Again, But Better(58)

“Pies.” I take another sip of wine and scoot the tiniest bit closer.

“Yeah?” His lips quirk up.

I moved closer and he smiled.

Do it, Shane. I clear my throat. “Are you excited to get home?”

Pilot exhales, tilts his head, and rests it in his hand. “Well, in a way, yeah, there are some people there that I want to get back for.”

I blink, letting this sink in. He wants to get back for Amy. Amy is some people.

You should still just tell him.

“What about you?” Pilot asks, trying to catch my eyes because I’ve dropped my gaze to his earlobe. I let him catch them.

“Kind of, I guess, but, um, well, I’m really gonna miss, um, miss, I…” I swallow.

Pilot breaks eye contact. He never breaks eye contact first. My lips wobble.

“HEYOOO! We got free shots!” Babe interrupts. She’s grinning broadly as she scoots back into the booth. Pilot and I snap back to a regular non-angled-toward-each-other posture as the rest of the flat returns.

“Let’s play 21!” Atticus exclaims.

We play one last game of 21 in London. I’m all smiles and laughter and underscored sadness. Afterward, we chat about how we’re going to spend the summer. Babe’s coworkers have connected her with the Disney Internship program, and she’s heading down to Florida in June. We discuss our flight times for tomorrow. Pilot’s not leaving; he’s staying for the royal wedding and then traveling some more with the guys in the flat down the hall. Babe’s parents are coming, and they’re going to do London and the royal wedding this coming week as well, then she’s traveling for a week by herself. The rest of us will leave together for the airport at 12:00 p.m.





26. Bye Bye Bye



Babe and Sahra are last-minute packing when I emerge from the shower at 2:15 a.m. I venture to the kitchen for water.

I go home to my disappointed parents tomorrow. Disappointment that will have no doubt rippled through the entire family by now.

I manipulated my parents into paying for a study abroad trip completely irrelevant to my degree.

Standing at the sink, I close my eyes and heave a giant breath, pressing my palms up into my eyes. The door opens behind me. I turn to see Atticus. His happy-go-lucky expression drops.

“Jeez, Shane, are you okay?” He takes a seat at the table.

“I’m fine, just, um, sad that this is all over.”

He presses his lips together and nods. “Yeah, me too. I wish I went to school with you guys.” Atticus goes to a different university that sent him to our program.

“Me too,” I agree. “But we’ll still keep in touch, right?”

“Yeah, of course!” he says adamantly. “Are you going to be okay? Do you want to talk about it?”

I smile at him gratefully. “I’m fine. I think I just need a second, you know?”

“Yeah, I do,” he agrees, understanding on his face. He gets up and fills himself a glass of water before heading toward the door. “Good night, Shane.”

I slump down into a seat, resting my head and arms on the table. I’m going to miss Atticus. And Sahra and Babe. And Pilot.

There’s a giant pit in my stomach. The kind you get when you know you failed the test the teacher’s handing back, and there’s nothing you can do about it.



* * *



In the morning, we’re all up early cleaning out the kitchen. Everything needs to be thrown out or wiped down. It’s our last flat activity. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this last group hang isn’t fun. Everyone’s on edge. We don’t make much eye contact, and we’re all quiet.

We clean for an hour before Atticus, Babe, Sahra, and I make our way up the stairs with our luggage. Pilot helps us. We roll up to the door with our bags. Pilot gives Atticus, Sahra, and Babe each a hug, and then it’s my turn. It’s not the goodbye I’ve romanticized. It’s barely a goodbye at all. He avoids my eyes and leans in for the same generic hug he gave everyone else.

“Bye,” he says quietly with his arms around me.

“Bye,” I whisper under my breath. It’s quick. He turns his head, pulls away, and then he’s heading back down the stairs.

Babe walks off to catch the Tube to her new hotel (we’re all kicked out of the Karlston today). Atticus, Sahra, and I share a cab to the airport. We’re all on different flights, so at Heathrow we part ways.



* * *



I wait in a long check-in line for Virgin Atlantic, and think about how I’ve let everyone down. Including myself. Wendy and Donna and Declan, and Mom and Dad.

I let all my writing goals go to shit, and I never confronted Pilot.

I’m going to be waist-deep in premed work when I get home, which will leave little to no time for book drafting. And things with Pilot are really going to change when we get back to the US—I’m never going to be able to tell him how I feel. He’s going to go back to Amy, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened. Maybe this wasn’t a big deal for him, but feeling like this was … is a big deal for me.

“Next in line!”

I roll up to check in with my two bags and heave my giant suitcase onto the scale.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, this is fifteen pounds overweight,” the woman says.