Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 26 of 78

The ship swallowed them whole. A steward led them down a hall of colored doors to a cabin with a wide window and a balcony. Arianna set the puppy on the floor. He sniffed the carpet, then the bed, then lay down like he owned it. Kylie dropped her bag and finally turned her phone off. For the first time in a month, no one could reach them. She had promised her mother she would consult Arianna on every choice. But standing here, she realized she had planned this whole week alone, in her head, without asking Arianna a single thing. "I mapped it out," Kylie said. "Breakfast on the top deck. The pool at ten. Dinner at the fancy restaurant. I booked us a spa thing." Arianna sat on the edge of the bed. She didn't smile. "You did all that already?" "I wanted it to be perfect." "You did the same thing at your house." Arianna said it gently, but it landed hard. "You made a schedule. Then you threw it away and it got real." She looked at the window, at the water sliding past. "I bought these tickets so we could stop performing. I don't want a plan. I want to know what you want. And I want you to actually ask me what I want." Kylie felt the old panic rise, the urge to fix it with another gift, another list. She sat down beside Arianna instead. "Okay," she said. "So what do you want? This whole week. Tell me." Arianna was quiet a moment. "I want to sleep late. I want to write on the balcony when it's warm. I want one night where we don't touch the piano and we don't talk about the label." She turned to Kylie. "And I want you to want something too. Out loud. Not a surprise you built for me." Kylie thought. It was harder than writing a chorus. "I want to swim before anyone else is awake," she said slowly. "Just us. And the dog can't come, he'll drown himself." Arianna laughed, and the tightness in the room let go. Kylie took out her folded schedule. She tore it in half, then in half again, and dropped the pieces in the bin. "No plan," she said. "We decide each morning. Both of us." "Both of us," Arianna said. The puppy stretched on the bed. The ship's horn sounded, low and long, and the shore pulled away outside the window. Kylie realized she finally knew what this week was for. Not the schedule she'd carried aboard. It was the first thing she and Arianna had ever built with no letters between them, no mother in the next room, no camera at the door. She reached for Arianna's hand and did not let go.