Page 73 of Problematic Summer Romance

Eli shrugs. “I’d love to say yes, but I have no clue.” He knows how hard it’s been for me, coming to terms with the knowledge that the father my brother experienced was so different from the one I adored. That the reason Eli was so scarce during the first decade of my life had nothing to do withme, and everything to do with his fraught relationship with our parents. The dad he knew wasn’t protective, but dictatorial. Mom, absent instead of nurturing. And I struggle to reconcile one simple truth: if they hadn’t died, Eli and I would still be strangers, and…I wouldhatethat. It has to make me a terrible person, right?

“Dad was pretty traditional,” he muses. “And Mom went alongwith what he said. I doubt he and Mom would have liked Rue. Then again, they didn’t like me, either.”

A lump forms in my throat. Sadness and resentment and nostalgia. “Fuck them.”

He laughs. “Fuck them? Our prematurely dead parents?”

“Yeah. Fuck ’em. I love them, I miss them, but they were wrong. I like Rue. Sometimes I even likeyou.”

Eli shakes his head. But his hand finds mine and holds it loosely.

“WhereisRue, by the way?” I ask.

“Taking a walk on the beach. She’s a bit peopled out. Needed alone time.”

“Which direction did she go?” My brother points toward Isola Bella. “I’ll go the other way, then.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”

“I can’t believe she agreed to tonight.” She begged us to not call it a bachelorette party, but we’ll be having a girls’ night. It sounds like the kind of college sorority outing Rue would slit her throat before attending. And yet.

“She seems excited about it.”

“And since she has no poker face, it has to be true. Must be a Christmas miracle.”

“It’s June.”

“It’s Christmas o’clock somewhere.” I rise to my feet. Wave my hand in lieu of goodbye. “Hey, Tiny? Wanna leave this old man to his ailments and go for awalkwith me?”

Tiny springs up, energized by the magicw-word. With him trotting at my side, we head for the beach.

“Hey,” Eli calls after a while.

I turn. “What?”

“I’m proud of—”

“Oh, stop it.”

“—you, Maya.”

I resume walking. Faster.

“I’m proud of you, and you cannot stop me,” he shouts louder.

“I’m not listening.”

“Well, you should. Because I respect you as a person—”

“Shut up!”

“—andas a scientist.”

I flip him off from over my shoulder. The last thing I hear, right as I start down the stone staircase, is my brother dissolving into laughter.

Chapter 23

Three years, two months, two weeks, and five days earlier

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