Wanderlove

by Kirsten Hubbard

  “I figured you’d be hugging your airplane seat, you’d be so glad to get away. After all I went on about trust and overcoming embarrassment—I freaked out as soon as I discovered you hid one small thing from me. Now I get why you didn’t tell me you spoke to Starling. But in the moment, on the beach … I imagined the two of you had this entire best friendship behind my back, and she’d told you every single humiliating incident from the past few years.”

  I shake my head. “I wouldn’t let her.”

  “Let her do what?”

  “Tell me about your past. Not any more than you’ve already told me. Because it’s your story. Like you said when the bus broke down.”

  Rowan pauses, staring at me. And then he grabs my face and kisses me so hard I have to shove him away, laughing. “I can’t believe you remember that!” he exclaims.

  “Where’d you get it, anyway?”

  “I actually got it from The Horse and His Boy. One of the Narnia books by C. S. Lewis. It was something Aslan said to Lucy, about your story belonging to you.… It just stuck.” He brings our linked hands to his face. “I just thought—I thought that was the reason you ended things after Lobsterfest. Like if you could think I’d do something so stupid, that I’d regress like that, put you in any sort of danger … of course you wouldn’t trust me.”

  “But I do. It just took me a while. As long as you don’t leave in the middle of the night again.”

  “Technically, it was first thing in the morning.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “So, Bria Sandoval. Where to next?”

  “Well, I really only have a week.”

  “Only a week? You sure you can’t stay longer? You could delay classes for a semester, and I could find you a job in a dive shop. Or there are other things we could do. Join one of Starling’s volunteer programs, as long as it’s on a coast so I can teach diving. Maybe even something that involves your art …”

  I can’t help grinning. “You sound like you’ve thought this out.”

  “Ever since Livingston, I’ve been trying to figure out ways to keep you here.”

  It takes me a moment to hear his words, to really hear them and comprehend. Then I drape my arms over his shoulders, and—who cares about everyone in the restaurant?—it’s my turn to kiss him into laughter explosion. “I’m here now,” I say, pulling away. “And the here and now is what’s important. Isn’t that what you said?”

  Rowan’s quiet for a moment.

  “I could open a dive shop,” he says slowly. “If I get my Divemaster certification. Bring the Belizean dive mentality to the United States. Too bad your water’s so damned cold, though.”

  “My water?”

  “In California. Right?”

  I grin at him so hard my face hurts. “California—for now.”

  We stay in the café until the sun goes down. Then I use a pay phone to call my parents again and, after that, my airline. I can wait until tomorrow to call my college, where I’ll probably be sleeping on a cot in the basement, but at this point, I don’t care. When you fall for a guy like Rowan, nothing’s certain. But I’m pretty sure we’ve found the antidote to Wanderlove: each other.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank:

  Bryson Allen, my first and favorite backpacking partner, whom I knew I’d marry the moment I saw him scream with sheer joy at the sight of a baby iguana in Costa Rica.

  Michelle Andelman, my brilliant agent, advocate, and literary soul mate, as well as the teams at both Lynn C. Franklin Associates and Regal Literary.

  Everyone at Delacorte Press, especially my editors, Michelle Poploff and Rebecca Short. They know just how to deepen, mend, and enrich. I once heard someone say, “My editor helped me write the book I thought I’d already written,” and that’s exactly right.

  My mother, Marcia, for serenading me throughout my childhood with tales of her solo trip across Europe, and for initiating all this Central America madness with a simple question: “How about Belize?” My father, Doug, for the crazy stories from his years wrangling grizzlies and crashing cars for the film industry, which inspired me to seek out a colorful life. My twin sister, Danielle, whom I will take backpacking one of these days. My wonderful in-laws, the Allens. My poor dog, Sky, for being such a trouper when I’m gone.

  Michelle Haft, Rachel Arceo, Catherine Demdam, Jenny Hicks, Lisa McCune, Kristin Allen, Amanda Castro, and my other backpacking buddies and travel companions, including all the friends and family who joined me for my wedding on a certain Belizean island I couldn’t get out of my head.

  All my amazing writer pals, online and off, especially Michelle Schusterman, Kate Hart, Amanda Hannah, Kristin Miller, Kaitlin Ward, Emilia Plater, and the other girls of YA Highway—for support, critiques, and hilarity in the margins of my manuscripts. Someday, we will all travel together. It will be epic.

  My art teachers at the Watts Atelier of the Arts, who encouraged my art despite my enrollment gaps and numerous travel absences; my singular high school art teacher, Jay Shelton; and again, my mother, the artist, who knows I’m not truly happy unless I’m drawing. Also, my patient figure models, Danielle, Kristin, and Bryson.

  About.com, particularly the other travel guides and our editor, Brian Spencer. My years as the Guide to Central America Travel have kept me immersed in my favorite places—many of which are included, some thinly disguised, in Wanderlove.

  Last but not least, all the extraordinary people I’ve met on my travels, including travel writers, hotel owners, and Central American ministers of tourism—but also the man who helped me save the baby mynah bird in Koh Chang, and that little Mayan girl who hugged my knees in Panajachel, and the literature professor with whom I shared a train car across Croatia, and the woman who painted my face in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. I’ll never forget.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A travel writer and young adult author, Kirsten Hubbard has danced in a Serbian nightclub (self-consciously), been slapped in the face by a Thai monkey, discovered all manner of alarming creatures (including tarantulas) in hostel beds, and greeted the sunrise atop the highest temple at Guatemala’s Tikal ruins. She prefers backpacks to suitcases, brings sketchbooks on every trip, and has served as the Guide to Central America Travel for About.com since 2006. When she’s not off wandering, she lives in San Diego, California. She is the author of Like Mandarin, also available from Delacorte Press.