With Connor’s fake bullet between my eyes, I go back to my room and spend ten minutes in the shower trying once again to wash away the feeling that I’m missing something.
It’s been a very odd forty-eight hours.
It felt like everything was in place before I came to Italy. After too many months of casting around for a plot, I finally had a plan for Book Ten, even if it wasn’t fully formed. But that didn’t bother me. I’m a pantser, not a plotter102—in writing and in life, too. I like to wing it. I like not always knowing what’s going to happen. It’s why I went to Italy in the first place. After spending seven years living my parents’ life, giving up on my dreams, I wanted to come back to myself. I wanted something just for me.
I wanted to go back to being that irresponsible girl I was until the day my parents died. The girl they shook their head over. The girl they didn’t know what they were going to do with.
I got what I asked for. That and much more.
After everything with Connor, I was changed again. I wasn’t the girl I was at eighteen, but I wasn’t the twenty-five-year-old me either. I was some in-between person who suddenly had all these opportunities I never imagined for myself. I lived that life for ten years—the good, the bad, the doubt, the fears, the loss, the love, and the loss of that love. I was managing. I was good, mostly. But I had to go and upset the apple cart.
Was it really about Connor?
Because, if I’m being honest, when I found out about the statute of limitations, when I realized I was free, that Connor didn’t have a hold over me anymore, my first reaction was fear.
What was I without him?
I was terrified to find out.
But then I thought about the other fault lines in my life—those hadn’t felt like choices. My parents’ death certainly wasn’t. Even Italy and Connor and the book—those had never felt like choices. Because I didn’t choose to have Connor betray me and break my tender heart. To be blackmailed by him and have him force me to do what he wanted.
But this. This.
I could walk away on my terms. So that’s what I was going to do. It was scary, but it was all going to work out. I was going to manifest it.
I should’ve known you can’t manifest your life. The decisions you make aren’t binding on other people. Proof positive: I’m in a fight with Harper, and Connor’s very much still here.
And then there’s Oliver.
Oliver, whose heart I broke when we were having a rough patch and were on a break.
No. That’s not true.
We weren’t on a break. We’d only fought. And I blew it up into some big dramatic thing because I’m a moron, and then I went on a book tour with Connor and spent too much time drinking and commiserating with him at the bar. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in his bed.
But no, that’s a lie, too.
I’m a liar.
Have you figured that out yet?103
I tell people what they want to hear so they’ll like me.
So here’s the truth—if you want to believe the truth of a liar.
I picked the fight with Oliver on purpose. I was in too deep. I was so in love with him that it made what I felt for Connor seem like a minor crush. It scared me, and I needed a way out. Because I couldn’t let myself get hurt like that again.
I just couldn’t.
So I did the one thing I knew Oliver would never forgive me for. He’d told me more than once how much he hated that Connor and I had been together, how it made him jealous.
I used that. I chose a path with no way out.
Because I’m a liar and a coward and an all-around bad person.
I told you that in the beginning.
And if you think I didn’t, then you weren’t paying attention.
Dinner’s painful, and I can’t hear a word.
It’s on the veranda, which is now full of other patrons, and there’s music being piped in over the speakers. I’m sitting at the head of the table this time, and Oliver’s at the other end. The music’s so loud I couldn’t talk to Allison to the left of me or Shek to the right even if I wanted to, which I don’t.
Instead, I drink. I ask the waiter to bring me my own bottle of wine, and no one notices. I keep trying to make eye contact with Oliver, but he’s talking to Harper, and it feels like he’s studiously avoiding looking my way.
It’s my tour, but I’m not the center of attention. Which is probably what I deserve. It occurs to me that almost everyone around this table has as much reason to hate me as Connor. I’ve betrayed so many of them in big and small ways that my death at one of their hands wouldn’t come as a surprise.
And isn’t that perfect irony—that if I’m the one to die, my suspect list and Connor’s would line up perfectly?
You’d have thought someone planned it that way.104
So I drink, and the only person who seems to notice I’m here is Connor. He’s sitting in the middle of the table, wrapped up in Isabella, but he keeps shooting me looks and, once, his signature fake gun that again has a bigger impact on me than it should.
Is it a warning or just a stupid gimmick meant to make me feel like I should be looking over my shoulder?
Just wait. I’ll see.
I wait.
I drink.
When we get to dessert, I push my plate away and stumble to the edge of the veranda. It overlooks the cliff and the beautiful sea, and I can feel its pull. I’m not going to do it, but it does cross my mind that my life would be so much easier if it was over.
I read once that most people who commit suicide only spend five minutes thinking about it before they do it. It’s not some long-term plan, but the impulse of a moment, with the opportunity at hand. I never understood it before, but as I stand here and imagine what the rocks below might do to my body, I get it now.
You make a quick decision and then that’s it.
There are no more decisions to make.
“Don’t jump,” Oliver says gently, resting his arms on the stone next to me. He’s wearing a white shirt and his face is tanned from our day in the sun. He’s so appealing I want to wrap myself in his arms and—
Oh God, is this why I came to stand here? Was I trying to draw him to me?
I mean, obviously I was. And it worked.
I am the worst.
“I won’t.”
His eyes are troubled. “But you were thinking about it.”
“How do you know that?”
“You were talking out loud again.”
“That’s embarrassing.”
He smiles. “It’s one of your more charming characteristics.”
“Why, thank you.” I run my hands over the smooth stone of the wall. “What did I say?”
“‘One little jump…’”
“I wasn’t being serious.”
“I hope not.” He sighs and adjusts his body. He’s closer to me now, the fabric of his shirt touching my arm. It’s hard to concentrate.
“What was making you think about it?”
“The usual.”
“Life, et cetera.”
“Pretty much. Which makes me a fucking brat. I mean, look at this place. I have no right to complain.” I sweep my hand out in front of me, taking the setting sun over the Med, that clear blue water, the sailboats with their white sails, and the megayachts. The cliff face full of multicolored buildings built long before we were born. That scent of lemon and olive in the air. The warm breeze on my face as the sun sets on the horizon. The stone steps below us, winding down and down and down.
“Everyone’s allowed to complain sometimes,” Oliver says.
“Sure.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
We watch the brilliant orange sunset for a minute as it sinks into the sea, our arms touching. It feels like something’s happening between us, but that’s probably just wishful thinking.
It’s magic hour, and this feels magical.
So that tracks.
But magical thinking is dangerous. It means you miss things. That you don’t see danger coming.
I shudder, then turn my attention to a man climbing the stairs toward us from the town below. He’s red in the face, but he keeps going up steadily. I admire his determination. I would’ve crapped out three flights ago.
“Happy Fourth of July, by the way,” Oliver says.
“Is it the Fourth?”
“All day.”
“I guess that’s not something they celebrate here.”
“Probably not.”
“I sound like a stupid American,” I say.
“You’re not stupid.”
“I’ve been feeling pretty stupid lately.”
“Why?”
I hug myself, wrapping my arms tight. “I screwed everything up. Me and you, me and Harper.”
“What happened with Harper?”
“She was telling you about it at dinner, wasn’t she?”
He nods slightly. “Some.”
“You two were always good friends.”
“We both loved you.”
A lump forms in my throat. He used the past tense. Not just for him, but for her.
Is this what it feels like when your heart is breaking? Like you can’t breathe?
Like you never knew how to do it?
“Harper will come around,” Oliver says.
“And you?”
He turns toward me. The setting sun is reflecting in his eyes, giving them an orange cast. “I came on this trip, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t have to?”
“I’m a grown man, El. I only do the things I want.”
I work through what this means. Oliver always reads the packet. He knew this was my tour, and he came anyway. He sought me out. He—
Okay, El, slow your roll.
It’s not like he’s down on one knee.
“I’m glad you decided to come.”
“Me too, mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“There are a few things I’d change.”
Connor, he means. The one constant between us. But I don’t want to talk about Connor right now. I want to forget he even exists. I want it to be me and Oliver against this encroaching night.
I lean against him. It feels nice to stand like this and not talk. To watch the sunset like a normal couple would on a romantic vacation in Italy. The way it would’ve been between us if I hadn’t gotten scared and we’d never been apart.
“Do you think that guy’s having a heart attack?” Oliver says, pointing to the man I was watching earlier.
“He’ll be all right. And if not, you’re always here to save him.”
“I’m not a hero, El.”
I put my hand on his. He doesn’t pull back. He doesn’t pull back. “You saved me yesterday.”
“Anyone would’ve done that.”
“But you’re the one that did.”
He stares at me like he’s trying to puzzle out the code we’re speaking. We always used to know what the other meant; there wasn’t any need for interpretation.
“You don’t need me,” he says eventually.
Tears sting my eyes. “I do. It’s been terrible without you.”
“Terrible, huh?”
He twines his fingers through mine. His touch feels overwhelming—warm and familiar, but somehow new.
“Oliver, I—”
“Sun’s almost set,” he says.
“On us?”
“It’s not a metaphor. Look.”
I turn toward the water and watch as the last of the sun drops below the horizon. And then, like it was coordinated, an enormous BOOM! sounds over our heads and the sky fills with a shatter of colorful stars.
“Fireworks?” I say. “Did you do this?”
“I wish … I guess it’s for the Fourth, after all.”
There’s another explosion, and the other guests start to gather around us, pushing up against the railing to watch the fireworks splinter over the water.
“They do it every year,” someone says near me, and I’m not sure who it is. I’m still holding on to Oliver, but it feels like he’s being pulled away from me by the crowd.
The explosions come like rapid fire: Boom! Boom! Boom!
The crowd surges forward, and Oliver’s hand slips through my fingers.
I look for him, but now I’m being pushed toward the top of the stairs as the crowd multiplies. We’re all here: Harper and Shek. Allison and Emily. Oliver and Guy. Connor and Isabella. Everyone’s in twos but me, and the crowd is still pushing against my back.
I feel unsteady. I try to call out, to tell them to step back! But it’s too loud for anyone to hear me over the oohs and aahs and pointing fingers at the sky.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
And then it hits me.
Fireworks, a distraction, a crowd, those stairs that go down and down and down. One firm hand to the back, and it would be hard to tell who was responsible.
It would be impossible.
The only problem is, I’m the one losing my footing. Not Connor.
Then I feel it—a hand on the small of my back, pushing me to the edge, and then a hard shove.
And now I’m falling, and all I can think is: Maybe I’m the one who dies in this story after all.