"Check the rear axle, Elise. I think we hit something," Luca said, his voice crackling over the RV’s intercom.
"It's pouring," I argued, staring out the window at the Florida storm.
"Just a quick look. You're the one closest to the door."
I pushed the heavy metal door open and stepped into the downpour. My sneakers barely touched the asphalt before the engine roared. Exhaust plumed into the gray sky.
"Wait!" I shouted.
The tires spat gravel. The taillights vanished down the highway, leaving me completely alone.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Luca’s name flashed on the screen.
*“Motel three miles away. Maren and I will wait there.”*
Another text popped up immediately. *“Maren is right. If we don’t push you, you’ll never learn the way.”*
I glared at the screen. Rain plastered my hair to my cheeks. I am terribly directionless. I possess the kind of lacking spatial awareness where I could visit a place ten times and still get lost. Just last year, Luca spent an entire week drawing a custom map of the Ivy League campus for me. No north or south. Just landmarks.
"Here," he had said, sliding the parchment across my desk. "Coffee shop with the golden retriever. Food truck with the terrible hot dogs."
"You didn't have to do this," I told him.
He rubbed my head, his rough calluses catching on my hair. "What would my girl do without me?"
Now, he was leaving me in a storm.
I walked for an hour. My calves burned. The highway gave way to cracked pavement and overgrown weeds. Water soaked through my thin jacket, chilling my skin.
My phone chimed again. A photo message from Luca. A hand-drawn map with an arrow and a little smiley face in the corner.
*“Follow the map. Twenty minutes.”*
I followed his directions. The road twisted into a decaying industrial park. Rusted fences loomed in the fog. A dead end.
I dialed his number. It rang three times before connecting.
"Luca?" I asked, my voice cracking against the wind.
A bright, melodic laugh echoed through the speaker. "Elise, baby! Congratulations on getting lost!"
Maren. My influencer best friend, fresh from her European tour.
"Put Luca on the phone," I demanded.
"I bet him you wouldn't notice the arrow on his map was drawn backward," Maren chirped, ignoring me. "I said you'd just follow it blindly. I won. I guess I just know you better."
My jaw locked. "Where is he?"
"So for the rest of the trip, Luca is only taking me around," Maren continued, her tone thick with mock sympathy. "Honestly, dragging a high-maintenance heiress like you around is just too much trouble."
"Luca," I said loudly into the receiver. "Are you there?"
A deep, familiar voice chuckled in the background. "A bet is a bet. Whatever you say, Maren."
Luca. The boy who grew up covered in bruises from the rugby pitch, the boy who swore his rough hands would only ever protect me.
I ended the call. No scream. No curse. Just a hollow click.
The cost of relying on someone is too heavy. When they pull the support away, you lose your entire sense of direction.
I swiped the rainwater from my eyes. I turned around. I would find my own way.
I took a step and slipped on the slick mud. My knee slammed into the concrete. A piece of rusted rebar sliced upward, catching my ankle.
Pain flared, sharp and blinding. The metal tore through my skin, stopping just shy of piercing straight through my bone. Blood rushed out, hot and thick, washing away the mud on my leg.
I dragged myself up.
It took endless hours, a stranger’s phone, and a desperate flight across the country to finally push open the heavy oak doors of my home in Beverly Hills. It was past midnight.
Blood and mud mixed on my ruined sneakers, dripping onto the pristine Persian rug. I leaned my weight against the marble Roman column in the foyer. I lacked the strength to even bend down and untie my shoelaces.
Footsteps tapped lightly against the hardwood upstairs.
"Elise?"
My mother appeared at the top of the stairs. She froze. Her silk robe fluttered as she rushed down the steps.
"What happened to you?" She grabbed my arms, her eyes wide with panic. "Luca said he was taking you and Maren on a road trip up Highway 1!"
"He didn't," I said.
"Then why are you bleeding? Why are you covered in dirt?"
I looked down at my ankle. The flesh was split open, edges curled and dark with dried blood.
"He left me in Florida," I said, my voice empty.
"Florida? Elise, you were supposed to be in California. What are you talking about?"
I told her everything. The fake breakdown. The backward map. The bet with Maren.
The warmth drained from my mother’s face, replaced by a cold, rigid disbelief.
"How could he?" she whispered.
"He did," I replied.
"Before your SATs, he rode his bike three extra miles every morning just to make sure you wouldn't be late," she said, her voice rising. "He checked your tires. He packed your lunch."
"That was high school, Mom."
"When you got lost during your freshman year, he called me in a panic. He almost dialed 911."
"People change."
"He told me that once he made it into the NFL, he was going to buy a house in a neighborhood where you could walk home with your eyes closed." She knelt on the floor, ignoring the mud staining her silk robe. She gently dabbed at my dirt-streaked face with her sleeve. "I watched that boy grow up. Elise, how did he turn into this?"
"Mom." I grabbed her wrist. "Stop."
"We need to call a doctor for that ankle."
"No, just wrap it. And then call the estate manager."
"Why?"
"I want to go back to London."
Her shoulders dropped. She nodded, her expression hardening into the aristocratic mask she usually reserved for the House of Lords. "Alright. I will have the butler expedite your paperwork. We are leaving. Far away from him."
By 2:00 AM, the infection took hold. My temperature spiked to 102 degrees.
I lay in my massive bed, shivering under a mountain of down comforters. The bedroom door was cracked open. Light spilled in from the hallway.
"You promised me you would take care of her!" My mother’s voice snapped like a whip from the living room downstairs.
"Lady Radcliffe, I—" Luca's voice was faint through the phone speaker.
"Don't interrupt me!" my mother yelled. "I only let her go on this trip because you swore she would be safe. Her foot is nearly ruined! Is this your idea of being a man? Is this how you take responsibility?"
"It was just a prank, she's fine—"
"She has a fever of 102! Do not contact my daughter again."
The phone slammed down onto the receiver.
My own phone vibrated against my pillow.
I pulled it out from under the blankets. The screen brightness stabbed at my tired eyes.
A message from Luca.
*“Elise, your mom just called and yelled at me.”*
*“I didn’t think you were so spoiled that you’d catch a fever from a little rain. It was just a joke.”*
*“I won’t leave you behind next time, alright? Hurry up and break your fever.”*
I studied the glowing words. *Next time.*
My thumb hovered over the block button. Just as I pressed down, a new message popped up from Maren's number, carrying a photo that made my blood run instantly cold.
