Page 28 of Accidental Getaway

I wake up feeling like a ton of bricks fell on me. The way Niko dropped his hands from me the second he recognized that man haunted my dreams last night. What did I do wrong? Why did he feel like it was necessary to do that?

I need to talk to Piper. I need to get a fresh perspective. She told me to call her early, so I pack my bag and head out for a walk while I talk to her. Nothing clears my head more than movement and Piper. Maybe once I sort through all of this, I’ll feel better.

I make my way toward Little Venice, a part of the island I’ve been dying to see.

It’s a little alcove where the buildings are right to the water’s edge.

You can sit at a café table with the ocean at your feet.

I’ll call Piper along the two-mile walk and then find a little coffee shop or somewhere to work for a few hours afterward to catch up on all the work I should have done yesterday.

My stomach tightens at the thought of rehashing last night. Instead of calling Piper right away, I take my time, stopping to take photos and wander down little alleyways.

A tiny voice in the back of my head tells me to stop procrastinating but I brush it away.

Each corner reveals a new row of white shops with beautiful doorways, flower baskets in the windows and decorative tiles in the walkway.

I could never tire of these streets. It’s endlessly tranquil this early in the morning.

A bit colder than I had anticipated, but it’s easy to forget about last night while getting lost exploring this little paradise.

I finally find myself on the beach and pull out my phone to call.

It’s later than I had planned and my first call goes to voicemail, so I keep walking.

Why did I put off this phone call when I need it so desperately?

I’ve probably lost my chance now and won’t be able to speak to Piper until tonight if I can even catch her before my planned get-together with Ana.

I wander back from the beach onto another street full of shops. Most of them are still closed, so I window-shop, peeking in on pottery shops, jewelers, and florists. I’m crisscrossing the street to check out an olive oil and honey shop when a few raindrops splatter onto my forehead.

A chill is in the air and the sky is darkening. I look up to see storm clouds swirling in the sky above me. Rain pours from them. I dash to the shop to take cover in the doorway.

Of course, that’s the moment that my phone rings. When I grab it out of my bag, a familiar picture of my best friend lights up the screen. Thank goodness. I didn’t miss her after all. I swipe to answer the FaceTime. Piper’s face pops up in a dark room.

“Piper? Is everything okay? Where are you?”

“Hi! Yes! Everything’s fine. We’re … at an inn.” A look I can’t quite decipher passes across Piper’s face. Why are they at an inn? “I’m so sorry I missed your call; I fell asleep watching TV.”

“Is that Jenni? Tell her thanks for winning me twenty bucks!” I hear Sarah call out.

“What is she talking about?” I ask, confused .

“We had a bet. She bet you would hook up with Niko; I bet that it would be someone else,” Piper says. “Obviously, you’re the real winner, though. Am I right?!”

“Yeah, sure.” I say, my voice flat.

“What’s up? Am I interrupting anything now?”

I sigh. “No, of course not. I’m just huddled under a shop entrance, trying to survive a flash storm.”

I quickly pan my phone around so she can see the street, now splattered with puddles. “But now that I think about it, it’s probably perfect weather. I’ve messed everything up. I don’t know how it all went so wrong.”

“What do you mean you screwed things up? What happened? The last we texted, you said things were going great.”

My shoes are starting to swell with water, sticking out in the rain.

“I … I don’t even know where to start. But Niko and I really connected, and I thought everything was great even though I can’t get him or Amber to see what I think the best way forward is for the proposal.

But then last night, we were out, and he totally pretended we weren’t together.

Things feel like they are falling apart.

He is doing the same thing Malcolm did. I can’t—I can’t go through that again. ”

The words pour out of me, leaving a taste of vinegar in my mouth.

It feels like a 100-pound weight is sitting on my chest. Even just talking about it makes me feel queasy, as if at any second the house of cards I’ve built around me is going to collapse, and I’ll be left standing in the pile of waste that is my life.

“Wait, wait, wait. Slow down. Take a deep breath,” Piper coaches. I do my best, but the breath comes choppy and shallow. “Back up. What exactly happened?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to pull myself together .

“Last night, after dinner, we were walking on the beach and Niko was about to kiss me when someone called his name. He dropped me like a hot potato. He couldn’t have stepped back faster. To top it all off, he introduced me by my job title.”

Piper adjusts herself on the bed and brings the phone closer. “Did he say anything after that? How has he reacted toward you in other situations?”

“He apologized and said he wasn’t sure how I wanted to be introduced and didn’t want to assume.”

“That sounds reasonable. It’s not like you have had the relationship talk. He only kissed you, like, two days ago. I still need those details, by the way.”

I narrow my eyes. “Earlier that night he called me a friend and held my hand. He kissed me in the lobby of the hotel. The only thing that was different was that the man worked for his father. He seemed embarrassed by me. It’s just like Malcolm. He never acknowledged our relationship either.”

My stomach hollows into an endless void. I can’t believe I got myself into this situation again. I know I said I was just having fun, but I opened up my heart and allowed a flicker of hope to grow. Then last night doused that flame as surely as this rain would have.

“Oh, hon. Your worry is totally understandable, but I really don’t think that’s what’s going on. Do you? Niko sounds like a really good guy.”

I think back to all our other interactions—the tenderness, always making sure I was comfortable, remembering how I took my coffee. All of it leaves my mind fuzzy.

“No, you’re right. He has basically been perfect otherwise.”

“Perfect, huh? Am I ever going to hear about the magical cave date?”

My racing heart has slowed. Maybe I’m overreacting.

Niko hasn’t done anything else to make me worry.

I should give him the benefit of the doubt, shouldn’t I?

A cautious benefit of the doubt? Because when I think about needing to end it, I can’t figure out how to do that without ruining my chances at the board meeting.

Doing that puts too much at risk. This whole trip will have been in vain. I’ll lose everything.

“Fine, Piper. I’ll tell you about the magical cave date,” I offer, my mood lifting already.

So I recount the other day with plenty of details.

“It was totally PG-13. I am not ready for anything more than that,” I add when I finish.

I sigh, thinking back to the way Niko kissed me outside the hotel and how I hadn’t wanted him to stop.

“Oh yeah? Then what was that little moan about?”

“Ew, that was not a moan. It was a sigh. Because it stopped raining.” I step out of the shop doorway and start to wander the streets in the general direction of Little Venice.

“Whatever you say. What do you think will happen when you come home?”

“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “Obviously nothing can happen. Our lives are thousands of miles apart. Hopefully we’ll be working together. I can’t actually date someone I work with.”

Piper rolls her eyes. “Amber met her husband at a marketing firm while she was a manager and he was a consultant. It happens.”

She did? I never knew that. “Even so, Niko lives in Greece, and I’m coming back to Colorado in less than a week. It could never be serious.”

Piper laughs as if I’ve told a joke I don’t understand.

“Who said anything about serious? Casual is exactly what you need. Why can’t you just have an amazing time for the rest of your trip and keep in touch? You never know what might happen.”

I walk past a bakery and the fresh aroma hits me like a soft pillow with the way it wafts through the air.

I stop for a minute to look over the case of sweets in the window.

Maybe Piper is right. Maybe I do need casual.

I mean, the only relationship I’ve ever really had was with Malcolm.

And that went from zero to sixty in about eight seconds flat.

“Hold on,” I tell Piper, and then use a combination of English and pointing to order coffee and some sort of flaky pastry with a lavender flower on top. It looks a lot like the baklava Niko fed me on that first afternoon.

I sit at a little metal table outside the café and jump right back to talking with Piper.

“Okay, maybe you’re right. I still don’t know if that’s what I should be focusing on, though. I need to get this deal, so I can finally get out of my parents’ house—go somewhere that isn’t Pineview Springs.”

“Small towns are for people with no ambition. If it’s not a city, you’re doing it wrong.”

I could fill a book with all the ways I’m a failure in Malcolm’s eyes.

And I shouldn’t care. Not anymore. But I can’t help myself.

Some part of me is still broken, desperate for his approval.

Like if I can prove he was wrong about me, I can prove I wasn’t the problem in our dysfunctional relationship.

Thoughts of Malcolm choke me up. Piper will never understand the hold he still has on me. I can’t tell her any of this. It’s too hard to explain.

There’s silence from the other end, and Piper fidgets with her glasses. Almost as if she’s gearing up to deliver some bad news.

“Wait. What is that look for? Did Amber say something to you? Is the promotion out of the picture? What happened?”

“No, no. Amber hasn’t said anything. I’m sure you will figure it out. It’s just … what you said about Pineview Springs. You really want to leave that much?”

“Of course. You know that.” Not a day has gone by that I haven’t lamented being stuck back home .

“Well, you know how Sarah and I have always talked about settling down somewhere and running our own business?”

I do. They always have some sort of grand idea, selling climbing gear in Estes Park, surfboards in California, opening a café somewhere along the Appalachian Trail.

Had they found something somewhere? My heart sinks at the notion I won’t get to see them as often if they aren’t roaming the country in their RV with Colorado as a home base.

“We’re reopening the inn!” She has a smile from ear to ear.

“The inn? What inn?”

“The Pineview Inn. The one we used to work at in high school. When we had lunch with Mrs. Harper the other day, she joked that she wished we would take it over because she knew it would be in good hands, and I don’t know … It just felt right.

“We stayed up all night debating the pros and cons. We got a loan from Sarah’s dad to help with the down payment and we signed all the paperwork today.”

I’m feeling a bit dizzy, so I take a sip of coffee to stall. I don’t know how to make sense of this. If anyone wanted to get out of Pineview Springs more than I did growing up, it was Piper. And now she’s coming back too? How did we both end up stuck in Pineview Springs?

“What? Wow, that’s … surprising! I wasn’t sure she was ever going to actually sell the place. Are you excited? How does Sarah feel about being stuck in Pineview?”

The joy on Piper’s face deflates, and I realize I’ve said the wrong thing.

“Yeah, we’re very excited, actually,” she says, sounding annoyed. “It’s been our dream to do something like this for years. Neither of us consider it being stuck in Pineview. We have everything there we could want—a business, my family, the outdoors, and you.”

My heart sinks. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, but I can tell I have. Let’s just add being a terrible friend to the giant pile of mistakes I’m stacking up right now.

“Of course! Oh, my gosh. Of course! I’m sorry. I’m just so wrapped up in my own head right now. This is amazing news. When do you start? Are you leaving Aspen Sky?”

I don’t know what I’ll do without Piper at Aspen Sky.

She is my lifeline. And suddenly, even though this news means that Piper and Sarah will be closer to me geographically, I can’t help but feel like they are leaving me behind.

They are doing something with their lives while I’m still trying to grasp at mine as it spirals out of control.

It’s like I’m still being punished for dating the wrong guy when I was twenty.

Am I ever going to pull myself back up from that setback?

“Eventually,” Piper says. “But not immediately. We’re going to paint and redecorate and do a lot of DIY to update the place a bit. We’re hoping for a soft opening around Christmastime. We got the keys today, which means we’re going to start cleaning it up this weekend.”

“I can’t wait to help when I get back! You have to put me to work, okay?”

“Oh, we will. Your free labor played a big role in our decision.” Piper laughs and I smile, even though I can tell I might start crying any second.

“Hey, Piper, I need to go. My phone battery is low, and I need it to find my way back to the hotel.”

“No worries. I’m so glad I caught you! It’s been killing me that you didn’t know! And, hey, don’t stress about the meeting. Just be yourself and you’ll be fine, okay? I love you so much!”

Even at 3:00 a.m. or whatever ridiculous time it is there, Piper hits the “I love you” with the same energy as always.

“I love you more.” I can’t muster the same enthusiasm in response, but I do my best and hang up the phone.

I finally take a bite of my pastry, which is filled with lavender sugary sweetness. Any other day and I would devour it, but my appetite is completely gone, so instead I get up and keep walking toward Little Venice. I need to at least see it.

After a few numb minutes spent paying very little attention to my surroundings, I find myself on the beach in a small cove, staring across the water at a wall of buildings.

The waves lap against the cement walls and I can see now why it’s called Little Venice.

There are balconies of red, blue, and burnt orange with matching window shutters.

The cement is stained green, marking years of waves.

Weathered fishing dinghies and rowboats bob close by.

I plop myself down on a chipped blue bench and watch the water swell with the tide. Why is everyone achieving their dreams except me?