“ ‘Escape and evade.’ ” I shrug. “It’s easier in a Lancia or a Fiat—”
“What exactly are we trying to escape and evade?” Emma grips her seat belt.
“Tate?” I suggest.
Charlotte throws her head back, laughing, “Did you see his face?”
Ten minutes later, we arrive at the Creamery on Main Street. I spot a parking place and make a tight U-turn.
“We won’t fit,” warns Emma.
Reversing, I palm the wheel right, then spin it left.
“It’s too small! Sophia!”
I glide in centimeters from the curb. Unbuckling, I turn off the engine, take out the keys, and hand them to Emma.
“You don’t have a license yet,” she reprimands me.
Slipping my wings off my shoulders, I climb out of the car. Charlotte waits for me on the brick sidewalk, smirking. “Fast and furious.”
Emma pockets the keys. “We are not going to tell my parents about this.”
I lift an eyebrow. “About what?”
CHAPTER 11
By the following Monday, the excitement of the holiday is still buzzing on my skin. America is both weird and exhilarating and finally, I’m starting to acclimate.
Yet the general anxiety I feel walking into Calc II each afternoon is compounded today when Krenshaw divides us into groups and puts Aksel in mine.
We push our desks together. I sit beside a pretty girl named Priyanka, and Aksel sits down beside Cole—who does not stop talking—and somehow we make it through three assignments speaking only about derivatives.
However, with ten minutes remaining, Priyanka and Cole go to check our work with Krenshaw, leaving Aksel and me alone at the table.
Unable to explain the sudden queasiness in my stomach, I look down at my work like my vocal cords have been snipped.
Aksel drums the table. He bends over and makes a citation. He crosses, then uncrosses his ankles. Then he leans slightly forward.
“So how are you liking Waterford?” he asks in an even, polite tone.
I stare up at him. “I liked the dance,” I say truthfully. “Did you?”
“Sure,” he answers. His deep voice is both familiar and intimidating. “It’s always fun.”
“So are you from Waterford too?” I ask. He looks so Montana, yet there is this air of luxurious indifference—otherness—about Aksel I can’t put my finger on.
Aksel wrinkles his forehead, watching me in a way that makes my heart leap into my throat. “I suppose so,” he says casually. Carefully.
“Were you born here?” I prod, remembering Mr. Steen’s French questions my first day of school.
Aksel doesn’t answer right away, which is odd because it’s a simple question.
“No,” Aksel finally says, angling back in his chair.
“Where were you born?” I ask.
Over Aksel’s shoulder, Priyanka gives me a thumbs-up from Krenshaw’s desk.
When I look back at Aksel, his expression has shifted.
Why do I get the impression he is trying to read me?
His eyebrows knit together. “Germany, actually,” he says coolly.
For several seconds we stare at each other in silence.
I am confused. He looks confused.
Which doesn’t make any sense.
What did I do?
Cole and Priyanka sit back down. Priyanka drops a paper onto the center of our conjoined desks. “We got a perfect score so Krenshaw added another assignment,” she says through gritted teeth.
For the rest of class, I resist looking at Aksel, though I’m certain I see him cast a furtive glance in my direction.
When the bell rings, we reach the door at the same time. Aksel steps left. I step right.
“Excuse me,” I say, turning away down the hall, avoiding him altogether.
Considering my feelings about Aksel hinge on suspicion, I shouldn’t care what he thinks about me. So why do I? Because he seems suspicious of me too?
I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to it—more to him.
“Sophia!” Charlotte snaps her fingers. “Are you coming?!”
Her face is exuberant. We’ve been studying inside Waterford Bakery, which smells of warm bread and hazelnuts, for hours.
Fifty beds in eighteen months, and my first month in Waterford has exhausted me.
Autumn passed too quickly. By mid-November, snow replaced rain. Each morning, fresh snow dusts the town like powdered sugar, accumulating quickly along the roadsides.
Now, I pry my eyes away from the hypnotically falling snow.
Emma has divided art history flash cards into neat piles on the table in the center of our quaint window nook.
Charlotte is waving Night Watch in front of my face. “Didn’t you hear? Mrs. Bernhardt is taking a group of art history students to Europe next summer!” Her voice rises until she’s practically shouting. “Are you coming?”
Outside, wind churns the snow in swirling gusts across the windowpane.
Europe isn’t touring art museums and architecture. Europe is reality—my reality.
… Shouting … blinding flash of light … Yves Saint Laurent cologne …
It comes on so fast.
Charlotte continues rapidly, “We need someone who speaks the language …”
… running … blood …
“… to show us around … the shopping and cafés, the museums and châteaus!”
I’ve gone weeks without being triggered. I can hold it back.
… breathe in for three … out for three …
“You can be our translator!” Emma adds enthusiastically through a bite of apple tart.
“Interpreter,” I correct her, distracting myself. “Translators handle documents.”
“What’s it like?” Charlotte asks wistfully, peeling off a golden layer of almond croissant. “Like, the Parthenon. In person.”
Marble columns. Heat. The sea. A scent of olives in the breeze. I can do this. Easily.
“Sunny,” I reply, swallowing the rest of my hot chocolate. “With the way the ruins are perched on the hill, you can stand among the fragmented columns and look out across the Saronic Gulf and see hundreds of rocky islands floating in turquoise—”
“Noooo!” Charlotte groans. “The one with the hole and Raphael is buried—”
“You mean the Pantheon, in Rome?”
“Yes!” Charlotte giggles, “That one.”
I laugh. “Inside the Pantheon, when it rains, it comes blasting through the hole in the roof and hits the stone floor with a sound like an orchestra. The first time I visited, my father asked me to count the number of tourists who entered and exited the roped-in chapel within one minute. I was off by two, so he made me do it again.”
Emma screws up her face. “Why would he tell you to do that?”
My cheeks redden. I said that aloud?
“Gelato,” I improvise. “It was a game. He bribed me.” I talk faster. “Listen. When you exit the Pantheon, cross the piazza northwest, take your fifth right, walk past the fountain, and turn left into a narrow cobblestone alley. Eighty meters down is a yellow door with glass panes. Behind it is Cremeria Monteforte, which has the most incredible flavors: chocolate-orange … lemon-fig … pistachio-hazelnut … lavender-honey—”