Page 110 of True Blue

“Indiana,” I admit, a little sheepishly. “Like the state. Home of the Hoosiers. Though I haven’t been back there since I was born, and that’s a whole story I don’t want to bore you with. Family drama and all that…”

I trail off, half expecting Petra to nod awkwardly and back away. But she doesn’t, she just stands there smiling at me, waiting.

“What brings you to London?” she asks. “Business?”

“No, actually. Vacation. What about you?”

“Business, I’m afraid. My mother was born here, but I live in Greece.”

“Oh, what do you do?”

“Photographer,” she says proudly, lifting her camera. “I’m shooting a wedding here for a friend in a few days.”

“They have weddings here?” I ask, startled, glancing around the beautiful gallery again. “Wow.”

“I’m so excited,” Petra bounces on her toes, a ball of energy. “It’s for an old friend from University. What about you? What are you vacationing from?”

“Oh, I’m a doctor. An oncologist,” she looks impressed by my job, but then frowns at the specialty. “A cancer doctor.”

Her big brown eyes bug out of her head.

“Oυάου,” she breathes, putting a hand over her chest. “My Mama would love you. My γιαγιά had breast cancer ten years ago. Her doctors were incredible.”

My heart warms at that, another reminder of why this specialty is the one for me.

“I feel silly about my own job now⁠—”

“No, photography is so special,” I rush to tell her. “I always admire artists. I feel like I can’t create anything beautiful like that.”

My throat tightens a little at the thought of my own artist—the idiot mama’s boy who broke my heart. Petra giggles like I’ve said something actually funny, and the sound eases the sting in my eyes.

“That’s so sweet, but I shoot bratty bridezillas and their bridesmaidzillas for a living. Not exactly fine art.”

“You capture people’s joyful moments on the best day of their lives,” I shrug. “That sounds like art to me.”

She stares at me for a long moment before she grins.

“Objectively, I understand that, but you saying it—it’s nice to hear.”

“Glad to be of use,” I laugh, a little surprised at the ease I feel around this almost-stranger. Petra is like some long-lost friend I’ve reconnected with, or maybe she just really reminds me of Ellie and her free spirit.

It’s funny, I almost feel her presence still, like her hand is on my shoulder, guiding me, pushing me to experience new things.

When I feel the social anxiety or panic creeping up my back, when I debated even stepping out of my hotel room today, nervous to explore a new city, a new country, her voice was in my ear telling me to live.

So I am.

Petra and I wander the gallery together for the next two hours, getting to know each other. I learn she’s married to the man of her dreams, her childhood sweetheart, Demetri. The story makes me swoon: she saved him from drowning when they were kids, and he vowed to marry her then and there.

“I shoved wet sand in his face for not being more careful around the water and stormed off,” she says smugly. “Then he came to ask me for swimming lessons.”

“You sure the drowning wasn’t just an elaborate scheme to get you together?”

“I ask him that almost every day,” Petra says, rolling her eyes. “He says he’ll never tell.”

Demetri and his family own a very old, very popular restaurant in Greece—Santorini, coincidentally.

When I tell her Santorini is my last stop on this trip, she lights up and says she’ll be back by then, and we can cap it off with a meal—her treat. I agree immediately, because the more I talk with Petra, the more I think we could be real friends.