I stare at his adorable, sleep-rumpled hair and his long, lovely spine. I touch the skin of his back with the tip of one finger. He rolls over. He smiles at me languorously. With contentment, I scoot in closer for a kiss. “Mm,” he says. “Is next weekend too soon to do this again? Switzerland. Let’s go to Switzerland.”
“You’ll be in New York next weekend.”
His smile falls.
“Next-next weekend,” I say.
“Deal.” He brushes my hair away from my shoulder, leaving it bare. “So. Tell me. Who’s the better bedmate? Me or Kurt?”
“Kurt, obviously.”
“I knew it.” He kisses my nose and hops from bed. “I’ll be right back.”
“Hand me my phone? I wanna double-check our departure time.”
Josh digs it out from my bag, tosses it to me, and goes into the bathroom. The door shuts. I flip the volume switch from silent to on. The screen illuminates. My heart stops.
“No,” I whisper.
Twenty-nine new messages. Kurt. Nate. Hattie. The school. My parents.
“Josh? Josh!”
The bathroom door bursts open. “What happened? Are you okay?” And then he sees the way I’m clutching my phone. The blood drains from his face.
“No,” he whispers.
I start crying. He tears apart his own backpack, yanks out his phone, and swears at its screen. “Kurt. Nate. My mom, like, a hundred times. My dad.”
I’m sobbing now.
He paces the room. He rakes his scalp with both hands. “It’s okay. It’ll be fine. I’ve messed up before. It’ll be fine.”
“How will it be fine? This’ll go on my record!” My entire college future vanishes. I feel faint. My stomach churns, threatening upheaval.
“No. I’ll take full credit for this. You won’t get in trouble.”
“How won’t I get in trouble? I’m just as here as you are. In Spain.” I scroll through the texts, trying to piece together a timeline of events. But I can’t focus.
I listen to Kurt’s voicemail, and he’s completely freaked out. Hattie was asking around for you, and Nate overheard, and then they noticed that Josh was missing, too, and they came to me, and I had to tell them where you were. I’m sorry, Isla. I had to tell them.
I’m an idiot.
I am such an idiot.
How could I have forgotten about Hattie? She’s the one person that I can always count on to say or do the wrong thing. Of course she’s behind this. And of course Kurt was the one who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
Josh sinks beside me onto the bed. He places one hand on each side of my face and touches his forehead to mine. “Breathe,” he says. “Breathe. Breathe.”
“I don’t wanna breathe!”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I’ll call the school. You call your parents.”
Everyone is furious with us. Maman screams so loudly that I have to hold the phone away from my head. Josh gets an earful from Nate, and then I force him to call his mom. She won’t pick up, so he leaves a message. He refuses to call his dad, but I insist, so he calls his dad’s security aide instead.
And then he makes me text Kurt and Hattie.
They aren’t furious – they just want to know that we’re okay – but I’m not feeling so charitable towards them. I tell them we’re fine, we’re coming back, the end.