“I need to do this by myself,” James said. His voice was tender but sure.
Stella’s heart pounded. She wanted to reach out and take him in her arms and never let him go. But she was frozen.
“I don’t understand,” Stella said. “What about the past three months? What about us?”
James winced and looked down. It looked like he was going to cry again. “It’s been a beautiful three months,” he said. “But it has to end. It was always going to end.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Stella said. “I’m an adult. You’re an adult. We can do what we want.”
“One would think,” James offered. “But life is more complicated than that, it seems.”
Stella couldn’t speak. James got up and combed his fingers through his hair. At that moment, he looked more handsome than he ever had. Stella wanted to hate him. But she knew she never could.
“You’re going to meet someone else,” James said. “You’re going to fall in love and have babies and be really happy.”
Tears fell from Stella’s eyes. “No,” she rasped.
But James was already putting his backpack on his shoulders. “I paid for the hotel the rest of the week, so you’re free to stay,” he said. “If you have money problems, talk to Angelos. He said he’d help you.”
Stella couldn’t believe Angelos had known her boyfriend was leaving before she did. They’d just met him last night.
“I love you, Stella,” James said from the doorway. “I think I always will.”
With that, James left and closed the door behind him.
Stella sat in stunned silence. Her hands were in fists.
But suddenly, she erupted from bed and went to the window, narrowly catching sight of him as he turned the corner and out of sight.
He was going to take the sailboatStella.He was going to leave the real Stella on Crete alone.
Stella remained in that hotel room for the rest of the day. She didn’t eat, hardly drank any water, and stared through space with a dull ache in her heart. Last May—when she’d graduated from university—felt like an eternity ago. She remembered telling her parents, brothers, and friends that she was going to travel through Europe by herself “before I come home and get a job.”
Now that she’d fallen in love and had her heart broken so terribly, what was next? How could she ever have a normal life?
The next day, Stella managed to leave the hotel to get food and wander from beach to beach. It was in the mid-eighties, and Greeks sunned themselves brown on the sands. She swam out into the turquoise water by herself as far as she could go withoutpanicking and peered across the water, watching a sailboat in the distance. She pretended it was James coming back to get her. But it went the wrong way.
The next day was more or less the same. Stella wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She considered flying from Crete to Rome and having new adventures. But her bank account was running low, her mother’s patience was razor-thin, and James was gone, gone, gone and irreplaceable. Stella imagined herself in Rome, crying into a plate of spaghetti.
On the third evening after James left, she ran into Angelos, the Greek man who’d told her about James’s mother. They were on the glossy white road next to the taverna where they’d met. Angelos ushered her into the restaurant and served her a plate of food and some wine. “You need to eat through heartbreak,” he told her. “You need energy.”
Stella asked him if he knew why James was needed at home. Angelos either didn’t know or wouldn’t tell her.
“Sometimes love runs its course.” He shrugged.
Stella couldn't believe that her love for James had run its course. It had only just begun!
That night, it occurred to Stella that she could fly to London and search for James. She planned it for hours and decided to call the airline tomorrow to buy a ticket. She’d ask every bartender, restaurant owner, and person on the street if they knew him. He’d been raised there. She’d eventually get to him.
But late that night, it occurred to her that he didn’t want to be found.
She imagined running through the streets, searching for him, only to discover he’d gone home to his ex-girlfriend or, worse, his wife.
Maybe he’d been having a nervous breakdown in Greece. Maybe she was a part of that nervous breakdown.
But he really did love me,she told herself as she wept.I have to believe our love was real.
Stella called home on the fifth day to tell them she was heading home. Her mother was overjoyed and said she’d have a family party when Stella arrived. Stella cried as her mother talked about what food she might serve at the party. She could hardly picture Nantucket Island.