Page 35 of Reckless Girls
I want to jump into that warm water with Jake, Eliza, and Brittany, I want to swim naked under the moon in this gorgeous place, but there’s something about the idea of Nico and Amma alone on our boat that I don’t like.
So I drop my hand from my waistband and turn away from the water, hearing Brittany call out, “Come on, Lux!”
“Maybe tomorrow!” I reply, and all three of them boo and hiss, Eliza giving me a thumbs-down, making me laugh.
The three of us head back to theSusannahin our tender, Amma going almost immediately to the cabin and shutting the door.
It’s only when I’m settled in my bed with Nico, my head spinning, my mouth sticky and dry, that I remember that moment with her and Brittany, the pain—no, the near devastation—that had flashed across Amma’s face.
Oh, because you suddenly care so much about people being reckless?
What had that meant? And why had it hurt Amma so much?
“Do you think there’s something going on with Amma and Brittany?” I whisper, my voice so low I can hardly hear it.
But Nico is already asleep.
BEFORE
Amma has heard the sayingthree’s a crowdher whole life, but she’s never experienced it for herself quite the way she does in Italy. Chloe slides into their life like she’s always been there, like she was a part of this trip from the beginning.
From the first night they meet her in that café, Chloe is with them every step of the way, waiting outside their hostel or meeting them at some restaurant, and while Amma doesn’t want to resent her, especially given how much Brittany seems to connect with her, it’s getting harder and harder not to.
Chloe says…
It’s how Britt opens every sentence.
Chloe says that restaurant has the best carbonara.
Chloe says the Spanish Steps are overrated.
Chloe says that part of the city has gotten really touristy.
Chloe says, Chloe says.
Chloeis suddenly the authority on everything, and Brittany can’t stop parroting all of her opinions.
Even though it sometimes feels like Brittany is her closest friend, Amma reminds herself that she’s only known her for a little over a year. Maybe this is just who Brittany is—maybe she’s always looking for someone to follow. First it was Amma. Now, it’s Chloe.
Amma understands the impulse, in a way—after everything that’s happened to both of them, handing over the reins to someone else can feel easier.
But as they sit in a wine bar in the Trastevere neighborhood, Brittany laughing at some story Chloe is telling about her gap year in England, Amma tries to remind herself that Britt has been better since Chloe showed up. No more crying at night, no more talk of going home.
Which is why Amma had actually been relieved at first when Chloe had asked if she could tag along with them. The group she’d been with that first night had been a group of American grad students who were, according to Chloe, “getting really fucking boring,” and at the time, Amma had thought there was something a little glamorous about being able to do that, to float between various groups of people, making new friends all along the way. No responsibility, no attachments.
No guilt.
Amma can’t imagine what it would feel like to live without guilt. It’s her permanent companion, has been since the moment she first looked up Brittany’s Facebook, needing to see the girl whose life she’d ruined.
Learning they were both at the same school, that Brittany was only a year behind her at UMass, had made her stomach lurch, hard enough that she’d run to the bathroom and thrown up. It had felt too close, too… fated somehow. That she would be in Florida for spring break at the same time as this girl, a girl she might’ve seen walking across campus, a girl she might have bumped into in the bathroom at a party, drunkenly complimenting her lipstick or her hair.
Only later, when her head had cleared and her stomach had settled, had Amma understood. Itwasfate.
Fate giving her a chance to try and make this right somehow.
That’s what led her to that counseling session at the church, what led her to sit down on a metal folding chair next to Brittany. Fate—and some bizarre notion of penance—had made her tell Brittany the biggest lie of her life.
At first, Amma had just wanted to see her. To hear her talk. And maybe there had been some sick part of her that felt compelled to hear Brittany’s version of events. All Amma really knew was that she needed to actuallyseethis person whose life was now as irrevocably altered as Amma’s.
