Isla and the Happily Ever After

  “What was that?” Nate calls out.

  “OKAY.”

  “Thank you. Goodnight.” Nate pads away, his door fwoomps, and the world is silent. I exhale. I’m shaking. And then I’m crying, but it’s not because I’m scared or humiliated. It’s because the most amazing moment of my entire life has just happened.

  Josh loves me.

  I trace the ink on my body. His beautiful illustrations are smeared with streaks of gooey chocolate. Reluctantly, I turn on my shower. The steam is already billowing when I climb in. The hot water hits me, and purple-black ink floods down my body.

  It touches everything.

  He is everywhere.

  Chapter fifteen

  Josh appears over my shoulder. “I thought we’d agreed you’re going to Dartmouth.”

  His detention must have just ended. I’m working on an essay for Columbia University, so I finish my sentence, look up at him, and smile from my desk chair. “Remind me again where that’s located?”

  “Four-point-nine miles from the Center for Cartoon Studies. Maybe. I’m not sure. I’d have to check.”

  “She’s already filled out the application,” Kurt says, spoiling my surprise.

  Josh freezes. And then he drops to his knees. “Is he serious? Are you serious?”

  I slide out the hidden paperwork from Dartmouth. “We’re serious.”

  He rips away the Columbia papers and throws them to my floor. “You don’t need those, you really don’t need those.”

  I laugh as I pick them back up. “I do.”

  “You don’t.”

  “These are tough schools.” My smile fades as I gesture to the folders on my desk labelled LA SORBONNE, COLUMBIA, and DARTMOUTH. “You know I have to apply to them all.”

  “And you’ll get into them all. But you’ll accept Dartmouth. And we’ll get a studio on the river – which will still be bigger than this – and a cat that looks like Jacque, but we’ll call him Jack. And we’ll get a crappy car, something that doesn’t even have AC, but it’ll have a great radio, and we’ll drive someplace new every weekend.”

  “I want that,” I say.

  “Me too.”

  Kurt shakes his head in disgust. He’s sitting on my bed. “I still don’t understand why you’d alter your plans after all these years.”

  I swivel around in my chair to stare him down. “My plans were never that planned.”

  But it’s too late. Josh’s face has already fallen. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’d never ask you to do this if it’s not what you wanted.”

  That makes me laugh again. “Yes, you would.”

  His frown deepens. “No. I wouldn’t.”

  “I do want it. You know I don’t know what I want to do with my life. So I might as well do whatever it is I’m going to do…there.”

  Kurt groans as if in physical pain. “Your parents will be furious.”

  “If I get accepted” – my gaze is still locked upon Josh – “they’ll be fine with it.”

  “No, they won’t.” Kurt clenches his entire body in frustration. “They’ll be worried that you’re throwing your life away for some guy.”

  Now he has my attention. “Hey. Don’t say that.”

  “You’ve been dating him for less than a month.”

  “We wouldn’t even be attending the same college. And neither of us has gotten in yet, so just stop it, okay?”

  Kurt glares at me. “I’m the one trying to finish my homework. You’re the one bringing him in here.”

  “Actually, I brought myself in here. And I’m still here.” Josh points at himself. “Hi.”

  “This is my room,” I say to Kurt.

  “So I don’t have a say in it any more?” he asks.

  “No!” I say.

  “I’m gonna go,” Josh says.

  “Don’t,” I say as Kurt says, “Good.”

  I get up to follow Josh, but he stops me. “You should stay,” he says quietly. I start to protest, and he cuts me off. “I refuse to be the person who messes things up between the two of you. Work it out.” He kisses my cheek. And then he’s gone.

  I scowl at Kurt. “Well? Do you wanna talk about it?”

  “Talk about what?” he says testily.

  I lower my voice, because my door is still open. “Last night?”

  “When you screamed at me?”

  “When you came in here and found something you weren’t expecting.”

  Kurt slams shut his textbook so hard that it makes me jump. “You’re the one person who’s never supposed to talk to me like that,” he says. “Like I don’t understand. You’ve wanted to screw him for three years. Why wouldn’t you now that you’re dating? I’m not the idiot that you think I am.”

  I’m stung. “I don’t think that. You know I don’t think that.”

  “You do.”

  There’s truth to what he’s saying. It shames me.

  “Listen. I don’t want to tag along on your dates, and I don’t want you to stop going out, but it’d be nice to know if you still gave a shit about me.”

  I crumple down beside him onto the bed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry. Say you’re still my friend.”

  “I’m still your best friend.” I lean against his shoulder and sigh. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

  “For starters, you can fix your lock. I never want to see your breasts again.”

  “Ohmygod, Kurt.”

  He snorts with laughter. “They’re bigger than the last time I saw them.”

  I shove him away. “Do you want me to leave? Because I’m seriously about to vomit.”

  “No.” His expression becomes solemn again. “I don’t ever want you to leave.”

  “Come with me this weekend,” Josh says. “Out of the country.”

  It’s Friday, and we’re making out in a custodial closet between second and third period. It’s been a long, tension-filled week. Today is Josh’s last day of detention, and this will be our final weekend before he has to fly to New York for the election.

  I think he’s kidding until I see his expression. “Josh. We can’t just go.”

  “Why not? I went to Germany last month.”

  “Yeah, but.” A broom falls against my back, and I shove it aside. “That’s different.”

  “The only difference is that it’d be better, because you’d be with me.”

  I want to go. I want to go with him so badly.

  The broom falls on me again, and Josh throws it into the corner. “Stay,” he tells it.

  “I hate this closet.”

  “Come on. Let’s go someplace where we won’t have to prop open our doors and hide between mops.”

  “I want to, I really do. But it’s too risky.” I pause. “Isn’t it?”

  “No, you see. Because here’s what we’d do: we’d catch a train early tomorrow morning, spend the afternoon and evening wherever, crash in a hotel, and then catch the train back on Sunday morning. We’d only be gone for one night.”

  “And…how many times have you done this?”

  He shrugs. “A few times last year. Just the once this year.”

  “And you’ve never been caught.”

  “Never.” Josh squeezes my hands. “Nate practically expects us to be out all night on the weekends. He doesn’t freak out if we aren’t in our rooms. This stratagem has only two rules: one, we limit ourselves to a single night away. Anything can happen in a night, and excuses are easy to make. And, two, we tell our plan to the people we’re in regular contact with so that they won’t go asking around for us.”

  “So…Kurt.” This bothers me. He’d keep our secret, but he’d also be disappointed in my rash behaviour.

  “He’s the only person who’d notice our absence.”

  I bite my lower lip.

  “Where would you go?” he asks. “Name a place that you’ve never been before.”

  “Barcelona.” I’m surprised at how fast I answer.

  Josh is les
s surprised. “Why?”

  “Gaudí.”

  “The architect?” Of course my boyfriend knows about Antoni Gaudí. He was a Modernista revered by artists of all kinds.

  “I saw his work in an old National Geographic. It looked almost magical. I’ve never seen anything like it, not in real life. But maybe that’s stupid, maybe it’s too touristy—”

  “No. It’s perfect. It’d be my first time, too.” Josh stops. His words have accidentally triggered the real subject beneath the surface of this conversation. He swallows a lump in his throat. “It’d be our first time together.”

  And now we’re discussing something else. Something we both ache for.

  The thought of Josh returning to America is unbearable. It’s only a week – I know this – but whenever I imagine his plane touching down at JFK, I feel…not just ill, but wrong. As if our impending separation were something so much worse. I want to be alone with him. No detention, no election. No Kurt, no Nate. Just the two of us, together, in all of the ways that two people in love can be together.

  The bell rings. Our time in the closet is over.

  “Let’s do it,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  Our train is already speeding through the countryside when dawn breaks across France. The car is nearly empty, and we’ve selected a pair of seats with a table. Josh sits beside the window, because he needs the light to draw. He pencils thumbnails into a new sketchbook while I read about a cannibalistic plane crash in the Andes. One of his shoes rubs gently against mine. I rub it back. I’ve always thought the best relationships are those that are as happy and content in silence as they are in action, but until Josh, I’d only ever experienced it with Kurt.

  My eyes grow heavy as the sun grows brighter. I lean against Josh’s shoulder only to feel his hand stop moving. “Oh. Sorry.” I sit up so that he can resume drawing.

  But Josh removes his dark blue hoodie, places it on his lap, and guides me onto the makeshift pillow. I breathe deeply, inhaling his comforting scent. I’m lucky. I am so, so lucky. I feel his arm moving again as I drift into a half-awake slumber. A dreamlet. An image of one bed and two bodies, his curled protectively around my own. At some point, I fall into a real sleep, because soon he’s brushing my hair away from my face.

  “This is our change,” he whispers.

  We’re in Figueres, Spain. Catalonia. It’s the birthplace of Salvador Dalí and just across the border from France. I clamber into a sitting position as our train approaches the station. Josh grabs his sketchbook and flips back the tabletop. He groans as he stands. His limbs are crunched and stiff.

  “You should have woken me up. You were in that position for hours.”

  He slips back into his hoodie. “But you needed the rest.”

  We’ve packed light – a backpack each – and we shove our books into them. The train comes to a stop, we hop out, and I shiver at an unexpectedly strong wind. The brilliant dawn has turned into a dusky morning. The sky continues to darken as our connecting train rattles towards Barcelona. The French countryside was green and grey, and the Spanish countryside is green and golden. But the threatening clouds deaden its warmth.

  “I don’t suppose you brought an umbrella?” I ask.

  “I don’t even own an umbrella.”

  “Ah, that’s right. I forgot that your skin is water-repellent.”

  Josh laughs in amusement. “I like you.”

  I smile at my lap. An entire month of making out, and he can still do that to me. Who cares if it might rain?

  Two hours later, we exit the Barcelona Sants railway station. The neighbourhood is urban and sort of…grubby. We pass a group of skaters, and the clack of a board hitting the cement is echoed by a much louder clack from the sky. The downpour erupts. The skaters shoot off across the street, and – on instinct – we chase after them into the closest café.

  “Ohthankgod.” Josh weakens at the sight of lunch. “That worked out well.”

  Our wet shoes squeak against an orangey-red tiled floor. Behind the glass counter, slender baguettes are stuffed with spicy pork, buttery cheeses and thick slices of potato. I order three different bocadillos – chorizo, un jamón serrano y queso manchego, y una tortilla de patatas – and we split them at a counter overlooking the congested cars.

  Josh rips off an enormous hunk of the chorizo sandwich. “You know what’s great? We’ve never had to discuss it, but we share the same philosophy when it comes to food.”

  “Variety?”

  “And lots of it.” He points an accusing finger. “So, hey. You speak Spanish.”

  “Spanish, sí. Catalan, no.” Catalan is the native language of Barcelona, though both are spoken here. “Taking a French class would’ve been cheating.”

  “Any other languages I should know about?”

  “Only Mandarin. Oh, and a little Russian.”

  Josh freezes, mid-bite.

  I smile. “Kidding.”

  “Maybe that’s what you could do someday. You could be an interpreter.”

  My nose wrinkles.

  “Sandwich artist? Professional skateboarder? Train conductor?”

  I laugh. “Keep trying.”

  Our spontaneous lunch is delicious, because Spanish pork is beyond belief. It’s like fish in Japan or beef in Argentina. Or anything in France. Though admittedly, I’m biased. I study the custom map that Kurt drew for us last night. He stopped being disappointed in me when he realized I’d given him the perfect excuse to play cartographer. “Should we take a cab to La Pedrera?” I ask. It’s the first landmark that Kurt has marked. “Or should we check into our hotel first?”

  Josh lifts away a lock of my wet hair. “This reminds me of last June.”

  I raise my head and find him absorbed in memories. He wraps the lock around an ink-stained index finger. He uses it to gently pull me closer into a deep, open-mouthed kiss.

  The hotel.

  Definitely the hotel.

  Chapter sixteen

  The hotel that Josh reserved online is gorgeous. It has mosaicked columns and a babbling courtyard fountain and dozens of succulents dangling from planters on the walls.

  Unfortunately, it was too early to check in.

  The tension inside our cab is heavy. Tangible. I don’t know how we’re supposed to wait, but we’ve been left with no choice but to explore the city first.

  We’re splashing towards the heart of Barcelona. Red-and-yellow-striped flags – some with the blue triangle and star of independence, some without – hang everywhere from apartment balconies, soaked with storm. The city’s appearance is distinctly Western European, but it’s also filled with colourful architecture and steep hills. Palm trees and leafy trees. Purple vines and red flowers.

  “It’s almost like a Parisian San Francisco,” Josh says.

  Either he’s trying to change the subject from the obvious one, or he’s thinking about his friends in California. Probably best to change the subject. “Speaking of, how are St. Clair and Anna doing these days?” I ask.

  “Good.” He sits up straighter. “They’re pretty much living together now.”

  “Wow. Already? Do you think they’ll last?”

  Josh frowns. “Yeah, of course.” And then he sees my expression. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget that you don’t really know them.”

  I don’t forget.

  They watch me, stare back at me, every time I’m in his room. The wall-to-wall drawings make his friends a constant, unspoken presence. I wish I knew them better. I want them to know that I exist, that I’m a part of Josh’s life now, too.

  “St. Clair and Anna are one of those couples that seem like they were made for each other,” he says. “Instant friendship, instant chemistry. He was obsessed with her from the moment they met. She was the only thing he ever wanted to talk about. Still is, actually.”

  “I like Anna. I mean, I like St. Clair, too – he was always friendly to me – but I don’t know him as well. Not that Anna and I ever hung out.” I don’t know why I’m babb
ling. Maybe so I won’t feel untethered from this part of his life. “But she did live on my floor. And the first week of school, she told off Amanda Spitterton-Watts on my behalf.”

  Josh grins. “She punched her, too. Last spring.”

  “I know. That was weird.” I laugh. “But also awesome.”

  Amanda was the Emily Middlestone of last year – the school’s most popular mean girl. I saw Anna throw the unexpected punch, and it was my testimony that kept her from being suspended. I felt like I owed her. And not just for sticking up for me in the past, but…she knew about my crush on Josh. She once caught me absent-mindedly doodling his tattoo. I thought for sure she’d tell him, but she never did. He never side-eyed me with that particular brand of I-know-you-like-me weirdness.

  Anyway. I was grateful.

  Our cabbie pulls over on Passeig de Gràcia, a large thoroughfare where every shop is emblazoned with an expensive name. Dolce & Gabbana. Salvatore Ferragamo. Yves Saint Laurent. But amid this luxury shines an actual jewel: Casa Milà, aka La Pedrera.

  We dash below an awning and squint through the rain, across an intersection, at its curious stone facade. Over a century ago, a wealthy man named Milà commissioned Gaudí to design the building. Its grandiose structure is made entirely of waves and curves. There’s not a single straight line of construction. It was the home of Milà’s family, as well as several renters, but most of the locals despised it as an eyesore – exactly how the same generation of Parisians felt about their own recently built Eiffel Tower.

  I wonder how I would have felt about it back then. I’d like to think I would have been one of the people who understood that it was special. That being singular is the exact thing that makes something – or someone – amazing.

  “Nice roof,” Josh says. “But your Treehouse is better.”

  I nudge him, my own singular and amazing someone, and he nudges me back. La Pedrera’s rooftop terrace is famous. It’s covered in strange, bulky chimneys. Some of them look like giant soft-serve ice-cream cones, others like soldiers in medieval helmets. Tourists march up and down Escher-esque staircases, around and around the chimneys, bumping umbrellas. They’re like boats adrift at sea.