The Loose Ends List(40)

And still we dance.



It’s our last night on the Wishwell before Rio, and I have cramps. Enzo and I go back to his cabin, and we start kissing. His hands move under my dress, and I feel myself tense up. The same thought keeps running through my mind: I haven’t told him I’m a virgin. I can’t enjoy anything we’re doing right now, with the period thing and the virgin thing and all the Wishwell drama. It’s not happening tonight, that’s for sure. But I have to tell him. I feel like I’m driving a car without telling my passenger I don’t have a license.

I pull away and clamp my legs together. “Enzo?”

“Yes?”

“I’m a virgin.”

His hands stop. His breath stops. “Uh. Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m actually speechless.”

“Why? Do I look like a slut?” It’s too dark to read his face.

“No. Not at all.” He pauses. “I just assumed you’d have… been with somebody by now.”

“I’ve been close. It’s a long story.” I almost tell him about Ethan, but what if he has the same problem? I need to change the subject. “But if we do, eventually, I’m not going to be weird about it or anything.”

He rolls onto his back and reaches for my hand. We lie still, side by side.

“Do you think it might be tonight?” he finally says.

“No. I mean, it might have been. But female issues. You know.”

“Oh. Got it.”

I want to ask, Is this our last night together, because we haven’t really discussed that? Instead, I fill the awkward silence with “We’re docking in Rio, and I have no idea where Gram’s taking us. She loves to be mysterious. I’m not even sure who else is coming with us.”

“Mum has to go back to England for a bit, and I have odds and ends to do for school.” I’m sure he feels my entire body go rigid. “But I might be able to rearrange my schedule and meet you in Rome, if you’re up for it.”

“I’m not exactly able to jet-set around on my own at this point.”

“No, but I might have connections on this ship who might have given me access to your gram’s itinerary.”

I realize what he’s saying. “We’re going to Rome?”

“You’re going to Rome.”

I shriek and roll on top of him. I sit up and hold his hands down and look into his eyes. “Swear? You’re not messing with me?”

He pulls himself up and flips me over. “I’m not messing with you. But don’t tell anyone I told you. I don’t need Eddie giving me grief.”

The thought of never seeing Enzo Ivanhoe again had been weighing on me. Suddenly I feel a thousand pounds lighter.

We eventually get up and eat peanut butter with our fingers on the balcony.

“Question,” I say.

“You’re full of questions, aren’t you?”

“What’s group?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do they do on the patients-only floor?”

“It’s not that exciting.”

“Don’t tell me they sit in a support group and talk about their feelings.”

“Not exactly. Do you want to go and have a look?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, now. We just can’t get caught. My mother will punish us by making us talk about our feelings for hours,” he says, pulling his hoodie over his head.

“In that case, we’d better be careful.”



I’m chilly in my rumpled flamenco dress and bare feet, walking down the fluorescent-lit halls. We descend the stairwell to the underbelly of the ship. I’ve gotten used to the wave sounds constantly swooshing under my window. Here, it’s only eerie creaking.

Enzo opens the door and sticks his head out. He grabs my hand, pulls me into a dark room, and flips on the light. It’s bright and cozy with plush carpeting and couches and a long table with neat stacks of paper and bins of sharpened pencils. There’s a whiteboard, a blackboard, and a Smart Board.

It’s boring.

“This is it?”

“This is where the ideas are born.” I can’t tell whether or not he’s joking.

“What do you mean? Stop being a little clue-giver.”

“So, they’re making a movie. Lots of movies, actually, but one big movie. Mum fancies herself a Hollywood director.”

“What kind of movie?”

“It’s for the movement. There’s a video room down the hall where all the patients make personal films, for family and friends, memoirs, words of advice—whatever they want to get off their chests.” Enzo laughs. “My sister and I used to sneak in and watch the films. One guy confessed a twenty-year affair with his daughter’s best friend. Why would he do that to his wife and daughter?”

He digs through a random bowl of hard candies and settles on butterscotch.

“Focus, Enzo.”

“Right, they come down and talk about why they want to do this, their lives before the illnesses struck, and how it’s not a depressing thing. One woman explained it as wanting to find as much meaning in the act of dying as she did in the act of living.”

“Will this movie be released, like, in theaters?” I can only imagine what Gram is contributing. She loves being on camera.