“Oh, no,” Alex countered, setting her laptop on the coffee table and clasping his hands between her own. The same manic, weightless tone still colored her voice. “You are my best friend. You’ll always be in my life.”

He looked up at her, searching her eyes for some anchor of recognition.

“I should have stopped you from leaving that letter.” He broke into an open sob, squeezing his eyes shut and tilting his head toward his chest. “I should have never given you Xanax, or let you stay at that party without me. This is all my fault. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She held his hands for a moment, letting him cry, occasionally whispering for him to shh until his breath became less jagged.

“Paul, please,” she finally said, her voice gentle but still unmistakably delirious. “This isn’t your fault. It all had to happen this way.” She looked around the chaotic state of her apartment, and had the thought that it looked like a forest just after the underbrush had been cleared. Only from this kind of fire could something new and sustainable grow. She glanced over to her laptop screen, glowing with the website of the third bank to give her a credit card in as many days. She thought, briefly, of covering for herself in case Paul happened to see what she was doing, but thought better of it. Money flowed so easily to him that he likely wouldn’t even recognize the act of seeking it out.

With a slight nod of satisfaction, she added, “I’m going to be fine.”

24. Vouliagmeni, Greece

24

VOULIAGMENI, GREECE

Now

Alex grabbed a seat at the far end of the pool bar, just a few stools down from the chaotic spot where she’d load her drink orders on a tray before ferrying them to the loungers. Kynosoura Resort felt so much smaller than she remembered it. In her twenty-two-year-old mind, it was an endless sprawling wonderland on Vouliagmeni Beach, a thirty-five-minute bus ride from her studio apartment in central Athens. So many days were defined by that ride to and from the resort, on which she was perpetually exhausted: in the mornings, from waking up early; in the evenings, from working ten-hour shifts on her feet under the Grecian sun. She felt as if she were entering a parallel universe each day, one that kept her so busy she rarely had time to think of anything but her next order. Running around the resort as she waited on demanding tourists gave her a bone-deep exhaustion that felt, at the time, medicinal.