Beach Cute

1

Luna

“No,” I say, pushing my printed confirmation across the counter. “See? I booked hold luggage. It’s right there.”

“I’m sorry, miss, it’s not in our system.”

I gulp. What kind of useless, cheapo airline is this? Well, not that cheapo, since they’re currently trying to charge me again for my supposedly unbooked hold luggage.

My palms are sweating. I hate stuff like this. I hate arguing over stuff like this. If there’s one thing I normally avoid like the plague, it’s confrontation. But I am not paying that money. Liam would’ve dealt with it so well; he was great at stuff like this--especially because he knew I wasn’t.

I get a pang in my chest just thinking about him, and push that feeling deep, deep down. I’ve got the entire week ahead to get my head around that. Right now, I need to deal with the fact that this woman wants to charge me fifty-eight pounds for luggage I’ve already paid twenty-three pounds to put on the plane.

She’s smiling at me as if she’d like to load me onto the conveyor belt just to get rid of me, clearly waiting for me to cave and pay the money.

Come on, Luna. You can do this. You’re almost twenty years old. You’re an adult now, and adults know how to handle these things.

I inhale a deep breath through my nose and tap the paper on the counter. I’m so glad now that Mum insisted I print everything out “just in case.”

“But I paid for it. Look, it’s--it’s right here. Confirmation of payment, see? That’s what it says.”

The woman suppresses a sigh, but gives me a too-wide toothy smile and says, “Let me go find my manager and we’ll get this sorted for you.”

“Thank you,” I say, but I don’t let myself feel relieved yet--I’m already mentally drafting an email of complaint demanding a refund, just in case this all goes south.

(Confrontation is a lot easier on the other side of a screen, after all.)

I remain on tenterhooks, feeling pissed off and more than a little bit tearful until I’ve had the same argument with the woman’s manager, who looks my booking up on the system just to tell me I need to pay the fee, and I try not to lose it as I push my printed email toward her, too. I can hear people in the queue behind me grumbling because I’m causing trouble and taking so long.

Don’t worry, I want to snap at them. The plane won’t leave without you.

Even though I know I’d be doing exactly the same in their position.

And even though I am worried the plane might leave without me at this rate.

Eventually, the manager concedes that I have in fact paid the fee due and lets my baggage through. My boarding pass is handed back to me with a smile. “So sorry about that. It must be because you booked through a third party. Have a safe flight, miss.”

“Thanks,” I mumble, praying I don’t have the same trouble at the hotel. Maybe booking this whole thing when I’d had a few drinks wasn’t my smartest move . . .

Then again, there are a lot of things that make the “Luna’s Completely Lost It” list lately--and a solo trip to Spain isn’t even the most drastic of them.

I turn away, examining my boarding pass and checking my seat number for the billionth time. I’m so focused on it that I walk right into someone trying to get to the counter to check in.

“Oof!”

“Sorry, sorry! I’m so sorry,” I say as the girl starts apologizing too. “Totally my fault,” I tell her.

She fixes the sunglasses perched artfully on top of her head, where her blond hair is piled into a messy bun. “No worries, hon.”

She looks so zen, a pale-blue travel wallet clutched between fingers with lilac nail varnish on long nails, a small and lazy smile on her face. She’s wearing a white camisole tucked into gray linen shorts and a long, almost see-through white cardigan with a fringe that brushes her knees. The look is tied together by a chunky turquoise necklace and giant cork wedges with brown suede straps that match the brown leather bag hanging from her elbow.

For a moment, all I can think is: She’s so Instagrammable. In spite of the fact that she only looks about my age, I wonder for half a second if she’s some popular influencer because my next thought is: Who dresses like that to travel? She’ll have to take those shoes off when she gets to security, and I bet that necklace buzzes when she walks through. And how can she fit her hand luggage in that handbag? It looks mostly empty.

As I get out of the way so she can wheel her small suitcase to the check-in desk, I take another look at how glamorous she is. She’s joined the back of the queue and is holding her travel wallet between her teeth, bags on the floor, as she takes a video of herself wiggling her passport in the air for the camera.

I feel like such a slob in my most comfortable leggings and T-shirt, with my big rucksack, Vans and thin hoodie. We always dress comfortably to go on family trips, and it’s a habit I’m apparently not breaking anytime soon. Traveling alone is nerve-racking enough without suddenly throwing new habits into the mix.

Well, the joke’s on Instagram Girl, I think, hiking my rucksack higher onto my shoulders and heading toward the escalator to make my way through security. Her legs will be cold on those airplane seats.

It takes me forever to get through security. I remember being tempted in my moment of madness (or rather, drunkenness) by the security fast-track option, for however much extra money. I’d talked myself out of it then, but standing in the queue in front of a man in a suit talking loudly on his phone and behind a family with a screaming toddler and a little boy who keeps running under the ropes, I regret it.

The line crawls along. I get my phone out, clicking out of my boarding pass now that I no longer need it and instead tapping aimlessly across social media. Not much on Threads catches my attention, and my headphones are in the bottom of my bag somewhere, so mindlessly scrolling TikTok isn’t much of an option. I have one rubbish email promoting a makeup brand, which I delete, and just as I’m about to check Instagram, my phone buzzes.

Liam.

For a second, my heart stops. Then it launches into a somersault, leaving me feeling queasy in the pit of my stomach.

Saw on Insta you’re off on vacay. Hope you have a good time x

I stare at the message for a while--long enough that Mr. Noisy Talker behind me taps me on the shoulder and says, “Excuse me, could you move forward?”

I do, and before I can even decide whether I should reply or not another text comes through.

Roger brought my stuff over. I’d have come to get it if I’d realized you were moving out early. Thanks though

The dots reappear while he types another text.

They disappear.

They come back again.

I miss you

The guy behind me clears his throat, pointedly enough that I look around. He nods irritably in front of me, and I shuffle along into the space between me and the family.

What am I meant to do about that? What am I meant to do with an “I miss you”?

Especially when I’ve spent the last couple of weeks wallowing in regret because I’ve realized I miss him, too?

I knew Liam was The One from the second I met him. We were introduced by friends a few years ago, when we were fifteen. He went to a different school, but we’ve spent practically all our time together since then. I was thrilled when we both got into Newcastle University, so I didn’t have to worry about what the stresses of long distance might do to our rock-solid relationship. I thought things would only get better for us.

Usually, I’m more sensible than to believe in things like love at first sight, but Liam ticked every one of my boxes. He was smart, funny, popular among our friends and even his tutors--and he was close with his family. I liked that most about him.

His laid-back attitude was at complete odds with my compulsion to control everything, but we worked; we balanced each other out. He’s tall where I’m short, lean where I’m curvy, outspoken while I’m reserved and thoughtful. He pushed me outside my comfort zone and helped me have a busy, vibrant social life when I might otherwise have wanted to stay in.

And he loved me.

It was always so easy to picture my future with Liam: we’d graduate at the same time, find jobs near each other, rent a place together while we saved for a house deposit. We’d be on each other’s car insurance, share a Netflix account, argue over what to call the cat we both wanted. He used to laugh when I’d say things like, “I want to be married by the time I’m twenty-five, and have kids by the time I’m thirty,” but then he’d kiss me and say that was good to know--he’d keep it in mind, block out his calendar so he’d remember to go ring shopping in plenty of time.

We were going to be in the same houseshare next year at uni; it would be good practice for when we lived together, just the two of us.

He was supposed to be my forever.

I haven’t heard from Liam since I broke up with him a few weeks ago.

I guess I don’t have much right to wish he’d get in touch when I was the one who ended things, but it still hurts to go from having my whole world wrapped up in him to . . . nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing, because any time I opened an Instagram Story from one of our friends, bam, there he was. Out with everyone. Having fun with everyone. Not wallowing at home, heartbroken, his entire future in tatters, like I was--if only because nobody had invited me along to give me another option.

I was the one who asked our mutual friend Roger to come grab the things Liam had left in my room. I was too much of a coward to face him myself because I knew if I saw him, I’d end up breaking down in tears and begging him to take me back. Which I would’ve done already if he hadn’t been out with all our friends, carrying on as if everything were the same. As if the last four years just meant . . . nothing.

Until that text, I hadn’t even known he missed me.

I shove my phone in my pocket; I can guarantee that given half a chance I’ll get drawn back in and try to win him back when I already tried so hard all of last year just to keep him. I think about the vision board I threw in the bin, the pages I tore out of my journal in a flood of drunken tears the night I booked this trip. I think about all the time I wasted being with him, and the time I’m about to waste trying to get over him.

A lump forms in the back of my throat, and I choke it down.

The last thing I need right now is to dissolve into floods of tears at the airport, for God’s sake. I can even hear my brother in the back of my mind, teasing me for being so sensitive.

(Although he was pretty devastated when I told him about the breakup. He really liked Liam.)

I draw a shaky breath and square my shoulders.

Get it together, Luna.

I slip my phone out of my pocket. Liam’s text is still up on the screen.

Going from seeing him every day to not even sending him a video I think he’d like has been torture. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so lonely.

There’s no reason we can’t be friends, I think, once we’ve both moved on. I’d like to be. Isn’t that what grown-ups do? And we are grown-ups now. And if we can be friends, then everyone else will stay friends with me, too.

“Miss?”

I look up, fingers hovering over the on-screen keyboard, ready to tell Liam I miss him, too. But instead I’m being beckoned forward, toward the empty trays behind the security belt.

“Please place all electronic items in the tray separately. Any liquids . . .”

I tune out but follow the instructions, placing my phone in the tray next to my iPad and Kindle.

By the time I’ve gone through the metal detectors and picked up my tray to begin putting everything back into my rucksack, my phone screen is lighting up with an incoming call from Liam. My heart stops.

Is it because he thinks I’ve moved on if I’m going away without him, and wants to patch things up before I leave? Or did he just find one of my textbooks while packing up his room and wants to know what to do with it? No--no, he misses me, he still loves me, this is all just a horrible mistake, a big mess and . . .

I stare at the screen for a second, hardly even able to breathe for hoping, but then I’m being jostled along by other people coming through the security scanner, and when I snatch my things out of the tray I accidentally cut off his call.

I wince, but . . . maybe it’s for the best. I broke up with him for a reason, didn’t I? And this vacation was supposed to be a chance to have some space and get over him. Or at least stop me from running back to him.

Standing out of the way, I cradle my phone in my hands and put it on mute.

Sorry, Liam. But this week is all about me.