Page 83 of My Grape Crush
“Alas,” Evelyn shakes her head, “this new generation comes pre-baked with righteousness. And determination that would put you to shame. As long as you’re here,” she says to me, “they’re here.”
The dark hum in my body accelerates. One morning I’ll find a new girl on the doorstep, acting all chill before the inevitable high-stakes drama.
I need out.
Nicole and Evelyn graciously allow me to excuse myself. I wander back to my villa, swamped with an empty kind of helplessness. The hot sun reminds me of Corfu, but my palazzo, my life, everything about Greece—it all feels disarmingly unreal. Do I want to go back? This intense bonding with Dani has opened up something in me. It's unsustainable and unhealthy to keep going at it alone. One day soon, I’ll crack, just like JC did.
This sense of uncertainty amplifies once I’m inside the villa. The maid has spit-shined every surface to perfection, and something about the dustless, lifeless ocean of greige depresses me. I escape to my safe space and swing in the hammock, mind in overdrive.
Nicole was right. Nothing will change on the outside if I don’t change on the inside.I need to commit. With everything, starting with my family. Dad needs to hear me out—every regret, every moment of yearning for a connection that never came.
No more running, no more avoiding.
My resolve slowly gathers. Later tonight, I’ll write a heartfelt speech. Practice it every day before I leave. Deliver it with an ice-cold calm.
If Dad still refuses me, so be it.
At least I tried.
The answer always comes to you at night.
And it hits me at the lake like a cold, swift punch to the gut.
I’m out on the raft, the water black and calm, the sky cloudless and starlit. I sigh and wonder how much longer I can tolerate being haunted by thoughts of me and Dani. Our textervations have dwindled to nothing. Last night I drank myself into oblivion to stop the hurt. I tried to fall asleep early tonight but stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, the walls starting to close in.
That’s when I came down here.
To think.
About life, Dani, the speech I have yet to write.
I silently rearrange the words in my mind and curse myself for not having the foresight to grab my journal.
And that's when the world around me dimmed, or maybe it was just my vision tunneling—everything outside that single, awful realization blurred and faded into the background.
My journal.
I bolt upright, breath stripped from my lungs, throat thick with dread. In the darkness, everything is still except for my brain. It stumbles over itself, reaching for recall.
When did I see it last?
The morning after with Dani. I remember thinking I should shove it in a drawer. (Not that she would snoop, but on the off chance, what would she say to all the lustful positions and details? My feeble attempt at erotic prose?) But then the Sawyer and Myla show came to town and blew the morning wide open. Have I seen the journal since? What I do recall, with sudden bone-chilling accuracy, is Myla walking out of the bedroom with a towel bunched in her hand.
My temples pound as the buried visual floats back to the surface.
She stuffed the towel into her suitcase, her back facing me. She had to put muscle on it like her bag was too full.
Or something other than terry cloth was bundled within it.
My mouth goes dry as dust.
I stagger to my feet and try to convince myself this is all a terrible dream I will soon wake up from.
How could I not suspect something fishy with her?
Because I was preoccupied with Dani and why she wasn't replying to my texts. Who cared about a towel if it meant Myla out of my life? I would have handed off the goddamned bed had she asked.
Fuck!
