Not long after Ethan left, Sylvia updated her Twitter.
“Mentioned pancakes in passing, and they showed up the next morning. Thanks for making it so easy to brag about you.”
Attached was a picture of maple pancakes, exactly like the ones on my breakfast table. Ethan’s chef never used to make pancakes, but Ethan had him learn because I loved them. He had once promised me that his special maple pancakes were just for
- me.
I turned off my phone quietly, wiping away the tears that had welled up again.
Mrs. Triton was still struggling to clean up the damaged pancake pieces Ethan had angrily thrown to the floor. The sticky syrup had seeped into the rug, leaving a stubborn, dark stain.
“Just toss it out,” I said, my voice flat.
Even that rug was a gift from Ethan. In fact, I went around the house, gathering every single thing he had ever given me, boxing them up to be thrown out. After all, every gift felt as carelessly thrown my way as those pancakes that morning.
Ethan didn’t reach out for days after that. Every other time we’d fought, it was always me who broke the silence first, but not this time.
I blocked him on Twitter and on my phone.
I changed the security code for the house and instructed Mrs. Triton not to let him in, no matter what.
Just as I finished packing, Ava called, inviting me to get away for a while.
I phoned my parents, who were on a business trip, and told them I was planning to head to the Arctic to see the Northern Lights. I figured if I stayed with Ava until the end of summer, I could go straight to college without ever crossing paths with Ethan again.
As I pulled my suitcase toward the front door, I ran into Ethan’s mom, Mrs. Luciano,
1/3
Chapter 4
+25 Bonus
at the entrance to the villa. She’d always been kind to me, completely unaware of the fallout between me and her son.
“Oh, are you going on a trip?” she said, eyeing my suitcase. “Where’s Ethan? Isn’t he coming to pick you up? He told me he was taking you to Switzerland for a summer trip, and I fully support it. You two should travel while you’re young.”
