with simulated death.”
“My parents are going to be so unhappy when I tell them we broke up. My mom will definitely still invite you to our Christmas party, though.”
“Cool. But, Aubs. Your mom does remember I’m Jewish, right?”
“Yeah.” Aubrey sighed. “I should probably remind her of that.”
They both turned to face the window again, watching the view like they were watching a movie. Images on a screen. All that reflected light.
Aubrey squeezed her book even tighter. Standing so close to the window, it was almost like they’d let go of the train. Like they were sailing this fast all by themselves. She wanted to stay there for hours as the scenery ran away behind them. Reminding her that they were here, they were here, they were here—and then they were gone.
30
Rae
Monday, July 11
BARCELONA
You have to bring your camera,” Clara said.
They’d arrived at their hostel in Barcelona just after nine PM, and Gabe’s sister had already invited them to hang out at her apartment near the university. Rae and Clara were getting ready to go. Clara stood by the full-length mirror, winging her eyeliner, as Rae put on ChapStick and slung her camera bag across her neck. She glanced across the room to where Aubrey sat on her bed, reading The Waves. Behind her, the door to the balcony was open, framing Aubrey with a backdrop of buildings—all their red façades and long windows. She hadn’t said much since they’d met up again at the Barcelona Sants train station over an hour ago, but she hadn’t tried to run home to London, either.
Rae decided to take that as a win.
“See you later,” she said to Aubrey from the door.
“Yeah.” Aubrey didn’t look up from her book. “Later.”
Rae and Clara headed out into the warm Barcelona night. The city was a burst of colors—reds, greens, and yellows. Everything shaded in rich, blazing hues—the gurgling fountains and the cafés advertising tapas and the palm trees planted along the roads. The air felt heavy and tropical,
like it does before a thunderstorm. Rae could smell the sea nearby.
As they neared the university, Clara said, “I have this really great idea,” and she tugged Rae through a set of heavy oak doors. Rae found herself in an entranceway with a shiny floor and bulletin boards covered in rumpled flyers. The ceiling arched above her, and to her side a boy sat on a bench looking over notes and bobbing his head to the music in his headphones.
“Is this a cultural landmark or something?” Rae asked. “Or—oh! Is it Hogwarts?”
“Could be,” Clara said. “But it’s also a college. I wanted to see what it’s like to be in one of these.”
“It reminds me of high school. But, like, bigger.”
Clara knotted their hands together. “Just act like you belong.”
They started exploring the hallways. Most of the lights had been turned off, and most of the students must have gone home by now, because there weren’t many other people around. When a janitor pushed a cart of cleaning supplies past them, Rae half expected him to say something—to ask who they were or demand to see their student IDs. But he barely even glanced their way. Maybe they really did look like students. Maybe they looked like they actually belonged.
At the end of one hall, they stumbled into an empty courtyard. Covered passageways lined its peripheries, and a few chairs with desks attached to them—the same kind Rae had sat in for years at LAS—were stacked in the corners. But in the lawn at the center was a tree, its branches fanned out and filled with bright-orange fruit. Even covered in shadows, Rae could see how vividly green the leaves were. How the orange fruit glowed.
Clara put her purse next to a desk and went to stand by the tree. She had on the same silver dress she’d worn their first night in Paris, but her hair was styled differently now, tied into a low, loose knot. Her shoes were the purple sequined ballet flats she’d had on the day they traveled to Prague. “Do you think this is what it will feel like to be in Melbourne?” she asked.
The Summer of Us Page 20
