Or maybe they never stopped. “No way. I mean, this is travel enough. For me.”
“Ha. You say that now. Don’t you realize you’re in Europe? You can fly anywhere for cheap.”
A shallow breath. One country at a time.
“It’s overwhelming,” I say. “This is only my second time in Europe, and really we never did any traveling when I came last year, unless you count staying with my extended family outside of Dublin. I’m from Kentucky, so, it’s all foreign to me.”
“The place with the chicken, right?”
I cringe. A state with a two-hundred-year history rendered down to a piece of mediocre fried chicken.
“It’s more than that,” I say. I keep my eyes open, looking around the car. “I don’t hate it there. It’s the farmlands—cute houses, fields, open spaces, and bright stars the moment the sun goes down. I’m the only one who left. Of that side of my family, that is.”
“So let’s say your plan works out and you get to live here for a while. Do you think you’ll ever go back?” Pierce’s draped arm drifts closer. So close his fingers graze my shoulder, making me shudder.
“No.” I wouldn’t. “I’ll figure something out. There’s just nothing for me there. I’d like to tour in a symphony someday, but I don’t know. There are plenty of gigs out there. I’ll find something.”
At that last bit, I turn to him. His face is inches from mine. The edges of his lips perk up, and I pull back on instinct. His eyes flicker to the train map, and my gaze follows. We’re just three or four stops away. We’re supposed to get off at Green Park; that’s why I’m so surprised when Pierce jumps up at Gloucester Road.
“But this is Glow-chester Road?” I say.
“It’s pronounced Glah-ster, but never mind that. You never got to see Big Ben, right? Without all the scaffolding?”
“Right.”
“Let’s get off here. I can show you Big Ben, the Abbey. 10 Downing. Let’s be proper tourists. Then it’s a straight shot to Sondheim Theatre, where we can go surprise Shane after his audition—what do you say?”
My face feels hot. Really hot. Like in eighth grade, when Megan and I split a bottle of NyQuil because we thought it’d get us drunk (but it really just made us sleep for fourteen hours). My anxiety levels are off the charts.
This was not in the plan.
I’m carrying a suitcase.
There are going to be a lot of people up there.
My brain also chooses this time to remind me how long it’s been since I’ve had a shower.
He smiles—not a beaming smile, but a smirk. The doors have opened. I grab my bag and suitcase, while Pierce reaches out to me. My shoes feel glued to the ground. There’s something in his eyes—a sparkle? A twinkle? Reflection of the dingy train lighting? Okay, probably the latter, but fuck it. I’m going to see this city. I’ll follow that smirk anywhere.
12 MONTHS AGO
DIARY ENTRY 1
This assignment feels a little juvenile. (Note to self: erase that later.) I’ve been sitting in our Airbnb for like twenty minutes staring at this blank page. In my creative writing class last year, Ms. Hardin always said how sometimes writing whatever you’re thinking will jump-start your brain. Even if it’s crap. This is crap, but I’m trying to jump-start my jet-lagged brain, and it’s going to have to do. Okay. Back to London.
There’s no place like this. I mean, I haven’t seen that many places. Like, I went to New York on that school trip once, and when I was really young my parents made me board a bus with about forty other people from our megachurch to do that awful March for Life event in DC. I can’t look back on that mess of flyers and hymns and virtue signaling and not do a full body cringe. We trashed the city. When no one was taking our flyers, we were told to let God take them, and threw them into the air. God, of course, took them nowhere, and they melted into the soggy streets of Chinatown.
Wow, maybe diaries are therapeutic. That felt good.
Anyway, I’m going to have to delete all this. I don’t know if Mr. Wei is super Christian, but pissing off the righteous is not a good way to start my final school year.
So wait, London. We’re here! I’m tired. And also, it’s PRIDE. No one told me, not even Shane. We haven’t seen anything—no parades or anything like that—but we toured the city today, and