At Kynosoura, she slept well, she built up strength, and she lived in her cutoff shorts, an apron tied around her waist. She ate heartily at employee meals: octopus and salad and lamb with lemon potatoes. She got incredibly tan. She made fast friends with what felt like the whole staff. She even had an intense (if brief) love affair with a bartender, which everyone had warned her against. It ended disastrously but was a beautiful distraction: he was both handsome and charming enough to cauterize the freshest of her wounds from Danial. She remembered the day she spent at the austere health clinic getting tested after learning he had been sleeping with a guest at the resort: it felt humiliating and degrading but also, on some level, freeing. Greece was where she became herself, no doubt about it, and just being back at Kynosoura filled her with a nostalgic pride.

Despite her grandiose memories, the property was actually fairly limited, with two pools—one for families, one for adults—two restaurants, and a coffee shop. The rooms were expensive due to the resort’s prime location, but the hotel itself was rather simple, more like the place she had stayed in Corfu than the Verseau. But she remembered how luxe it felt to her at the time, how the price of the drinks she served her guests had shocked her. She dreamed of a time when she’d be able to return and drink or eat whatever she liked without checking the price. It felt both frustrating and satisfying that even a decade later, she was still checking the prices, and still feeling rather appalled by them.

From her seat at the bar, she could see everything: the pool—which, unlike the family-friendly one, did not feature a waterslide—the expansive beach, and the other resorts dotting the coastline. The pool loungers were still a deep blue, the parasols still blue-and-white striped, but the hotel towels were now a bright, welcoming yellow. It felt both familiar and fresh, and more importantly, it felt like a place where she only had positive memories. She was still friends on social media with most of her former colleagues, with the notable exception of the cheating bartender. They all congratulated her on her professional victories and wished her happy birthday, liking and commenting on her photos. She did the same for them, of course, because it felt like they had all been at summer camp together, and a notification from one of them felt like putting on an old friendship bracelet.

“I’m going to need to see some I.D.,” a throaty British voice said behind her, and Alex immediately turned around to see her old fellow server, Louisa.

“Lou!” Alex shouted, wrapping her arms around Louisa’s neck for one of those hugs that necessitates much back-and-forth rocking, “It’s so good to see you!”