“Which is why I’m in this position to begin with,” I snapped back. Every time a car went by, I felt like I was about to get sucked onto the road. “If you hadn’t messed with the original plan, then none of this would be happening.” My voice was high and whiny, but I didn’t care. His trip had cost me Italy. “Do you think I wanted to miss my flight?” Though the more I thought about Lina’s plan, the more it made sense. Our best chance of surviving this trip unscathed was to stick together.
“Ian, come on. . . . It does make a lot of sense. Don’t your chances of not getting caught go way down if you’re together?” Rowan asked, echoing my reasoning. I looked at him gratefully, but he was completely zoned in on my brother.
Ian kicked at the ground angrily. “Fine. Fine. But listen to me. This is my trip. No fighting. No Addie drama. No stuff about Cubby. Got it?”
“I do not want to talk about Cubby!” I yelled. “You are the one who keeps bringing him up.” A large truck whooshed by and blew my hair around my face.
“Whoa.” Rowan stepped between us, palms up in stop signs. “We need to establish something right away. I’m completely for this new plan, but I’m not spending the next few days trapped in the middle of whatever’s going on between you. If we do this, there has to be a truce. No fighting.”
To my surprise, Ian calmed almost immediately, his mouth turned down apologetically. “You’re right. Addie, I won’t talk about Cubby if you won’t.”
Really? It was that easy? “Okay,” I said warily.
“Okay?” Rowan’s eyes darted back and forth between us. “So . . . everyone’s good?”
“Good” was a little generous, but I managed a nod and so did Ian. It may have been a forced truce, but it was a truce. It would have to be enough.
We were fifteen minutes into the new plan, the road spooled out in front of us, everyone still slightly shell-shocked, when one aspect of my life suddenly became startlingly clear: I needed a restroom. Immediately.
I elbowed my way into the front of the car. “Rowan, could you please stop next chance you get? I really need a bathroom.”
Ian whirled around, his face tense. “But our next stop isn’t until Dingle.”
“How far is that?” I asked, looking down at his map. Dingle was a finger-shaped peninsula that reached out into the Pacific Ocean, a good hundred miles away. Definitely beyond the capacity of my bladder.
“Are you joking?” I ventured.
He set his mouth firmly. He wasn’t joking. “We have this trip all mapped out. The tailpipe and tractors have already put us way behind.”
“Ian, that’s crazy. The last time I had access to a bathroom, I thought I was going to Italy. Either you let me have a bathroom break or I pee on the back seat.”
He threw a hand up dismissively. “Great. Pee back there. It will be like the coffee can incident on the way to Disneyland.”
“Ian!” I growled. The coffee can incident may be a part of Bennett road trip lore, but that didn’t mean I had any interest in hearing about it all the time. Why couldn’t my brothers ever let anything go?
“What’s the coffee can incident?” Rowan asked, his eyes hinting at a smile.
“What do you think?” I snapped.
“You get the basic elements, right?” Ian said. “Road trip. Coffee can. Girl who—”
“Ian!” I threw my arms around the seat to cover his mouth. “Tell Rowan that story and I swear that I will never speak to you again.”
Ian’s laugh rumbled through my hands, and he pulled them off, but the mood already felt softer. At least the coffee can story was good for something.
“I actually need to put a call in to my mom, so a stop would work great for me. How about we stop in Limerick?” Rowan pointed to a sign. LIMERICK: 20 KM.
“Perfect,” I said gratefully. I could handle twenty kilometers.
Turned out that twenty kilometers of grass-sprouting Irish road was very different from twenty kilometers of, say, any possible other road, and by the time Rowan pulled off the road into a gas station, I had to pee so badly, I was practically immobilized.
“Outoutoutout!” I yelled.
Ian turned, his hand on the headrest. “You have five minutes. And this is the absolute last stop before Dingle.”
“Just move!” I pleaded.
Ian jumped gracefully out of the car and beelined for the convenience store. I did my best to follow, but halfway out I lost one of my shoes, and when I tried to reach for it, I lost my balance and belly flopped onto the ground, which was not ideal for the bladder situation.
I rolled to my side. Rowan’s sweater was studded with gravel, and my elbow screamed in pain.
“Addie, are you okay?” Rowan sprinted around the car to help me up. “Where’s your shoe?”
“No time,” I managed. My bare foot throbbed as I sprinted for the store, but my bladder was now giving me the twenty-second countdown. This was no time for protective footwear.
Inside, I wasted a good five seconds stumbling through the aisles of unfamiliar junk food before realizing there was no restroom inside. Finally, I hurried up to the register. An older woman with braids wrapped around her head had her hip to the counter. “I told her, marry him or don’t. But don’t come crying to me—”
“Hi, love,” the clerk said, latching his gaze onto me eagerly. Save me, his eyes pleaded. “What can I do for you?”
“Wheresthebathroom?” I didn’t have time to space out the words; the situation was too desperate.
He understood the urgency, barking out directions in admirable alacrity. “Toilet’s outside, around back. Just that way.”
I sprinted past Ian filling up a basket with neon-colored caffeine bombs. My stomach was literally sloshing. Finally, I made it to the back, but when I yanked on the handle of the women’s restroom, it didn’t budge. “Hello?” I called, banging my fists on the door.
“Occupied,” replied a cheery Irish voice.
“Could you hurry up, please?” I jiggled the knob desperately. I was going to pee my pants. I was absolutely going to pee my pants.
Suddenly, the men’s room door shifted, and I hurled myself at it just as a bearded man stepped out. “Oh. Men’s room, love,” he said nervously.
“I’m American,” I said, like that explained things. I’m American, so I don’t have to follow gender conventions. He seemed to accept it as a valid explanation—either that or he thought I was crazy—and he darted out of my way. I quickly locked the door and turned around. Even in the awful lighting, the floor was disgusting. Damp and covered in wet toilet paper slime. I instinctively clamped my hand over my nose and mouth.
“Addie, you can do this,” I instructed myself motivationally.
I had to. My only other option was to wait it out in the back of a clown car until Dingle.
By the time I’d hopped my way through the bathroom and then back out again, Rowan was at the car, his phone pressed to his ear. I quickly darted back into the store and picked up the largest box of Sugar Puffs I could find and carried it to the counter. The clerk’s situation hadn’t changed much.
“—so I told her, if she wants to live in a trash heap, that’s fine. She just can’t expect us to—”
“Can I point you to the milk?” The clerk lunged to take my cereal, almost losing his Santa Claus–looking spectacles in the process. How long had he been trapped there?
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’m on a road trip. We wouldn’t have anyplace to store it.”
Interest sparked in his eyes. “I took a road trip or two myself back when I was your age. Where are you headed?” The braided-haired woman made a little huffing noise, shifting her bags from one hand to the other so I’d be sure to know what an inconvenience I was being.
“Right now we’re going to Dingle, but after that we’re going to a music festival.”
“Electric Picnic?” he asked.
“You’ve heard of it?” Rowan and Ian had said Electric Picnic was a big deal, but I had no way of kn
owing if they meant big deal in their alternative music world or big deal in the real world. Real world it was.
“Absolutely. I’ll pray for your parents.” He winked. “I’ve never been myself, but my daughter went last year. I get the feeling I heard only a very censored version of what she did there. But, of course, you know the stories.”
His eyes crinkled at the edges. “People getting married in unicorn costumes, outdoor hot tubs made from old claw-foot bathtubs, rave parties in the forest, a sunken double-decker bus . . . petting zoos made entirely of three-legged animals. That sort of thing. Everyone’s in costume and acting badly.”
Was he joking? He didn’t look like he was joking. Plus, who could come up with a list like that on the spot? I stared at him in horror.
“You hadn’t heard the stories,” he said, his eyes crinkling even more.
This brought the need for secrecy to a whole new level of desperation. My parents would flip. It was one thing to sneak off to see a bunch of no-name sites in Ireland, but it was quite another to sneak away to a wild party. Getting caught would probably require them to come up with an entirely new category of punishments.
“Well, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He laughed at my expression. “Keep your head and you’ll be fine. Is there a particular music act you’re going to see?”
I nodded, regaining my footing. Keep your head. So long as Cubby Jones wasn’t involved, I could handle that. “My brother’s going to see his favorite band. They’re called Titletrack.”
“Titletrack! Their final show,” the woman interjected, clutching her hand to her chest. “You lucky, lucky girl, you!”
I turned to her, aghast. She was a fan? “I love that first song of theirs—Aaron, what’s it called, the one with the music video in the Burren?”
“ ‘Classic,’ ” the clerk said. “We’re definitely fans around here.”
“We’re actually on a Titletrack road trip. I just left the Burren.”
“A Titletrack road trip!” She looked like she was about to faint. She yanked on one braid. “What a wonderful idea. Aaron! Isn’t that a wonderful idea?”
“Wonderful,” he replied dutifully.
“Yes, my brother is a huge fan. He’s right . . .” I turned to point at Ian, but the store was empty. “Uh-oh, I’d better go. Thanks so much for the advice.”
“Stay hydrated,” the man called after me as I rushed through the door.
“Take hand sanitizer!” the woman yelled. “And be careful out on the peninsula. Big storm coming today. One of the worst of the summer.”
“Thanks,” I called over my shoulder.
The second I stepped outside, Rowan’s voice punched me in the ears. “Mum, I told you, I’m not ready to talk about this. You said I had until the end of the summer, and that means two more weeks. And if you want to talk about Dad, call him. . . . Mum, stop.” He hung up, then whirled around, his expression leaping with dismay.
My first instinct was to bolt, but instead I stood there stupidly, clutching my cereal box, resting my bare foot on my shoed one. I probably looked like I’d been eavesdropping. I mean, I had been eavesdropping. It just hadn’t been on purpose. And now I was curious. What was Rowan not ready to talk about?
“Hey, Addie,” Rowan said weakly. “Been there long?”
Please say no was written in a thought bubble over his head. I shook my head as I handed him the cereal. “Not long.”
His face drooped sadly. Fix this, my inner voice demanded. My inner voice had a lot to say about other people’s feelings. I looked around, trying to think of a way to lighten the mood. “So . . . remember when I belly flopped out of your car?”
His face instantly brightened. “On average, how many times a day would you say you dive into parking lots?”
I looked up at the gray sky, pretending to think. “Three. Today’s a slow day.”
His smile increased, then he looked down, kicking a rock toward me. “You know, Addie, you aren’t at all what I expected.”
“Hmmm,” I said, folding my arms. He had a slight smile, so I was pretty sure he’d meant it kindly, but I wasn’t positive.
“ ‘Hmmm,’ what?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “That was one of those compliments that could easily be an insult. Like ‘Did you do something different with your hair? It looks so nice.’ Meaning it looked like crap before.” Rowan’s mouth twitched into a smile. I was talking too much. I steered us back on course. “If you don’t mind me asking, what did you expect?”
His dimple deepened. “Someone more average. I can see why Ian talks about you so much.”
Surprise flooded me. “He told you about me? But I thought you guys didn’t talk about a lot of personal stuff.”
“Just the important things,” Rowan said. “He told me you two are very close. Which is why I’m a little confused that you guys are, uh . . .” He flourished his hand.
“Fighting all the time?” I filled in.
“It was a little surprising,” he admitted. He folded his arms, dropping his gaze down again. “Anyway, I’m glad you came out here, because I have something to show you.” He reached through the window into the back seat and pulled out the guidebook. “While you were in there, I checked the sites against Ian’s map, and a lot of them are pretty close to each other. A few of them even double up with Titletrack sites. And guess what? One of them is on the Dingle Peninsula, which is where we’re headed next!”
He handed me the guidebook, flipping open to an entry marked DINGLE PENINSULA. I clutched the pages tightly.
“What about Ian?” I said, glancing back toward the store. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but every time my love life comes up, someone starts yelling.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” He grinned a cute, lopsided smile that transplanted onto my face. “I’ll handle Ian. Look, I technically could do the guidebook on my own. It’s just that it feels a little . . .” He twisted his mouth. “Pathetic. But if we do it together . . . Maybe it’s dumb.”
“It’s not dumb,” I said quickly. My flower ceremony at the Burren hadn’t exactly been the life-changing experience I’d hoped for, but I did like the thought of having some dedicated time to cope with Cubby. Plus, Rowan was really putting himself out there—there was no way I was going to leave him hanging.
I pitched my tone to sound more enthusiastic. “I mean, why not? Worst case, we see some interesting places. Best case, I leave Ireland with an unbroken heart.” Yeah, right. I didn’t believe it for a second.
His face split into a huge smile. “Thanks, Addie. You work on finding your shoe. I’ll work on finding Ian. I’m sure I can talk him into this.”
He took off across the parking lot at a happy sprint, and I turned to watch him. Was it possible that I’d managed to find the only person in the world who was more heartbroken than I was?
The Dingle Peninsula
If Ireland were a cake, and you the nervous recipient of something coming out of my oven, I would serve you a thick slice of Dingle. Tart, sugary, chewy Dingle.
It’s a combination of absolutely irresistible ingredients—crushed velvet hills, roads disappearing into milky mist, jelly bean–hued buildings crammed together on winding roads—all blended and whipped together into a ladyfinger-shaped peninsula that you’re going to want to dunk into a cold glass of milk.
Now, I know what you’re wondering, dove: What does this idyllic bit of perfection possibly have to do with the pathetic state of my heart? I’m so glad you asked. And, my, aren’t you catching on nicely?
It’s about the circle, love. The process. At some point (maybe it’s already happened?), you’re going to wrestle your heartache into a sturdy brown box and then lug it all the way to the post office, where you’ll drop it off with a huge sigh. Glad that’s over, you’ll think. Such a relief. You’ll skip back home, your heart as airy as cotton candy, only to realize—with horror—that that heavy brown box is sitting on your front door. It was delivered back to yo
u. Return to sender. Shipping incomplete. But I just did this, you’ll think. I already dealt with it.
I know you did. But you’re going to have to do it again. Contrary to popular belief, getting over someone is not a one-time deal.
It might be helpful to look at the process of heartache like you would a peninsula. One with a long, looping road carrying you past a myriad of delights and wonders. Grief requires you to circle around the issue at hand, sometimes passing by it many, many times until it is no longer the destination but just part of the landscape. The trick is: do not give in to despair. You are making progress, even if some days it just feels like you’re going in circles.
HEARTACHE HOMEWORK: Find Inch Beach, then walk out into the water as far as you dare. You’ll get cold. Then colder. Then numb. And when you can’t stand the cold for one more second, I want you to stand the cold for one more second. Are you surviving this moment of discomfort? Have there been other moments of pain or discomfort that you thought you couldn’t survive and yet you did? Interesting, pet. Interesting.
—Excerpt from Ireland for the Heartbroken: An Unconventional Guide to the Emerald Isle, third edition
THE STORM HIT JUST AS we entered the Peninsula. And by “hit,” I mean came at us as if we were trespassers that had to be forcibly shoved back to the mainland. There was no buildup, either: one second it wasn’t raining, and the next raindrops pummeled the roof so loudly, they may as well have been on the inside my skull. Rain slid down our windows in heavy sheets, and Rowan kept overcorrecting against the wind. “It’s really bucketing down,” he said nervously.
“Hey, Rowan. I think we need to pull over,” I said, gesturing to Ian. Ian balled up against the window, the green tint of his face highlighting his black eye. I’d seen Ian throw up more times than I could count, and he was exhibiting four out of five of the warning signs. Puke was imminent.
“I’m not sick. I just . . . ,” Ian started, but he couldn’t even make it through the sentence before gritting his teeth.
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