“I think we should move here,” Carter says almost giddily. Something that’s so uncharacteristic of him that the three of us all stop to stare at him.
Carter’s cheeks are a bit flushed. The wine must have hit him fast.
“Do you know that I’ve been to one hundred and sixty countries, but I’ve never been to Greece,” he continues, lifting his glass. “I fucking love this place,” he says as he does a toast by himself.
Quaid and Logan are about to fall out of their chairs with how hard they’re both laughing at him. I for one, feel like I’m watching something magical happen right in front of me. I almost expect a Grecian god or goddess to burst out of a corner and tell me they’ve cast some kind of spell.
Carter’s happy. Not just happy, he’s carefree.
I don’t think Carter’s ever acted carefree in his entire life. He’s always carried the ghosts of his past with him.
“I love you guys,” he continues, taking another heavy gulp of his wine.
Seeing him like this makes me wonder who Carter would have been if not for his past. Would he have been funnier than Quaid? More charming than Logan? Or would he have always been more prone to melancholy?
With enough love and encouragement, who would Carter be in the future?
I wish I was able to find out.
Today has been picture perfect. From the moment we got off the ferry at the port of Athiniós and ventured onto the island, we’ve been exploring. One of the first places we went was the Akrotíri Archaeological Site. Like its more famous counterpart, Pompeii, Akrotíri was buried by lava in the sixteenth century. Unlike Pompeii, there have been no skeletons found at the site. Our tour guide told us how scientists speculated that the inhabitants had some kind of warning before the explosion and had been able to get away. It was eerie seeing the furniture upturned and plates still at the table, like they’d gotten the warning while they were sitting together at a meal. Everything was so perfectly preserved.
I wish moments could be like that, perfectly preserved in time. That’s why Carter has always loved photographs—he thought they were snapshots in time. But I wish there was a way to experience more. Like right now, when the air is the perfect temperature, when the wine tastes better than any I’ve ever tasted, when the music is playing at the perfect sound level…when I’ve never felt more in love.
A picture could never really capture that.
Okay, maybe not the perfect sound level, as Carter begins to sing off-key a little too loudly to the cover of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” that the guitarist is currently playing. Luckily, we’re getting more amused looks from the guests around us than annoyed ones. Carter is truly a terrible singer.
The song mercifully ends, and the waiter arrives with more food, a fact which distracts Carter enough for him to stop attempting to serenade us.
The food is delicious, but my favorite part is the way we talk. The way that I can hear about their lives. I tell them about medical school, how I threw up the first time I cut into a human cadaver and knew I would never make it as a surgeon.
It’s a little ironic thinking back on that moment, since soon I will be nothing but a human corpse as well—
“Where did you go, Val?” Logan quietly asks, and I look at him, puzzled. They’re all looking at me, concerned as usual.
I realize that I have no idea what we were talking about. I panic, trying to rack my memory from the last few minutes. Or has it been more than a few minutes? How much have I forgotten?
My hands tremble as I clutch my fork, and it clinks against my plate. It’s the first missing chunk of time I’ve had with them. It was happening a lot more during my treatment.
“You were talking about medical school,” Logan gently explains, and I nod gratefully.
“What story was I telling?” I ask, laughing to try and play it off, as if people regularly forget entire conversations. Because I have no memory of even starting that conversation.
Quaid and Carter laugh and drink some more wine, but Logan sees me.
I hurry and tell a few stories I feel sure that I couldn’t have mentioned before, because they aren’t particularly funny or clever. But they’re safe. And when no one comments on them, I take a deep breath. Except the subterfuge feels even worse than ever.
There will come a time soon when I won’t be able to hide the truth.
We finish dinner without another incident, although I’m noticeably quieter than I was before. Quaid volunteers to get the drunk, charming Carter home.
And then it’s just Logan and I.
It’s a strange thing to crave all of them and still crave just one of them at the same time.
I don’t even know if I’m making sense, but time alone with each of them is something I savor.
“Want to dance?” Logan asks quietly, and my heart does that funny leaping thing it always does at Logan’s sweetness.
He’s also been more subdued since that moment at dinner, and I’m just glad he didn’t suggest that we go back to the hotel with the others.
“Always,” I whisper softly, taking his outstretched hand. He guides me to the dance floor. It’s nothing like that club in Paris. Where there was only heat on that dance floor, there’s only romance on this one.
We begin swaying to the beat as the guitarist makes magic nearby.
“You’ve all lived such amazing lives without me,” I tell him tentatively as he holds me close, like I’m the most precious thing he’s ever touched.
“I would hardly call fighting my way up the corporate ladder ‘interesting,’ Valentina,” he responds gently.
“I find everything about you interesting,” I respond back.
And we’re just quiet after that.
Dancing with him is like falling in love, but it feels more like falling to pieces as he spins me around the dance floor. There are stars in his eyes. They glitter there, calling to me. Everything about him makes me want him, and for the thousandth time, I wonder how I lived without this, how every day I found the will to wake up without him. Without them.
After a few songs, we decide to walk along the whitewashed paths carved into the cliff. There’s a lookout point the concierge told us about when we’d checked into our hotel, and it doesn’t take us too long to get there.
What a sight it is.
“Do you think that this thing between all of us, that it’s possible to last beyond this trip?” Logan suddenly asks in a troubled voice. “I mean, this isn’t the real world. This is a break from the real world. All of our problems are still waiting out there for us.”
I close my eyes and inhale the smell of the water. This should be where I tell him, where I tell the others as well. That it doesn’t matter what waits out in the real world, or that we’re on a break right now, because I won’t be around. There won’t be any problems to face. It’s the easiest get out of jail free card I could give them.
I’m obviously telling myself a lot of lies right now.
Logan puts his arms around me, setting his chin on my shoulder as we both continue to stare out at the water. Vibrant fuchsia and violet flowers are all around us, further accenting the whitewashed buildings that cover every inch of this side of the island. Somewhere, a man continues to play a guitar and sing. His mournful, beautiful lyrics only add to the magic of the moment.