Isla and the Happily Ever After(59)
Author: Stephanie Perkins

A woman with a chest covered in electric-bright tattoos shakes her head. “Sorry, honey. We’ve been dead for nearly two hours.”

In the distance, there’s an eruption of explosions and cheering. Cars honk, people shout from their windows.

It’s midnight.

I run back outside, frantically looking up and down the street, but he’s nowhere to be found. Two college-aged girls run past the café hollering at the top of their lungs.

No, he’s coming. He’ll feel me here, like he felt me the last time.

“Are you okay? You don’t look so well.” The tattooed woman is standing beside me, and her forehead is wrinkled in concern.

“My boyfrie— my Josh. Josh. He’s coming. He should be here any second.”

The other employee, a wiry guy whom I belatedly recognize as pierced Abe Lincoln, pops his head out the door. “You forgot my kiss, Maggie.”

“I forgot nothing,” she says.

“He’s coming,” I say again.

Maggie side-eyes me. “How old are you? Do your parents know you’re out?”

I shoot her a nettled glance. “I’m petite. Not a child.”

She shrugs. “O-kay. But I’m still gonna wait out here with you.”

“You don’t have to do that.” The cold wind howls, carrying with it the continued sounds of celebration. I hug my coat around myself tighter.

“Jesus.” Abe shivers. “At least wait inside.”

They coax me back into the café, and I sit at the table in the window. The one I sat at more than half a year ago. They turn up their music even louder. My ears hurt. I glance at my phone, watching the minutes tick past. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. Josh hasn’t called me since Christmas Day. Before I can talk myself out of it, I call Brian’s number. It goes straight to the voicemail of a scary-sounding protective service agency. His employer. I leave a message explaining where I am, pleading for Josh to meet me, and then I run outside again as if that should be enough to make him appear.

He’s not there.

I sit back down, wait until two minutes have passed, and then bolt outside again. I repeat this pattern for an hour. I call again. I leave another message. I look outside, but nothing has changed. Josh isn’t coming.

He’s not coming.

I crumple in the doorway, vaguely aware of Maggie and Abe rushing towards me. It’s the deathblow. It’s over.

Chapter twenty-eight

It’s been a month. Josh never called me back. This gaping, bloody, open wound – the wound that I created – still rubs me raw. I have to keep convincing myself that I was right in the first place, that I was right to break up with him, because it’s clear that he’s realized the truth of what I’ve always feared. That what he felt for me wasn’t love, after all, but convenience.

He’s moving on.

I wish that I could move on. I’m clinging with every last fibre of my being.

At night, I lie awake in bed, pretending that his body is pressed against mine. I close my eyes and imagine the weight of his arms draped across me. Holding me tight. In class, I daydream about placing a love lock on le Pont de l’Archevêché, a bridge near Notre-Dame. Couples write their initials on padlocks and snap them onto the gates as a public declaration of their love. I ache for this sort of unbreakable, permanent connection.

After New Year’s, my father and I took a train to Dartmouth. I didn’t want to go, because how can I possibly say yes to them, even if I am accepted? But Dad wanted me to see the school in person. He’s excited that I’ve applied somewhere unexpected.

Everything was covered in a thick layer of pristine white snow. Dad had scheduled an interview for me, and the encouraging woman behind the desk showed me pamphlets of the campus in the spring and autumn. It looked even more beautiful. She was impressed with my transcripts, and she assured me that a lot of students don’t know what they want to study when they arrive, and I left the interview feeling hopeful and buoyant and alive.

I died again somewhere on the train ride home. Dartmouth is a future that I might’ve had, but I lost. It’s no longer mine. Furthermore, my ugly secret wish has been granted: a college rejected me, and my choice was made for me. I’ll stay here in Paris and attend la Sorbonne. Maybe I’ll meet someone someday, and he’ll make me forget about Josh. Maybe we’ll get married. Maybe I’ll live in France for ever.

But some things have changed.

Kurt’s placeholder comment has returned to haunt me. I’ve been replaced. While I spent a month in detention, he started talking to these two sophomores, Nikhil Devi – I cannot escape that family – and Nikhil’s best friend, Michael. Kurt had overheard them talking about the tunnels, and he discovered that they’re obsessed with them, too. He mentioned their names a few times last semester, but I was so preoccupied by my own problems that I didn’t realize they were actually hanging out. They kept in touch over the winter break, and now their friendship has reached the next natural level.

Nikhil and Michael are sitting at our cafeteria table.

This must be how Kurt felt when Josh ate with us. And it’s not that Nikhil and Michael are ignoring me – they don’t, just like Josh never ignored Kurt – but they’re not exactly sitting at our table because they like me. Though, okay, maybe Nikhil does seem to like like me, which is yet another awkward situation.

It’s weird knowing that Nikhil has spent a significant amount of time with Josh, through Rashmi. I wish that I could ask him about them. What were they like as a couple? And how did Josh and I compare?

But that would be mean. Not that I’m a good person any more.

I can’t help but think that Kurt is pulling away from me on purpose. And not just because he got tired of sitting in my backseat, but also because Josh did this same thing when he was a junior, when his friends were close to graduation. He pulled away from them. And Kurt will always be my best friend, of course he will, but things have changed. For the first time ever, Kurt wasn’t the most important person in my life. That’s hard for me to deal with. It must have been hard for Kurt, too.

And yet…he’s thriving. Which has only made it that much more clear that I’m the reason why we haven’t had any other friends. Not Kurt. I’ve held us back. When I disappeared, he found new people to hang out with, but I still don’t have anyone else. How do people even make friends? How does that happen?

I can’t stop thinking about risk. I took one risk in going to Kismet and another in calling Brian’s phone. Neither worked out. It takes the entire month of January for me to build up the courage to attempt another. Even though Josh is no longer an option, I still want to tackle these other problems – my lack of friends and lack of everyday courage.