Chapter One
I pull my hair up into a messy bun and fan myself frantically with a flyer I found on the coffee table. The flimsy cardboard moves nothing but hot air, but it’s all we’ve got against this unbearable heat.
“I’m gonna die,” Cheryl groans, stretched out flat on the living room floor.
She’s not even exaggerating. We’re both drenched in sweat. Despite the fan cranked to max and the shutters sealed tight, the temperature refuses to drop a single degree.
“You know what I need?” I say, closing my eyes. “A ton of ice.”
“I just want to see Dan again. In Canada,” she fires back. “At least then I’d be cooler.”
“You just got back,” I point out, my voice dragging.
“That’s what they call love, babe,” Cheryl says with a weak laugh.
I don’t answer. I’m too busy waving my flyer in a desperate, losing battle. Cheryl tilts her head slightly on the floor and cracks one eye open in my direction. Her expression shifts, something more serious underneath.
“Still no news from Kyle?” she asks, the playfulness draining from her voice.
I pause. The cardboard freezes in front of my face.
"Chht. It is way too hot for heavy conversations.”
“You know you’re seeing him tomorrow, right?” she presses. “Unless you’d rather cancel our whole friend trip.”
I sigh, letting the flyer drop onto my lap.
“I’m not cancelling anything...” I mutter, staring at an invisible spot on the ceiling. “I just hope he stays in Berlin. Far. Very far from me.”
Cheryl props herself up on one elbow, an eyebrow arched, a few strands of hair stuck to her forehead from the heat.
“And if he decides to come? You’re going to ignore him for two whole weeks?”
“Minimum.”
“So you’re willing to ruin the vibe for everyone?”
I roll my eyes, even though my stomach tightens at the thought.
“Fine. I’ll be cordial. Hi, bye, pass the salt. That’s it.”
The silence stretches, broken only by the frantic clicking of Cheryl’s nails on her phone screen. Then a notification chime rings through the room.
She lets a few seconds pass before looking up at me.
“Dan just replied. Kyle’s coming.”
The air suddenly feels heavier, as if the heatwave just decided to target my chest directly.
“Of course he is,” I murmur, more to myself than to her. “It’s his friend group too.”
“Anyway, if you need help drowning him and hiding the body, say the word,” Cheryl offers, her fake seriousness completely undermined by the smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.
“Noted. I’ll let you know when I need a shovel.”
Right on cue, my phone buzzes on the coffee table. The screen lights up: Mom. I sigh and answer on speaker.
“Hello?”
“Sweetheart! Are you okay?”
I close my eyes, feeling a migraine start to creep in.
“Mom, just get to the point. You’ve asked me if I’m fine three times by text, and it is way too hot for guessing games.”
A hesitant silence follows.
“Have you heard from Léo?” she finally asks, her voice a little tight.
I let out an irritated sigh. She’s been asking the same question for weeks, as if the answer might magically change overnight.
“No. I haven’t heard from him...”
“Okay...” she breathes, resigned. “Jacob’s worried. He isn’t answering him anymore.”
“I know. You’ve already told me. But I don’t see how that’s my problem... It’s between him and his dad.”
“Please just try. One message.”
I roll my eyes again, knowing full well she won’t let this go until I cave. But before I can respond, she abruptly switches topics, as if something just clicked.
“By the way... will Kyle be there? For your vacation?”
I freeze. Dissecting my love life with my mother is the last thing I want to do, especially when Kyle is involved.
“I’m hanging up now,” I warn her, flat. “I love you.”
I cut the call before she can get a single word out.
The silence settles back over the suffocating living room. I stay still for a moment, phone in hand, then scroll through my contacts. My thumb hovers before landing on Léo’s name.
I leap off the couch, ignoring Cheryl’s complaints about the heat, and lock myself in my bedroom. Once alone, sitting on the edge of my bed, I stare at the screen. I haven’t heard a word from him since I dropped him off at the airport weeks ago. I don’t even know what to say. I don’t even know if I want him to pick up. Deep down, I hope he doesn’t. It’d be simpler.
I close my eyes and hit Call.
The first ring echoes. Don’t answer. Don’t answer. Don’t answer...
“Anaïs?”
“Shit...” I blurt before I can stop myself.
A nervous laugh crackles through the line.
“Hello to you too.”
“Sorry, it’s just... I wasn’t expecting to hear your voice.”
I’m rambling too fast, the words tumbling over each other. I’m the one who called and I’m surprised he picked up?
“How are you?” I try, desperate to sound normal.
“Good... And you?”
“Great. Despite... the heat.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, eyes shut. Weather talk? Seriously?
“It’s a lot cloudier here,” he says simply.
“I can imagine...” I reply with a small nervous laugh that sounds fake even to my own ears.
The silence stretches on his end. Only the faint crackle of the line reminds me he’s still there.
“You called me to talk about the weather?” he finally asks.
I close my eyes, feeling heat rise to my cheeks, and it’s not the heatwave this time.
“No, I... My mom asked me to call you. Apparently your dad’s worried because you’ve stopped answering his messages.”
Another silence. Longer. I can feel him closing up.
“I know it’s none of my business,” I rush to add, the words coming out in a jumble. “I didn’t even want to call in the first place... Well, I did want to call, just not fort hat, not like this...”
I drag a hand over my face, desperate.
“I’m making it worse, aren’t I?” I murmur, more to myself than to him.
“A little, yeah,” he says finally, and I can almost see his crooked smile through the phone. “But it’s... it’s good to hear from you. Even if it’s to lecture me about my unanswered calls.”
“Sorry...”
“It’s nothing. Knowing your mom, I’m guessing she brought it up at least ten times before you finally cracked.”
“Multiply that by ten and we’re not far off,” I joke, hoping to lighten the mood.
“I see... Well, I’ll try to call him. When I get some time.”
“Busy days?”
“Lately, yeah. My mom helped me get a job at the art gallery she runs. And whenever I can, I head to Ellie’s swim meets. Between gallery openings and chlorine, my schedule’s pretty full.”
I smile, picturing Léo in a suit at a gallery.
“I’ll admit, I have a hard time seeing you as an art salesman.”
“Me too,” he admits. “But it pays well and... it keeps my mind off things.”
I let out a small, sad smile.
“And you?” he picks back up, his voice suddenly more careful. “Are you still in Berlin with Kyle? Or did you maybe move?”
The way my name and Kyle’s land in the same sentence hits like a tiny electric shock.
“I went home... But we’re planning a group trip. Two weeks at Dan’s parents’ summer house, by a lake. It’s going to be... great.”
The word great sounds hollow. I don’t have the energy, or the desire, to tell him the truth. That Kyle and I are done.
Partly because I’ve spent the last weeks repeating it to myself on a loop, because it still feels unreal. But mostly... how would I even explain it? How do I tell him that when I showed up in Berlin to surprise him, I found him there, in someone else’s arms?
Telling Léo would mean admitting I was naive enough to think we could just start over because I wanted it to work. It would give him one more reason to pity me, or worse, to think he’d been right all along.
So I stay quiet and let the word great hang in the air between us.
“Sounds nice,” he says simply. “A lake, friends... You’ll get to decompress.”
“Yeah. Decompress,” I echo like a parrot. “Exactly what I need.”
“I should go, but... don’t hesitate to keep me updated, okay?”
“Yeah. You too.”
The line goes dead and I let out a long breath, my shoulders finally dropping. Without thinking, I open my messages and scroll through my conversation with Kyle to this morning’s texts. I reread his words on a loop.
KYLE: Please call me back.
KYLE: I really wish we could talk before tomorrow.
If we’re going to have this conversation, it’ll be face to face. Not before. My fingers type the reply, short.
ANAÏS: We’ll talk tomorrow.
I hit Send before I can change my mind. The message delivers, read almost instantly. The three little dots of his typing appear for a few seconds, then disappear. He won’t push tonight.
