Influenced by Eva Robinson (best free ebook reader TXT) 📗

tumbled out of paper bags. Two brown boxes sat on a marble countertop, along with a bowl of peaches and a blender.

“Just in time.” Rowan smiled. “I got takeout. It’s still hot.”

Hannah was still staring at the balcony and the chaise longue with the uncanny feeling that she’d been here before. She recognized the art hanging on the wall—pencil-drawn portraits of dour Victorian-looking people with a few splashes of color. That was what happened when you stared at someone’s photos all night.

A large painting on a brick wall depicted a watercolor night sky, and the words Ne cherchez plus mon cœur; des monstres l'ont mangé. The text had been hard to make out in the photos.

Hannah pointed to it. “What does that mean?”

Rowan pulled out a bottle of champagne from a wooden cabinet. “‘Don’t look for my heart; the monsters have eaten it.’ Baudelaire. My ex gave it to me.” She frowned at it. “In retrospect, maybe I should have taken that as a sign it wasn’t going to work out.”

She slid two champagne flutes across a dark marble countertop. “You know, I really wanted us to have bellinis, but I have no idea how to make them. I got peaches and champagne, but that’s as far as I got. Do you have any idea what’s in them?”

“Oh, I can help.” Hannah pulled out her phone to search for the instructions, and a recipe popped up. Rowan uncorked the champagne, and Hannah reached for the bowl of peaches. “The internet says I need a paring knife, apparently. And boiling water.” This was starting to sound more complicated than she’d imagined.

“Help yourself to whatever you need.” Rowan pointed at a drawer. “There might be knives in there. But do you know what we need right now? French synth-wave from the eighties.”

“Obviously,” said Hannah. “I’m not sure what else we’d listen to.” She crouched down, searching the island drawer for something that could be considered a paring knife. The rhythmic sound of a synthesizer filled the apartment, and a woman began singing about a Polaroid photo.

Hannah pulled out a small knife, then rummaged around the shelves for a pot.

Rowan dimmed the lights a little. “Do you think we should add gin to the bellinis?”

“Um, I don’t know. It’s not in the ingredient list. Is that a thing? Bellinis with gin?” With the pot in her hands, Hannah crossed to the sink and started filling it with water.

“We’ll try them both ways. Are you hungry? I have porcini arancini, and I’m about to die of starvation.”

Hannah slid the pot onto the stove and turned it on to boil. “You know what? I am. I didn’t have dinner.” She had no idea what porcini arancini were, but her stomach was rumbling.

“I have burrata, too,” added Rowan, opening up a brown box on the countertop. “I get takeout almost every night. It’s terrible for me, probably. But so delicious, and I can’t cook.”

“I’m jealous.”

“When was the last time I saw you?” asked Rowan. “It was ages ago. Was it our graduation? I remember you giving the speech. Did I see you at the after-parties?”

Hannah’s throat tightened, and she stood over the pot of heating water, watching the bubbles rise.

Rowan didn’t remember what had happened at the winter formal, did she? “No, I wasn’t at the parties.”

“Why not?”

Hannah didn’t want to remember it now, but the memory rose anyway—the Charles River while the dawn light stained the sky with fingers of coral. Tom standing on the edge of the stone bridge, his breath making a cloud around his head… The expression in his eyes as he looked down at her, so close…

She’d been so sure they were meant to be together. Back then, she’d believed in soul mates. And when she thought of him now, sometimes she wanted to bury herself under six feet of soil to escape the shame of it all.

She found herself staring at the water as it heated. She’d let the silence stretch out too long.

“Of course I didn’t go to parties that year, Rowan. Don’t you remember what happened?” said Hannah sharply. She hadn’t meant it to sound so angry. “You must remember.”

“Remember what?”

“What happened.” As the water on the stovetop heated, steam clouded around her. She lowered four peaches into the boiling water, one by one. Twenty seconds each, then she scooped them out. “That was the year that Tom died,” she added at last, more softly.

Rowan straightened. “Oh, that. Of course I remember. I was his girlfriend. But that was in the winter. We didn’t graduate till May. I wouldn’t have connected the two things. And I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be that broken up by it. Did you know him well?”

“He was one of the only people who was nice to me.” The mood in the room seemed to shift, almost like the music itself was growing darker. Hannah was starting to wonder why she’d mentioned Tom at all. She started to peel the peaches. The skin burned her fingers a little, but she wanted to get the drinks made to ease the awkwardness.

She’d totally poisoned the mood for no reason whatsoever—right when she’d finally found an interesting new friend for the first time in forever.

“You’re right.” With the paring knife, she carved the pits out of the peaches. “It was months apart. I forgot that. It just put a bit of a pall over the rest of the school year, so I didn’t feel like celebrating. You know, the real problem was that I was a giant loser with no friends. But that was ages ago, wasn’t it?”

“Thankfully, yes. I might’ve had friends, but they called me Homerun Harris.”

“Ugh, people were terrible then.” Hannah wasn’t about to bring up Handjob Harris, or Rear-entry Rowan, or any of the other nicknames Rowan’s so-called friends had called her. “Nothing’s changed for teenage girls, has it? There’s still the same double standard for women that existed a hundred years ago. No one gave the boys nicknames, did they? They could