* * *
CHLOE ISN’T THERE WHEN THEY wake up the next morning.
For a long time, Brittany refuses to believe she’s gone for good.
“She’s just gone to get coffee,” she says to Amma. “She’ll be back.”
But the day drags on, the two of them sitting in their bunks, playing on their phones, and Chloe’s bed stays empty.
There’s no note, no text. Nothing left behind at all, like Chloe simply vanished in the night.
Like maybe Chloe had never really existed.
Amma would like that, Brittany thinks, her thoughts turning darker the longer Chloe is gone.
Chloe was her true friend in all this. Chloe, who was actually fun, who had kept them traveling, kept them from returning home where everything would be bleak and sad.
Chloe, who’d actually brought Brittany into the after.
Chloe, who was actually honest with her, as opposed to Amma, who’d lied over and over again.
The third day that Chloe’s been gone, Amma sits up in her bunk. There are shadows underneath her eyes, and her hair is tangled around her face. She looks as rough as Brittany has ever seen her, and that fills her with a petty sort of joy.
“Look,” Amma says, sighing, “I think she’s probably taken off. I mean, this is where she’s from, right? Maybe she went home. Back to Sydney or wherever.”
Brittany wants to argue that Chloe wouldn’t just bail on them without saying goodbye, but instead, she nods. “Maybe.”
“And I gotta be honest with you, I’m feeling ready to go home, too.” Amma offers her a tiny smile. “Or at least, my bank account is ready for me to go home.”
Except that you’re rich, Brittany thinks. Except that when you go home, there are people waiting for you. You still have a family. And Sterling may be in jail, but he’ll be out one day.
That’s the part Brittany finds the hardest to wrap her mind around. All these months of sharing their grief, of leaning on one another, of understanding one another, and it was all bullshit? Amma had people to go back to. Amma had sisters, a mother, a father. The worst thing that had happened to her was that her boyfriend was in jail.
And she’d let Brittany believe that they were the same. Now her impatience made sense. Her barely concealed exasperation when Brittany would lose whole nights crying.
It hurts so much to think about, that for a second, Brittany feels like she can’t breathe, like there’s something stabbing her in her chest.
Amma was never really her friend.
But Chloe had been, and now she was gone.
“Fine,” Brittany says now, getting off her bunk and pulling her bag toward her. “We can go home.”
“We’ve had a good time, right?” Amma offers.
“The best time,” Brittany says, ignoring the tightness in her throat as she paws through her bag for clean clothes. Buying a ticket home is going to completely wipe her out, but there’s still that roll of cash Chloe gave her the other night, and maybe she can exchange it for US currency at the airport—
Her hand brushes something, and she frowns, staring into her bag.
It’s a phone.
Not her phone. That’s still plugged in beside her bunk. This is a new phone, and she wonders if she picked it up by accident or if it had fallen into her bag somehow.
She turns it over, and sees a text message on the screen.
Surprise, gorgeous!
Chloe.
Her back still to Amma, Brittany studies the phone, reading the series of texts Chloe has sent, something joyful and dark unfurling in her heart.
Chloe didn’t abandon her with Amma.
What do you say, love? Chloe’s last text reads. Meet you in the Pacific?
Their adventures aren’t over—they’re just beginning.
Dropping the phone back in her bag, Brittany turns to Amma with a smile. “What if we did one quick detour before heading home?”
NOW
TWENTY-SEVEN
I stumble away from the beach in horror. The fight last night feels like a blur now, like something that happened to someone else. The screaming, the falling overboard, the salt water in my mouth … it could be a dream if it weren’t for Amma’s body, making it so fucking real.
I don’t know where I’m going as I weave my way up from the shore. The jungle path we cleared is several yards to the left of me, the vegetation here almost impenetrable, but I throw myself toward it anyway, like a little kid looking for a place to hide after she’s done something bad.
I’m not wearing shoes, and the vines cut at the soles of my feet as I try to push my way through, sweat still pouring off me even though my teeth are chattering.