But it never happens. And the next morning, she treats Chloe and Amma both to a full English breakfast with those stolen pounds, and no one says shit to her, no one looks twice, and it feels … good. Harmless.
It’s strange to have a secret with Chloe, instead of with Amma, but Amma wouldn’t understand. Amma had lost her boyfriend, which hurt, Brittany knew, but it wasn’t the same thing as having your whole family wiped out.
She’d never told Amma the full story. How some guy with the ridiculous name of Sterling Northcutt had had too much to drink on spring break, got behind the wheel of a massive Suburban he’d rented, and crossed the double line, plowing into the sensible Prius Brittany’s father had bought the year before.
Someone had taken Brittany’s family from her with their stupid, reckless choices. Someone who’d looked a lot like that USC asshole sitting at that bar in Trastevere, and the idea that Chloe might’ve hurt him, even a little bit, had filled her with a fierce sense of satisfaction.
Fuck those guys, she’d thought. All of them. With too much money and too few responsibilities and no fucking conscience.
The world gave those guys enough. What was the harm in taking some back?
Besides, if she could keep doing this, she might never have to go home. Never have to figure out how to live in the after.
* * *
AFTER JUST A FEW DAYS in the UK, Chloe has a new plan.
“Australia?”
Brittany is sitting with Chloe in their room at the hostel. Amma has gone to use the little internet café near the train station, saying she had some emails to send, but Brittany knows she could’ve done that on her phone, and she wonders if her friend just needed a break.
Sometimes Brittany feels she needs a break from Amma. The longer this trip stretches on, the more she’s reminded that Amma is not a beloved bestie from college like they’ve tried to pretend. Amma is just a person who also had a terrible thing happen to her, and now they’re stuck together, even though they have nothing else in common.
Brittany doesn’t have that much in common with Chloe, either, if she’s honest, but Chloe is easier, more fun to be around.
Chloe is not a constant reminder of what happened.
And now, she wants Brittany to join her in Australia.
She reaches out, pushing Brittany’s knee. “Don’t you want to see it?”
Brittany does. She’s loved Europe, but Australia would be a real adventure. Somewhere she’d never even dreamed of going.
“You’ve still got plenty of money, right?”
They haven’t talked about Brittany’s money before. Not how much of it she has, not how much of it she’s spent. Eventually, Brittany knows, she’ll have to tell Chloe about it. Her parents, the accident. The settlement from both insurance and Sterling Northcutt’s family.
But for now, she just nods. “Yeah.”
“Well, there you go!” says Chloe, grinning. “And if money becomes an issue, we can stay with my friends, or find other cheap hostels. I promise you, it can totally be done.”
And then she reaches for her bag, pulling out a wad of paper bills. “And of course, there’s always the bro circuit.”
Brittany reaches over and takes Chloe’s hand, the hand holding all those bills. They crunch slightly under her fingers, and she feels her heart lift at the idea that this can continue, that the idea of “home” could keep receding further and further into the distance.
“Let’s go.”
NOW
SEVENTEEN
Robbie has been here four days.
I keep expecting to wake up one morning and discover his boat is gone, that he’s moved on to whatever is next for him. But no, every day, there it sits, the ridiculously named Last Dance with Mary Jane.
Every day, there he is.
The second day, the day Jake took me shooting, Robbie sat on a patch of sand and spent hours hacking away at a piece of driftwood with a bent and dull-looking pocketknife. That afternoon, he disappeared into the jungle, a beat-up black canvas bag slung over one shoulder.
The third day, he announced he was going fishing, and stood out in the shallows with a line tied to a Vienna sausage.
“Stupid bugger,” Jake says from his spot on the beach, and Nico leans past him to see what Robbie is doing.
“Mate!” Jake calls out. “Don’t eat anything you catch!”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Nico asks, and Jake looks over at him.
“Bunch of ’em here are toxic as fuck. Kill you dead in a couple of hours if you eat ’em.” His teeth flash in a quick smile. “Another one of Meroe’s little treats. Surprised you didn’t know.”