She felt a man’s hands on her shoulders then and, for a brief, beautiful moment, she thought it might have been Danial—that this was all a bad dream, that he was coming to tell her he’d read her letter and that he loved her, too. But when she turned her wet, makeup-smeared face to take him in, it was Dev who’d been propping her up, his forehead knitted in deep concern.

“Come with me,” he whispered, putting one of her arms over his shoulder to hold her steady. “Let’s get you out of here.”

She nodded, leaning into him as he moved with her in lockstep through the kitchen and living room. The walk out of Guy’s apartment only came to her in flashes: blurred faces, whispered conversations, and one mental image that remained seared in her brain with a cruel clarity. For the rest of her life, she would never forget it: on the coffee table amidst a tangle of other trash was her letter, the words bleeding under a heavy ring of condensation.

19. Corfu Town, Greece

19

CORFU TOWN, GREECE

Now

“A-L-E-X O-N-A-S-S-I-S,” she clarified, taking her time with each letter.

“Ah.” The strangely young receptionist smiled, looking up at Alex from her computer screen. “You are Greek.”

“Well, my ancestors were.” She smiled back.

“Okay, Miss Onassis, I have you in a double room, city view, for two nights.”

“That’s right.”

Alex looked around at the hotel lobby, the terra cotta tiles on the floor and the sparse blue-and-white decor on the walls. The hotel was tiny, and reasonably priced, and much more than she needed to be comfortable. She had no right to feel anything but gratitude for her ability to escape a painful situation on a moment’s notice. It was a freedom she’d dreamed of affording her whole life. But her heart still felt so heavy, unassuaged even by the many WhatsApp messages from Paul that assured her he wasn’t angry and would find some kind of reasonable explanation as to why she’d left.

Her anxiety often manifested this way, especially in her younger days when it was completely unmanaged: panic rose up within her to an untenable pitch, and in response she’d make some shoddy, ill-advised decision that she regretted almost as soon as it was too late to take it back. Now that she was in her cooling-off period, it was time to reconsider every other decision that had led her to this point. Even if things with Danial would have been painfully awkward, she objectively could have stayed on the boat. She could have toughed it out, and not put Paul in the position of explaining her sudden absence. If anything, his kindness only made her feel worse, undeserving of him as much as she was of Danial.