Chapter 1

G R A C E

I’ve never really believed in religion so much, but when I have, it has been caused by my curiosity about heaven and hell. Heaven, often more than hell, because I know for sure that if any of this is real, and I have to end up at one of these at the end of it all, heaven is what I’ll never be able to see for myself.

When I’ve been to a church I’ve asked them to describe it, when I’ve read the books I’ve tried to find the parts that talk about it. It is very enticing. If I wasn’t a sinner by nothing more than just being, I'd surely try to secure it. The beauty, the peace, and the idea of finding so much contentment in your state that you are happy to live that life, just like that, forever.

The real forever.

That’s fucked up.

When I try to imagine that, it sounds very much like hell.

But if I could pick a moment from my life to be stuck in forever, it would be this moment right here.

This, Italy, me, skinny-dipping under the moonlight, just minutes before the sunrise.

If I could freeze time, if I had to freeze time, I would press the button now.

I turn and tuck myself in the sea, my hands go out, my body floats like it has no life and for a moment there, time does almost stop. If the clocks keep running, I don’t hear them, if the time does pass, I don’t feel it. I feel the cold of the water cover me like a dress, I feel it kiss every inch of my skin and every time a new wave hits, I fall more in love with Sofia.

Every time I see another bird I can’t recognize fly over me, I hate myself more.

You will love it in Italy, I swear. You’re not going to want to come back, she’d said, and she was right. I am not going back, not the same. The thought excites me so much I might just run over to the shore and start dancing, and I'm supposed to be jet-lagged.

I guess jet lags aren’t that bad when you fly private, with a 24/7 free food and beverage service, that serves champagne like it is water.

I turn back when the air in my lungs runs out and the sky mesmerizes me. I’ve never seen so many colors in the sky, not in Florida and not in the one year I’ve spent at Oxford. I take a deep breath, my hands start working to keep me on the surface. More birds have started to fly towards the other side of the island where the sun is rising, and the waves have started to retreat, leaving me in shallower water than when I jumped in almost thirty minutes ago. They are more noisy now, I can hear the splashes as they hit the sand clearer and heavier, so much that if I didn’t know better, I would confuse it with the sound of very light footsteps entering the ocean.

I need to go back to Sophia’s beach house before more light comes in and some morning runner catches a live show of me enjoying my first hour in Italy a little too much. I dip my head in the sea one last time to fix my hair in place. When I come out only seconds later, even more light seems to have spread into the morning sky, and suddenly I am too aware of my exposed state. I make a mental note of doing this again tomorrow morning on the right side of the island before swiftly changing directions and swimming towards the sand.

Leaving my hoodie and shorts two meters from the water was not the best idea I’ve ever had, especially now when the water has withdrawn even more, leaving another two meters of wet sand between me and the clothes. When I take my first walking step and raise myself out of water, I suddenly hate the idea of skinny-dipping completely, though the cool morning air that grazes my skin leaving goosebumps in its wake doesn’t agree. I look around, suddenly a little too aware of eyes. I am stuck naked on an island with seven hundred people, of whom I only know one girl, and there are three and a half odd meters between me and my clothes. If there has ever been an unfortunate situation for a twenty four year old, it is this and yet, I feel elated.

I am thrilled.

I decide to ignore the huge ivory white mansion and the line of beach houses at the end of the beach and focus on my feet as they sink into the sand with every step I take. It’s almost like the sea doesn't want me to go. I take a few more steps and my hands automatically wrap around my chest and waist as I come closer to the real world. The thought makes me laugh because the orphaned, scholarship Law student Grace Miller I know would never refer to this as the real world, rest alone agree to live in it for weeks.

Though the more I feel the soft and inviting sand of this Italian private beach under my feet, the more I begin to dislike the idea of that Grace Millers. She was righteous, yes but does that have to mean she was right?