“Not this time,” Amma replies, trying to keep her voice down even as anger spikes through her. “And only because we were lucky.”
“No, Amma,” Chloe says, her lighter flicking in the dark. “You know who’s lucky? Those fucking assholes at the bar tonight. Those other fucking assholes in Italy. All these fucking assholes wandering around with their Rolexes and their fancy cars, who get to just waltz off from any fucking disaster they leave in their wake. That’s who’s lucky. You think Brady back there would’ve missed his watch for very long? No, he would’ve gone and bought another one, and forgot he ever even owned that first one. Shit like that is disposable to him.”
Amma doesn’t say anything, but she thinks about a pool party, three years back. A ruined watch, forgotten on a wrist, his laugh when she’d pointed it out. Wanted a new one anyway.
Chloe sucks on the cigarette, the tip glowing bright red before she exhales a cloud of smoke. “We are disposable to people like that.”
For the first time, Amma realizes that Chloe is not just in this for a good time. She’s angry. Furious, even.
And that worries her more than when she’d assumed Chloe was just reckless, just the kind of person who took what she wanted and damn the rest of it. Wasn’t that why she was traveling around everywhere, going wherever the day took her?
Brittany has woken up, and she’s perched on the edge of her bed, watching as Chloe crosses the room to take Amma’s hand.
“Don’t we deserve something?” Chloe’s grip is cold and tight, and her nails dig into Amma’s skin. She can’t pretend she’s not intrigued, that she doesn’t feel that way, too, sometimes. The unfairness of how much Amma has lost, how much was taken from her, makes her want to scream at the injustice of the world. How can one mistake—yes, one big mistake, but still just that, an accident, a single bad moment of judgment in a lifetime of good choices—end everything?
But that doesn’t mean they can just steal from strangers.
Amma yanks her hand away. “That’s just an excuse,” she says. “Bad shit happens to everyone every day. Life is unfair. But that doesn’t mean we just get to do whatever the hell we want.”
“Well, maybe it should,” Chloe says quietly. Amma watches her gaze go to Brittany—Brittany, who’s watching them both with those big eyes—and Amma knows that she’s lost the argument.
The next morning, Amma goes out to grab a coffee, but when she passes the bar they were at last night, she sees a line of police tape across the door. A small crowd has gathered, peering inside.
Her entire body goes cold, and she almost steps forward to ask a bystander what’s going on.
But she doesn’t.
She keeps walking, her pulse racing, her stomach knotted, until she’s back at the hostel. In the lobby, she pulls out her phone and googles the name of the bar.
There’s a local news story, and her eyes skim the article, picking up key phrases.
Brady Hendrix, law student, twenty-three, overdose …
Sad, obviously. Tragic, even.
Not criminal, necessarily. An accident, most likely.
It can happen to anyone.
But Amma’s hands are shaking as she walks back to the room. She keeps seeing Chloe’s smile as she’d followed Brady back into the bar.
Brittany and Chloe aren’t there when Amma returns, but Chloe’s bag is sitting open on her bed.
Even as she paws through Chloe’s things, Amma wonders what exactly she expects to find—the watch, a wallet, some sign that Chloe had stolen from Brady Hendrix after all?
It still wouldn’t mean she had anything to do with him dying, Amma tells herself, but something deep and primal feels that if she sees that watch, she’ll know for sure.
But there’s nothing—no Rolex, no phone, not even the rolls of cash Amma has grown accustomed to seeing Chloe and Brittany flash proudly.
“What are you doing?”
Chloe stands there in the doorway, a paper cup of coffee in one hand, Brittany just behind her, and Amma takes her hand out of Chloe’s bag.
“Nothing,” she says, then adds, “looking for a tampon.”
Chloe’s mouth curls into a smile. “Well, now we finally know why you’ve been such a bitch lately,” she jokes, and Amma sees the way she and Brittany share a look, hears the significance of we.
She can feel the circle closing. Amma is on the outside now.
NOW
TWENTY-FIVE
I wake up on the beach the next morning and for a second, I think I must be dying.