Page 97 of The Summer Show

He moved on. “I talked to your mom, by the way,” he said. “I get it now.”

For a second my body and brain held a meeting while they processed the words that had emerged from Nick’s mouth and the order in which he’d placed them. In response, my lungs tried to seize up. To quit working. To put a halt to respiration.

The hefty dose of steroids in my system refused to let them. They had my back at the one time I didn’t want their help.

I wanted to stop breathing. Not to die, exactly. But to black out for a spell. To lose a sliver of memory. To forget he’d spoken those words and paired them with that spear of contempt. He did it so well.

Too well.

“Get what?” my mouth asked, even though it already knew the answer.

“You know.”

I did know. But I wasn’t about to let him get off that easy. Not when he’d started this fire.

“Say it.”

“In front of the cameras? You sure about that.”

My voice found the sharp edge of a razor. “Say it, Nick. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.”

“Is that one of your little librarian sayings?” He glanced away. Glanced back. “Why she left. I get why she left you.”

And there it was. Naked. Honest.

The little girl inside me, the one whose mother never came for her, curled up in the fetal position and did her best to hide from the world and its eyes.

Not me. Not the adult version of Kathleen Hart. She had armor. But—funny thing—when I barked “shields up” at myself, my armor refused to leap into position to protect me, leaving me fully dressed and yet completely exposed. I could no more stop his words from penetrating my soft center than I could stop kids from drawing penises in Bush Lake’s books.

Shame swarmed my body. My face burned. My fingers went numb. Another couple of days on steroids and this rush of soul-sucking grief would have manifested as rage, but I wasn’t there yet. There was no other option except to steep in total embarrassment.

None of this was real, and I felt like the world’s biggest fool. After all I was the dumbass who had thought Greece’s Top Hoplite was based on merit in the beginning. When that was debunked, I chose to believe that Nick liked me, that he was falling for me the way I was for him. Somewhere along the way I had handed him my heart for safekeeping because I thought he was safe to love.

It was all a lie. And for what?

The cameras. Of course.

Everything was for the show.

Except me. I was only ever here for Bush Lake’s kids. Fame of any kind held no allure for me. Kathleen Hart, school librarian was all I ever wanted to be. I was already living my dream.

What was I doing here? Why was I standing here, withering under his gaze? I could leave any time I wanted—and I wanted.

In slow, soupy motion, I scooted past the others and walked up the steps with cameras recording my brokenhearted retreat, thoroughly humiliated by the knowledge that soon most of Greece would get to witness my pain. I’d be the laughingstock of Europe.

That was bad, yes.

But worst of all? The heart-deep feeling that I had lost something—something that was never really mine.

thirty-five

I slouched away, thoroughly defeated, wondering what the heck I was supposed to do now. No matter how I spun the map of Nera in my head, there was no way to sneak back into Ana’s house, pack my things, and flee undetected without an interrogation by someone.

Nera was a lot of things, but it was not a place where you could be anonymous if you were hanging with locals, and I couldn’t just bail on my best friend, even though her brother had just shattered my stupid heart. Not without some explanation. Or gratitude for allowing me to occupy her spare bedroom and hang out with Murder Goose.

Inside my overthinking brain, the post-mortem was underway.

Where had it all gone so horribly wrong?

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