by Gayle Forman
He lights his cigarette. His eyes flash. He points to the gate again.
My body feels like it’s no longer solid matter. It is particle dust. It is pure electricity. It dances me across the theater, toward the side of the stage. There is a crowd of well-wishers awaiting the actors. People holding bouquets of flowers, bottles of champagne. The actress who played Celia comes out to whoops and hugs. Next comes Adam, then Rosalind, who gets a heap of bouquets. My heart starts to thunder. Could I have come this close only to miss him?
But then I hear him. He is, as always, laughing; this time at something the guy who played Jacques said. And then I see his hair, shorter than it was, his eyes, dark and light all at once, his face, a small scar on his cheek, which only makes him more strikingly handsome.
My breath catches in my throat. I’d thought I’d embellished him. But really, if anything, the opposite is true. I’d forgotten how truly beautiful he is. How intrinsically Willem.
Willem. His name forms in my throat.
“Willem!” His name rings out loud and clear.
But it’s not my voice that said it.
I touch my fingers to my throat to be sure.
“Willem!”
I hear the voice again. And then I see the blur of movement. A young woman races out from the crowd. The flowers she is carrying drop to the ground as she hurls herself into his arms. And he takes her in. He lifts her off the ground, holds her tight. His arms clutch into her auburn hair, laughing at whatever it is she’s whispering into his ear. They spin around, a tangle of happiness. Of love.
I stand there rooted, watching this very private public display. Finally, someone comes up to Willem and taps him on the shoulder, and the woman slides to the ground. She picks up the flowers—sunflowers, exactly what I would’ve chosen for him—and dusts them off. Willem slides an easy arm around her and kisses her hand. She snakes her arm around his waist. And I realize then that I wasn’t wrong about the love wafting off him during the performance. I was just wrong about who it was for.
They walk off, so close I can feel the breeze as he passes by. We are so close, but he’s looking at her, so he doesn’t see me at all. They go off, hand in hand, toward a gazebo, away from the fray. I just stand there.
I feel a gentle tap on my shoulder. It’s Wolfgang. He looks at me, tilts his head to the side. “Finished?” he asks.
I look back at Willem and the girl. Maybe this is the French girl. Or someone altogether new. They are sitting facing each other, knees touching, talking, holding hands. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. That’s how it felt when I was with him last year. Maybe if an outsider saw us then, that’s exactly how we would’ve looked. But now I’m the one who’s the outsider. I look at them again. Even from here, I can tell she is someone special to him. Someone he loves.
I wait for the fist of devastation, the collapse of a year’s worth of hopes, the roar of sadness. And I do feel it. The pain of losing him. Or the idea of him. But along with that pain is something else, something quiet at first, so I have to strain for it. But when I do, I hear the sound of a door quietly clicking shut. And then the most amazing thing happens: The night is calm, but I feel a rush of wind, as if a thousand other doors have just simultaneously flung open.
I give one last glance toward Willem. Then I turn to Wolfgang. “Finished,” I say.
But I suspect the opposite is true. That really, I’m just beginning.
Thirty-nine
I wake up to bright blinking sunlight. I squint at the travel alarm. It’s almost noon. In four hours, I’m leaving. Wren has decided to stay on a few more days. There’s a bunch of weird museums she just found out about that she wants to see, one devoted to medieval torture, another to handbags, and Winston has told her that he knows someone who can teach her how to cobble shoes, which might keep her here another week. But I have three days left, and I’ve decided to go to Croatia.
I won’t get there till tonight, and I’ll have to leave first thing Monday morning to make my flight back home. So I’ll have just one full day there. But I now know what can happen it just one day. Absolutely anything.
Wren thinks I’m making a mistake. She didn’t see Willem with the redhead, and she keeps arguing that she could be anyone—his sister, for instance. I don’t tell her that Willem, like me, like Wren herself now, is an only child. All last night, she begged me to go to the party, to see how it played out. “I know where it is. Robert-Jan told me. It’s on, oh, I can’t remember the street name, but he said it means ‘belt’ in Dutch. Number one eighty-nine.”
I’d held up my hand. “Stop! I don’t want to go.”
“But just imagine,” she’d said. “What if you’d never met Willem before, and Broodje invited us to the party, and we went, and you two met there for the first time and fell in love? Maybe that’s what happens.”
It’s a nice theory. And I can’t help but wonder if that would’ve happened. Would we fall in love if we met today? Had I really fallen in love with him in the first place? Or was it just infatuation fueled by mystery?
But I’m also starting to wonder something else. If maybe the point of this crazy quest I’m on wasn’t to help me find Willem. Maybe it was to help me find someone else entirely.
_ _ _
I’m getting dressed when Wren opens the door, clutching a paper bag. “Hi, sleepyhead. I made you some breakfast. Or rather Winston did. He said it’s very Dutch.”
I take the bag. “Thanks.” I look Wren, who’s grinning like crazy. “Winston, huh?”
Now she’s blushing. “He just got off work and he’s going to take me for a bike ride and introduce me to his cobbler friend as soon as you leave,” she says, her grin now threatening to split her face. “And tomorrow he says I have to go to an Ajax football game with him.” She pauses to consider. “It wasn’t on my list, but you never know.”
“No, you don’t. Well, I should go soon. Let you get to your, um, cobbling.”
“But your flight’s not for ages yet.”
“That’s okay. I want to leave enough time, and I hear the airport is amazing.”
I pack up the rest of my things and go downstairs with Wren. Winston points me toward the train station.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you to the station or the airport?” Wren asks.
I shake my head. I want to see Wren ride away on the pink bike as if I’ll see her again tomorrow. She hugs me tight and then kisses me three times like the Dutch do. “Tot ziens,” she calls. “It means ‘see you later’ in Dutch, because we aren’t saying good-bye.” I swallow the lump in my throat. And then Winston gets on his big black bike and Wren gets on the little pink bike, and they pedal away.
I hoist my backpack up and make the short walk to the train station. There are trains every fifteen minutes or so to Schiphol, and I buy a ticket and a cup of tea and go sit under the clattering destination board to eat my breakfast. When I see what’s inside, I have to laugh. Because Winston has made me a hagelslag sandwich. For all our talk, I never did get to try this particular delicacy.
I take a bite. The hagelslag crunches, then melts into the butter and still-warm bread. And what’s left over tastes just like him.
All at once, I finally understand what it means for time to be fluid. Because suddenly the entire last year flows before me, condensing and expanding, so that I’m here in Amsterdam eating hagelslag, and at the same time, I’m in Paris, his hand on my hip, and at the same time, I’m on that first train to London, watching the countryside whiz by, and at the same time, I’m in the line for Hamlet. I see Willem. At the canal basin, catching my eye. On the train, his jeans still unstained, me still unstained. On the train to Paris, his thousand shades of laughter.
The destination board shuffles, and I look up at it, and as I do, imagine a different version of time. One in which Willem quits while he’s ahead. One in which he never makes that remark about my breakfast. One in which he just says good-bye on that platform in London
instead of inviting me to Paris. Or one in which he never stops to talk to me in Stratford-upon-Avon.
And that’s when I understand that I have been stained. Whether I’m still in love with him, whether he was ever in love with me, and no matter who he’s in love with now, Willem changed my life. He showed me how to get lost, and then I showed myself how to get found.
Maybe accident isn’t the right word after all. Maybe miracle is.
Or maybe it’s not a miracle. Maybe this is just life. When you open yourself up to it. When you put yourself in the path of it. When you say yes.
How can I come this far and not tell him—he, who would understand it best—that by giving me the that flyer, by inviting me to skip Hamlet, he helped me realize that it’s not to be that matters, but how to be?
How can I come this far and not be brave?
“Excuse me,” I say to a woman in a polka-dot dress and cowboy boots. “Is there a street in Amsterdam named after a belt?”
“Ceintuurbaan,” she answers. “Tram line twenty-five. Right outside the station.”
I race out of the train station and jump onto the tram, asking the driver where to get off for Ceintuurbaan number one eighty-nine. “Near Sarphatipark,” he replies. “I’ll show you.”
Twenty minutes later, I get off at the park. Inside, there’s a small playground with a large sandpit, and I go sit down under a tree to summon my bravery. A couple of children are putting the finishing touches on an elaborate sand castle, several feet high, with towers and turrets and moats.
I stand up and make my way to the building. I don’t even know for sure that he lives here, except that the feeling of rightness, it has never been stronger. There are three bells. I ring the bottom one. An intercom squawks with a woman’s voice.
“Hello,” I call. Before I say anything else, the door clicks open.
I walk inside the dark, musty hallway. A door swings open, and my heart skips a beat, but it’s not him. It’s an older woman with a yappy dog at her heels.
“Willem?” I ask her. She points a thumb up and shuts her door.
I climb the steep stairs to the second floor. There are two other flats in the building, so this could be his, or the one upstairs. So I just stand there on the doorstep for a moment, listening for sounds inside. It is quiet, save for the faint strains of music. But my heart is beating fast and strong, like a radar pinging: Yes, yes, yes.
My hand shakes a little bit as I knock, and at first the sound is faint, as if I’m knocking on a hollowed-out log. But then I tighten my grip, and I knock again. I hear his footsteps. I remember the scar on his foot. Was it on the right foot or the left? The footsteps come closer. I feel my heart speed up, in double time to those footsteps.
And then the door swings open, and he’s there.
Willem.
His tall body casts a shadow over me, just like it did that first day, that only other day, really, when we met. His eyes, those dark, dark eyes, hiding a spectrum of hidden things, they widen, and his mouth drops. I hear his gasp of breath, the shock of it all.
He just stands there, his body taking up the doorway, looking at me like I am a ghost, which I suppose I am. But if he knows anything at all about Shakespeare, it’s that the ghosts always come haunting.
I look at him as the questions and answers collide all over his face. There is so much I want to tell him. Where do I even begin?
“Hi, Willem,” I say. “My name is Allyson.”
He says nothing in response. He just stays there for a minute, looking at me. And then he steps to the side, opens the door wider, wide enough for me to walk through.
And so I do.
COMING SOON!
Their story continues with Willem’s journey in
just one year
On my wrist is a watch, small and delicate, bright and gold. It’s not mine. And for the quickest moment, I see the watch on a girl’s wrist. I travel up the hand to a slender arm, a strong shoulder, a swan’s neck. When I get to the face, I expect it to be blank, like the faces in my dreams. But it’s not.
Black hair. Pale skin. Dancing eyes.
I look at the watch again. The crystal is cracked but it’s still ticking. It reads nine o‘clock and again, I begin to suspect what it is that I’ve forgotten.
I try to sit up. The world turns to soup.
The doctor pushes me back onto the bed, a hand on my shoulder. “You are agitated because you are confused. This is all temporary, but we will need to take the CT scan to rule out a hematoma. While we wait, we can attend to your facial lacerations. First I will give you something to make the area numb.”
The nurse swabs off my cheek with something orange. “Do not worry. This won’t stain.”
It doesn’t stain; it just stings.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book begins with Shakespeare, and so my thank-yous begin with Tamara Glenny, who, when I told her I was writing something with some Shakespeare in it, promptly wrote me up notes on plays to look at, got us tickets to a number of those plays—including that fateful production of As You Like It—and answered dozens of ridiculously obscure questions with her usual enthusiasm and good humor.
The book then moves on to France, and I would like to thank Céline Faure and Philippe Robinet, for helping me discover Allyson and Willem’s Paris, and for not blinking when I asked for such translations as: “shut your piehole.” Laurence Checler graciously helped with so many more of the translations in the book. Marie-Elisa Gramain helped me find the perfect French band name. Also thank you to Taly Meas for the hospital tour, Willy Levitanus, Patricia Roth, and Julie Roth for orchestrating it all.
We move on to Holland then, and to Heleen Buth and Emke Spauwen who gave me such a fantastic tour of Utrecht and provided me with so many details that sparked so much of Allyson’s and Willem’s stories. My brother-in-law, Robert Schamhart, helped me with many of the Dutch subtleties, and allowed me to steal a few key aspects of his identity, down to his nickname. Hartelijk bedankt!
Back stateside, my inimitable editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel, once again, helped me figure out the book I meant to write and remained a steady, optimistic force whenever I became discouraged that I’d ever actually write it. “I’m not worried about you,” she frequently says, such reassuring words, when I’m in a tizzy. Thank you for not worrying—and for worrying. Thank you also to the other extraordinary member of Team Dutton: Liza Kaplan, as well as to Scottie Bowditch, Danielle Delaney, Deborah Kaplan, Rosanne Lauer, Elyse Marshall, Emily Romero, Don Weisberg; and the entire staff of Penguin Young Readers Group: the amazing sales and marketing team, the wonderful school and library department, the ever-brilliant online department, and all the fantastic field reps—who give so much heart to the authors they publish.
Sarah Burnes is my agent, my advocate, my reality check, my Mama Bear, and above all, my wise and generous friend. I feel thankful to have someone who understands all the sides of me—and by extension, my characters and books—in my corner. The powerhouse team of Logan Garrison, Rebecca Gardner, and Will Roberts have propelled my books to places I never dreamed of. You couldn’t imagine a nicer, smarter group of bulldogs!
I would like to thank Isabel Kyriacou for, among many other things, helping me curse more proficiently in Spanish. I would like to thank my YA cohorts, particularly Libba Bray and Stephanie Perkins, who provided the writerly equivalent of therapy: lots of listening, combined with the occasional, laser-beam insightful question or comment. (I believe they accept most insurance.) Thank you also to Nina LaCour, E. Lockhart, Sandy London, Margaret Stohl, Robin Wasserman, and whoever else might’ve listened to me jabber about complicated plot threads. Thank you Onome Edodi-Disowe, Victoria Hill, and all the ladies of the BK/BNS crews, for taking hold of the reins so that I might let them go. Thank you to Veronica Brodsky, for helping me understand what this book is truly about. And to Rebecca Haworth for taking that first trip with me. We had our Melanie moments—and came out the other side. Thank you, Marjorie Inga
ll, for reading, hand-holding, and geeking out with me about Shakespeare.
Speaking of, I know he is long dead and there’s no collecting royalty or praise from the grave, but I must thank Shakespeare anyway, for giving me the surprise of this book, and for providing me a play that keeps working on so many levels. Thank you Royal Shakespeare Company, for bringing As You Like It to New York City just as I was starting this book. Thank you Fiasco Theater Company for turning me onto Cymbeline—and for all your help with this book, and the next.
Thank you to my parents, for passing on their love of travel, for being proud when, the week after high-school graduation, I took off on a one-way ticket to Europe to attend “The University of Life,” and for teaching me to be self-sufficient enough to travel on my own, and on my own dime, for the next several years. Thank you to my siblings, Tamar and Greg, for being such cheerleaders and supporters of their little sister and for, each in their own way, showing me how to say yes. Thank you to Karen and Detta, Rebecca, Hannah, Liam, Lucy, and all of my extended brood.
Thank you to all the people I’ve met in my travels over the years—some of whom I kept in touch with, some of whom I put into this book, and some of whom have changed the trajectory of my life. Without you, I would not be here now, writing these words.
Thank you to my readers, for packing their mental suitcases and coming off on another trip with me. Without you, I would not be here now, writing these words.
Finally, thank you to Nick, Willa, and Denbele: You are the ones I travel with now. And how wild and wonderful the journey is.
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ALSO BY GAYLE FORMAN
If I Stay
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