Again, But Better

by Christine Riccio

  * * *

  It takes twenty-five minutes to find the crag, but I make it there with just the waiter’s verbal instructions to work off. At the base of it is a park of sorts. Children and dogs splash around in big contemporary fountains, and a bright sidewalk runs among big flat stretches of green grass. The crag looming ahead is rocky, green, and gorgeous. I’m going to climb the crap out if it.

  I unzip my purse and check for texts again. There’s one new one from Babe.

  Babe: Excited to hear about it!

  Shane: About to start the hike. Cross your fingers I don’t slip on a pile of rocks, trip over the edge, and die.

  Babe: PLEASE DON’T DIE.

  I stare at my phone for a few more seconds before I pull up the text thread with Pilot. The last messages are from February.

  Pilot: I just heard someone use the word ravish at work. Can I pull off the word ravish? Or is it like knackered? =P

  Pilot: Is everything okay?

  Pilot: I’m back early today, so find me when you get home!

  Pilot: I hope everything’s okay.

  My chest tightens. I want to text him something stupid like I miss you … but instead I chuck the phone into my bag and trek toward the foot of the trail.

  * * *

  The path curves gently up and around the hill before narrowing out and getting steeper. Thirty minutes in, I take a seat off to the side of the trail on a giant rock. There’s been a group of four dudes maybe three hundred feet behind me throughout the trek. I make a deal with myself that once they pass, I’ll get up and keep going.

  The view from my perch is gorgeous: fantastic rock formations, endless green hills, and medieval-looking architecture. This must be such an interesting place to live. I glance down the trail, catching sight of the guys on their way around the corner before bringing my gaze back to the horizon. My heart stutters. I think I just saw Pilot in that group? I slowly turn my head to look again.

  My eyebrows pull together. No, just four college-aged dudes with hair in varying shades of brown. Great, I’m Bella Swan-ing circa New Moon. They pass me, chatting easily about sports in American accents. I push up off the rock and continue.

  Forty minutes later, I stumble around a giant rock into a vast green valley. At its edge, the ground cuts off with an abrupt drop. To my right, the land bulges upward toward Arthur’s Seat. I’m so close to the tippy top! A scattering of people are climbing up to the peak where the Seat is, but no one’s wandering the valley.

  I pull my frizzy curls free of my ponytail and run out onto the green. My hair flies out behind me as I throw myself into a cartwheel, my cross-body flying around and knocking into me. The land is surprisingly springy and soft. It feels a little like those fake turf football fields, but with more give. I leap around like a five-year-old, scout out a good spot, and collapse onto the ground to gaze up at the wispy clouds overhead.

  A gust of wind tickles my nose as I fish my phone and the silver locket from my purse. I flip the locket over, running the pads of my fingers over the inscription. Angst sidles around inside me. What’s the right decision?

  I applied to so many jobs. I stepped up my blog game. I got my piece published. I had the people I work with looking out for me … and nothing has panned out. If my parents throw me out, what will I do? What if they won’t pay for me to go back to school? What am I going to do? Maybe I won’t get a degree or I’ll go to community college?

  I don’t know what happens now. I don’t want to live in this world where I’ve proved them right: I’m not good enough. I do know I can be a successful gastroenterologist. I’ve got eight more interviews lined up for residency. My grades kicked ass. And with Pilot—maybe Babe’s right. She doesn’t know the whole story, but maybe the healthy thing to do is move on. It’ll be easier to move on if I don’t remember this.

  Disappointment swells in my chest. I blow out breath after breath trying to dispel it.

  Palming the locket, I type up a draft to Pilot: I miss you. I stare at the words for a minute before backspacing them into oblivion. I type: Depends how you use it, could be creepy. I press send and wait.

  My brain counts the seconds as they pass. Two minutes. Three minutes.

  Four.

  Five.

  Six.

  Seven.

  Eight.

  My fingers twitch. I drop the phone into my purse and stare at the sky.

  I played everything out. I tried with Pilot. I finished the internship. I blink at the emotion gathering in my eyes as my fingers find the locket’s edge. The silver top flips back like a pocket watch. Inside, the image of a clock is etched delicately into the silver. I didn’t notice that before. On the opposite side sits the obsidian heart. I close my eyes and let my thumb graze back and forth across the cold surface, trying to feel out a decision. Do I hear music? I listen harder.

  There’s music in the wind. I think I know the song; my heart warms with the familiarity of it. Is someone listening to music up here? Don’t they know I’m trying to enjoy nature and make maybe the most important decision of my life?

  It’s getting louder. My brain clicks the song into place. I snap the locket shut in surprise and open my eyes to the bright afternoon sky, ears perked. It sounds like it’s just a guitar—and then Pilot’s face swings into view, hovering over me.

  “Ahhh!” I scream, flipping onto my stomach and scrambling into a sitting position. “What the fudge?”

  27. Marching On

  Pilot laughs and continues playing the guitar slung over his shoulder. Am I hallucinating? I blink in confusion as he settles onto a single, random, boxy black rock ten feet away.

  Then he starts to sing, “And I neverrrrrrrr, saw you coming-ing, ayayayayayayay.”

  I inch closer, like a spooked kitten. “What are you doing?” I shout.

  “And I’ll neverrrrrrr be the say-yah-yay-aye-yay-ahh-mme.” He raises his eyebrows with impish amusement.

  Did he get my text? How is he in front of me on a mountain playing Taylor’s … “State of Grace”?

  “You come around and the armor falls … pierce the room like a wrecking ball, now all I know is don’t let go.”

  I hug my legs to my chest. He keeps singing. He’s changed the song a bit, morphing certain lyrics and parts together. “Pilot,” I interrupt.

  He breaks song for a second and smiles bashfully. That’s an expression I’ve never seen on him before. I melt a tiny bit.

  “Hold on,” he says. “I have a three-song concert prepared. Let me do this.”

  A three-song concert? The melody changes to one of my favorites. A happy-go-lucky song that Taylor plays on the ukulele.

  He sings, “I’m pretty sure we kinda broke up back in February … I was an idiot, a how you say? Douche. Canoe.” I snort.

  “We made things all dramatic and I let you walk away. And I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I’m sorry.”

  I try to scoff. “That really doesn’t rhyme at all.”

  He shakes his head, smiling. “Stay, Stay, Stay. I’ve been loving you for quite some time, time, time. I think that’s it’s funny when you’re mad, mad, mad, and I think that’s it’s best if we both stay … Stay. Stay. Stay, Stay.”

  I open my mouth to speak again.

  “Wait just one more,” he protests, holding up his hand and smiling at the ground. He starts the last song. I snort-sob.

  “And you got a smile that could light up this whole town, I see it right now and it’ll always blow me down … I hope that means we can go forward from here?”

  “Okay, stop!” I wipe at my cheeks. Pilot lowers the guitar into a black case he must have brought with him. He sits next to me on the ground.

  “Hey,” he opens.

  I stare for a second and shake my head. “What … what the hell are you doing here?”

  He shrugs. “I needed to make a move.”

  “How did you even know I was here?”

  Pilot grins. “Are you kidding? I never miss a post from French Watermelon Ninet
een. You said you were headed to Edinburgh … and I gathered more exact intel from Babe.”

  “Babe?”

  Babe endorsed this? I blink some more, unsure of what to say. He glances nervously at the ground. I fiddle with my hands. “Um, what happened to Amy?”

  “I broke up with Amy.”

  I meet his eyes. “And she knows it?”

  “Yes.” He nods and closes his eyes like it’s an immense relief to speak this aloud.

  I smile the tiniest bit. “Oh.”

  A frown tugs at his lips. “I’ve wanted to come talk for a while now, but you were doing really well without me, like you said you would, so”—he presses his lips together—“I started to think you were right. I mean, maybe I was getting in the way of why you were really here. You’ve been kicking ass.” His eyes meet mine, sincere and olive green.

  I swallow, looking at his cheek rather than holding direct eye contact.

  “I was going to come talk to you the night your piece went up on Packed! I was so pumped; it was so good too.” He bites his lip. “But I chickened out because after the way we left things, I wanted to—I mean, I needed a move.”

  Pilot shifts to meet my averted eyes. “Listen, I know this is scary, the pull between us or whatever, but it’s also really rare. And great, and I’d really love to try and make it work. I know you’re worried about losing yourself. Let’s have dates where we just read so you don’t fall behind on that, and we’ll have ones where you can write whatever you’re working on, and I can work on music. We can work on a balance. Shane, I want you to choose you too … I just”—he exhales shakily—“lamppost.”

  My chin wobbles. I bring a hand to my forehead, and watch him sideways. “I really like those ideas … I’ve missed you,” I say quietly. I drop down on my back again.

  He comes down next to me. “I missed you.”

  I blow out a shaky breath. “That was a big move,” I tell the sky. I turn my head to find his eyes. He’s already watching me. “I tried to make a move like this once.”

  He smiles. “For who?”

  A wispy tear trickles down my cheek and into the grass. “For you.”

  His brow furrows. “In Paris?”

  I shake my head. “No, the first time we were here.”

  “When?”

  “I wanted to tell you, that I”—I pause to take in a breath—“that I really, really liked you. And I didn’t get my shit together to do it until I was at Heathrow. I turned around at the bag drop, and took a taxi back to the Karlston. I ran down to your door and knocked on it incessantly.

  “But no one answered because you had already left. The door wasn’t locked … I opened it and all your stuff was gone. I hadn’t thought to ask what hotel you were moving to.

  “It was stupid. I spent too long looking for you there and I missed my flight.”

  His eyes pierce mine. “Shane…”

  My cheeks redden. “Yeah … Lamppost back atcha.”

  He reaches out, takes my hand. “I followed you up a mountain today, so…”

  A gurgled laugh bubbles out of me.

  He smirks. “I had to keep a group between us so you wouldn’t see me, or else it would spoil the moment, you know.”

  I study him in silence for a minute. My lips purse. “Did you mean what you and Taylor said in those songs, literally?”

  “Yeah, I think I really, really like you a lot, Shane Primaveri. Like, even more than the kitchen chairs.”

  I inhale sharply. “I might like you more than the shawarma.”

  “Damn. Shawarma was basically why you wanted to come back and study abroad again in the first place.”

  “I mean, yeah, basically.”

  “I’m honored.” He shifts closer, but I pull back and suck in a breath.

  “Pies, I was about to push the reset button. Like, my finger was on it.” His expression falls.

  I sit up and bring my clenched left hand forward to reveal the silver artifact. “I’m pretty sure my parents aren’t going to let me live with them unless I revert back to their life plan. I might not be able to go back to school. I’ll have no place to live. I didn’t find a writing job. I have no computer. I have no money! I used it all traveling … I don’t know—”

  “Hey.” He sits up next to me. “Wait, what, no computer?”

  “It broke,” I mumble sadly.

  Pilot tucks my hair behind my ear; his touch sparks through me. He smiles ever so slightly. “Is that why you’ve been using notebooks again?”

  I reach up and catch his fingers in my hand. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “I told you, Primaveri, if you’re in sight, I see you.

  “I know how much Sawyer meant to you, I can’t imagine how hard these past two months have been without a laptop. But … whatever happens, you’ll get through it. Future Shane is going to be an amazingly successful author.”

  “Pies, I’m serious.” I roll my eyes and shake my head, sending tears running down my face. “Becoming a doctor? It’s so solid. There’s a blueprint; there’s a set path to follow.” I swallow. “Becoming a writer is like … being lost and just having to hope to god you stumble to your destination.”

  He coaxes my face back toward his and looks me right in the eyes. “I am an avid French Watermelon fan. I believe in you, one thousand percent, and everything else … I’d like to be there to help you figure it out.”

  A close-mouthed grin wobbles onto my face. “Seriously, you really want to do this? 2011 and onward all over again? With me?”

  “I’m in if you’re in.”

  I fidget, nerves flickering in my gut. “But it’s going to be really hard, Pilot. We’ve changed the timeline … so many things can go wrong.”

  He guides my fingers closed around the locket. “But think how many things could go right.”

  I suck in a breath and gaze out at Edinburgh. What would life be like if things went right? If I mended things with Leo? Kept working things through with my parents? Changed my major? Never went to med school? Never moved to California? Kept working on my book? Dated Pilot?

  I scoot over until I’m right in front of him on my knees, and study his eyes. “You’re sure?”

  His smiles at 100 percent. It sends my heart sprinting. “I’m scarily sure.”

  A grin creeps up my cheeks. “Like, forty-two percent sure?”

  “Like, a hundred and eight percent sure.”

  I pull him into a hug. His arms wrap tight around me.

  “I’m scared shitless,” I whisper over his ear.

  “It’s all part of the vulnerable idiot experience.”

  I pull back. “What about you? What about the divorce? You’re going to have to deal with that all over again.”

  “I’m better equipped to deal with it now.”

  “How are your sisters?”

  “They’re working through it. We’ve been talking once a week. You can meet them on the next Skype call if you want.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “I uploaded our video yesterday.”

  My face lights up. “What? ‘Wrecking Ball’? Really?”

  He moves to stand and helps me to my feet. “Really.”

  “Oh, man, I am so proud.” I squeeze his hands. “I hope Usher’s waiting to sign you on Monday.”

  He scoffs, leaning forward so our foreheads meet. Our noses brush. I watch his eyelashes flutter.

  “I think I love you,” he says softly.

  My mouth goes slack, a rush of glitter hurtling into my chest. I pull back a few inches and give in to the goofy smile itching at my lips. “Well … I love shawarma so, like, by definition…”

  His eyes light up, but he doesn’t smile. He bites his lip. “It’s so hot when you compare me to shawarma.”

  “I love you too.” I grab a fistful of his shirt and close the gap between us.

  * * *

  We’re trekking down the crag, hand in hand, when my purse pulses against my hip.

  I raise my eyebr
ows. “Did you finally text me back?”

  “You texted me?”

  “Yeah, before.” I let go of his hand to dig the phone from my purse. It’s a text, but not from Pilot.

  Donna: Finally heard back from my friend at Seventeen. You have an interview on Monday. xx

  Epilogue

  * * *

  www.abowlofbookishness.com/authorinterviews?1french-watermelon

  * * *

  AUTHOR INTERVIEW WEDNESDAY

  with FrenchWatermelon19

  Posted January 24, 2017 by Dani aka A Bowl of Bookishness

  * * *

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

  Sixteen-year-old Dani is president of her high school’s creative writing club and an aspiring author.

  * * *

  Who’s FrenchWatermelon19, you ask? The alias of bestselling author of Flailing Through the Freefall, Shane Primaveri. The sequel hit stores this week (thank god because I was dying to read it), and I had the opportunity to interview her after her signing event here in New York! (I couldn’t make it before the event started when she was doing longer interviews because school … uuugh.)

  If you don’t already know, Shane started out as a blogger! She worked for Seventeen magazine for three years, and then she worked as an editor at the Packed! For Travel! NYC headquarters for three more years while she worked on her duology.

  The bookstore was packed yesterday. It was an especially special event for her because she’s from New York. I got to meet her boyfriend afterward (heart-eyes, more on this later), and her parents were there, and, like, ten cousins that look kinda like her. I only recognized Leo because he’s always on her Instagram. Her mom and dad actually went to the front of the room halfway through the event and used her microphone to give a little speech about how proud they were. Shane cried. She was wearing a black blazer over a pretty red dress that poofs out at the waist with that same silver locket she always has around her neck.

  After a fun round of Q&A and a signing, she was nice enough to stay after and talk to me! I was given fifteen minutes. Enjoy!