~22 DAYS TO MUSKOKA~

~OLIVIA~

I duck just before a full can of beer flies by my head and smashes through the kitchen window. The noise of the shattering glass is drowned out by the sounds of the party, as well as the huge speakers blasting an interesting remix of a metal and top 40 pop song.

"Oh shit!" shouts Fletcher, a giant seventeen-year-old with fiery red hair and freckles dotting his pale skin. He's a few feet away from me, staring in disbelief at the pair of boys in matching pink football jerseys responsible for the incident. One with a pink baseball cap still has his arms raised as if he was supposed to catch the hurtling beer can that almost took my head off. Fletcher points at them. "You almost killed Olivia! This is why you weren't invited."

"And it's why he didn't make a single college football team," the one with the pink hat says.

"No way, you moved!" His friend exclaims, reaching into the large pink ice bucket on the second kitchen island and pulling out another can. "Let me try again."

Fletcher's eyes widen, but now that the shock has worn off, I snap into action. "No!" Stepping into the space between them, I hold my arms out like I can telepathically stop them from moving. "No throwing anything! You already broke the window. Go outside so I can clean up the mess."

"Better idea, you're out of here," Fletcher says, signaling to some other guys, who step forward to help escort the drunk guys out.

"No, wait, we'll be good!" they protest, but the guys keep pushing them out of the kitchen. "We didn't mean to, Olivia, promise!" They don't know me, and I don't know them, so I don't respond, instead grabbing a broom and dustpan, ushering people away from the mess and into the yard where crowds are gathered in a sea of pink.

Jenna loves parties, but more than that, she loves throwing parties. She's good at it too. No matter where you look, everything is aesthetically pleasing, cohesive, on theme, and most importantly for everyone's social media, photographable. Today's party theme is Fifty Shades of Pink, specifically requested by Elena for her birthday, and the dress code is enforced. How Jenna managed to get all two hundred and something kids at this party to show up wearing pink is anyone's guess, but when she wants something done, she gets it done.

I clean up the mess then direct the caterers to set up on the farther kitchen island and decorated folding tables Jenna has out for the finger foods. She left a very detailed graphic of where she wants everything, so I leave them alone and venture outside to look for my boyfriend. He hasn't answered my last few texts asking him where he is, so he must have let his phone die again or accidentally dropped it in the pool. It's annoying, but so like him. If I didn't remind him to tie his shoes or that his car payments are due on the 15th, he'd be walking everywhere in socks.

Robbie has his DJ equipment set up on the far end of the patio, overlooking the backyard. He doesn't look up from his laptop when I step over abandoned cans and pink cups to join him. He's bobbing his head to the beat, his short dreadlocks flowing with the movement.

"Robbie?" I call, tapping him on the shoulder.

He pulls down an oversized headphone from one ear and scans me from head to toe. "Don't tell me... Olivia, right? Jenna's cousin? The one who's really smart?"

It's an effort not to huff. "Yes, that's right." We've met and hung out multiple times before, since he's one of Jenna's closest friends, but I don't say that part out loud in case it comes off as haughty. "Have you seen Alessio around? You've got the best vantage point."

"Hmm... I think he was by the pool earlier." He doesn't ask for clarity as to who Alessio is, even though Alessio's a year older than him and therefore was never in any classes with him, and he's met him the same number of times he's met me. Apparently, I'm the only forgettable one.

"Great, thanks," I say as he gives me a thumbs up and slips his headphones back on. I check my phone again for a text, but my notifications remain blank, and my patience begins to wear thin.

I've been here for a few hours, and he said he'd be here, yet I haven't even gotten a glimpse of him.

It's been almost three weeks since I've seen Alessio. First, he went on a trip to Cuba with his friends, so I lost that week with him. But he's been back for two weeks, and he's always too busy to see me, or sick with the flu, or working overtime. In all the years we've been together, this is almost triple the amount of time we've gone without seeing each other.

I miss him. It feels like we've been talking less and less over text and the phone than we were before he left for his trip, and I can feel his absence in almost everything I do. I can't even turn on the television for fear of accidentally seeing a spoiler for one of the many shows we watch together. He promised me he'd be here tonight, and we'd finally be able to reunite. I'm so excited, I even had my sister do some pink sparkly eyeshadow for me that she said makes my brown eyes go from 'plain' to 'sultry'. But the longer the night goes on without seeing him, the more the unease churns in my stomach.

Jenna's pool area usually looks like an oasis straight from a travel brochure advertising vacationing in Greece, but it's hard to tell today. People are everywhere, and I briefly wonder if Jenna, or even the birthday girl, knows them all. Maybe they do. Jenna was very popular in school, and for all I know this is her entire graduating class, enjoying their last few weeks of summer before starting college in the fall.

I swear I catch a hint of Alessio's dirty blonde hair, but before I can get there, a girl in neon pink jeans stumbles into my path. She knocks over a potted plant, soil spilling everywhere, then grabs the one beside it before knocking it over as well. She grabs onto a third one, bends over, and pukes right inside it.

I can't in good conscience just leave her there, so I run over to her, pulling her long hair out of her face and helping her to stand. When I glance back to where I thought I saw Alessio, whoever it was is no longer there. Shit.

I get the girl, whose name I can't decipher through her mumbling and the noise of the fireworks that start going off, inside to the bathroom. Once I help her get cleaned up, a group of her friends come rushing in, taking over for me.

By the time I run back to the pool, I don't see Alessio anywhere, and my heart sinks. I try texting him again, but it's just another in a chain of unanswered messages tonight.

My younger sisters, identical twins who are far closer to each other than they've ever been with me, are sitting with a group of people on a cluster of lounge chairs. I have to dodge a total of five different drunk but still coherent people staggering around before I finally make it to them. Bianca notices me first.

"Livy! I made a new drink! Come try." She holds a pink plastic cup out to me, and I give her a concerned frown. Her hazel eyes are glassy and she's slurring just the tiniest bit, not noticeable to outsiders, but enough that Maddalena elbows her and whispers, "Be cool."

"You're sixteen, Bianca. You're lucky Mom even let you come."

"Way to give us away, Bianca," Maddalena mutters under her breath at the same time Bianca says, "Come on, Livy, you're only a year older than us. Don't be such a party pooper. I bet you haven't had any fun all night. You've probably been so busy being 'party mom' you haven't had a single drop of alcohol or made any friends."

My sisters both look so disappointed in me, like I'm the one who's doing something wrong, and I can't stand the way they share a disapproving glance like they've discussed this before.

"I'm not a party pooper, see?" I grab the drink that Bianca offered and take a large gulp. It burns the whole way down, like gasoline mixed with cinnamon and the hottest peppers from our Nonno's garden, and I choke on it. It takes everything in me not to immediately spit it out.

"What the hell is in that?" I sputter, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

Bianca smiles widely. "Four shots of Patron, a shot of Fireball, and a splash of pineapple juice."

My throat still feels like it's on fire as I shake my head at her. "This is going to kill you and I'm trying to find Alessio. I don't have time to take care of you when you die from alcohol poisoning."

"Hey!" she cries as I dump the murder juice in the bushes behind them, emptying every last drop from the cup.

"Go get some water," I order, and as she marches to a pink cooler, she mumbles, "This is why you don't have any friends."

Even though she's drunk and I know she doesn't mean it, her words sting. Trying not to let the hurt show on my face, I look at the sober twin. "Have you seen Alessio?"

Maddalena shrugs. "He was with Dylan a while ago over by the cabana." The cabana that's currently filled with people who aren't my boyfriend and his best friend. With a grumble, she adds, "He didn't even say hi to us. The jerk."

"He must not have seen you. He needs glasses and his appointment is in a few weeks. That reminds me, I have to remind him a few days before." Another mental item in the never-ending list of things I need to keep track of for Alessio. Sometimes I feel like I'm more his secretary or mother than girlfriend, and it causes irritation to burn through me before I remind myself that he does things for me too and push the feeling down.

Maddalena raises an eyebrow and gives a patronizing, "Mm-Hmm. Of course you do."

I check my phone again, the empty notification center making my heart sink a little more. "It's been three weeks since we've seen each other in person. Facetime just isn't the same. Why is it so hard to find him?" Granted, Jenna lives in a sprawling mansion with more acreage than five football fields, and there are tons of partygoers here all wearing the same color, but still. He should be trying to find me just as hard as I'm trying to find him.

Maddalena huffs like she does when she's run out of patience and is trying really hard not to snap. "You're smart, Liv. So smart you skipped fourth grade— could've skipped more if Mom and Dad weren't worried about it stunting your social development. You started university at sixteen and just finished your first year while everyone else your age is graduating high school. You do research for fun, and you spend every spare second tinkering away on that app you're creating. So I know you're not actually ignorant about what's going on here."

A heaviness surges through my chest, one that settles there in the late hours of the night while I'm lying in bed, staring at my phone with the unanswered voicemails and proof of canceled plans.

I'm not ignorant to what's going on. But we've been together for five years, ever since we started dating in the ninth grade. Sometimes Alessio knows me better than I know myself, like how he knows when I'm going to give myself a headache from eating too much chocolate or knows that I left my study notes in the refrigerator when I'm running around panicking that I've misplaced them. We may have had some small disagreements before he went on his trip, but our relationship is solid, so much so that we're going to live together for our second year at school—which reminds me, I have to email our landlady about our deposits. All these facts help push out any doubts, reminding me that I can't go jumping to conclusions without even seeing him.

To my pessimistic sister, I say, "I won't know anything until I talk to him, and neither can you."

I glance back at the cabana, and like saying his name earlier summoned him, there's Dylan, playing beer pong against his friend Ray.

"Take care of Bianca!" I shout over my shoulder before rushing over to Dylan. It feels like Alessio and I have been missing each other all night, and this is my first solid lead.

"Dylan!" I call, and he turns suddenly, the red plastic cup balancing on his head for Ray's trick shot falling, soaking him in beer. Dylan jumps at getting drenched unexpectedly, but he doesn't yell at me for distracting him, instead he laughs, shaking the liquid from his arms.

"Livy! Hey! I haven't seen you in forever." I haven't seen Alessio or any of his friends since they all went to Cuba. I didn't realize how lonely that had made me feel until just now, when Dylan holds out his arms and threatens to pull me into a soaking wet hug.

I squeal, laughing as I dodge him. "You reek of cheap beer."

"I'm covered in cheap beer." He smiles in that easy going way that's so natural for him, the way that makes it almost impossible for girls in loving relationships to ignore how hot he is. The soaked pink t-shirt stretched over his broad shoulders and sculpted biceps isn't helping either, and I force my eyes to his face.

"I got one for you," Dylan starts, trying to be serious as he asks, "How many bones do sharks have?"

I pretend to think for a second, only to make him feel better about not being able to stump me with this trivia question. "Zero."

"Damn, you're right," he says, not looking upset in the slightest. "I thought I'd finally get you with that one."

"You'll have to try harder than using a classic beginner trivia question then."

He laughs, throwing a slick arm over my shoulder. "Well I was shocked when I heard that. I mean they're sharks! How do they not have any bones?" He releases me when I push his arm off me with a laugh, and his black eyes shine. "Be my beer pong partner? Ray's losing anyway."

"Am not!" Ray protests from the other side of the table, but we both ignore him.

"Maybe another time. I'm looking for Alessio. Have you seen him?"

A look crosses Dylan's face, almost like he sobers up for a brief second before recovering. "Alessio?" He casually takes a step away from me and picks up his beer can from the table, though he doesn't make a move to drink from it. "Yeah, he's uh, somewhere, though I haven't seen him recently."

I frown at him. Didn't Maddalena just say he and Alessio were here playing beer pong together only a short while ago?

I glance back at my sisters. Bianca's pouting at a water bottle in her hands, but Maddalena's watching me. She raises a perfectly arched eyebrow, and I can practically hear her cynicism from here.

Dylan tells someone to take over for him at beer pong, and his hand presses against the small of my back as he guides me out of the way before he drops it. "You okay, Liv?"

I study Dylan, considering my options. He's always been a good friend to me. He's known me since the fifth grade when I started at a new school as the weird younger kid who raised her hand for every question and reminded the teacher to assign homework. I've seen him grow through the awkward, gangly limbed stage, to the tall, confident man he is today. Watched as the one small tattoo he got to pay homage to his French-Canadian and Jamaican heritages transformed into the full sleeve he now wears with pride. He may now be Alessio's friend before he's mine, but he met him through me, and if I ask Dylan a question, I trust him to be honest with me.

"What's going on with Alessio?" I ask him directly instead of dancing around it. "He's been avoiding me for weeks. Does he... does he not want to be with me anymore?"

It's hard to get out the last words, and Dylan's eyes soften.

"What? Olivia don't be ridiculous. Alessio is crazy about you. The man literally couldn't even tie his shoes without you."

"Well then, did something happen while you guys were in Cuba?"

Something dark and unreadable passes through his eyes. "If it did, then he'd be the biggest fucking idiot in the world."

That only gives me the tiniest bit of relief, but it's not enough to squash the building worry. "But did something happen?"

His jaw tightens for the briefest of moments before that carefree Dylan smile is back. "Alessio's being a dick to everyone because of his new internship. I told him if he can't handle a summer internship, paid or not, there's no way he's going to make it in the real world. He'll pull his head out of his ass eventually. You didn't do anything wrong."

Those words help lift the weight from my chest, but just to put my worries at rest, I ask, "You swear?"

"Would I ever lie to you?"

I blow out a breath, and with it, all my reservations. "You're right, I'm just overreacting and missing him. Thanks, Dyl."

He looks like he wants to say something more, but before he can, Jenna appears out of nowhere. She wobbles a bit and looks slightly disheveled, but still manages to look model gorgeous like always.

She grabs my arm and says, "Sorry Dylan, I need to steal my cousin."

She doesn't wait for his response before pulling me away to a more private section of her yard, furthest away from one of the speakers.

"What's going on?" I ask. "I haven't seen you all night." Not that that's unusual at one of her parties. She's always off running around having fun. Just earlier she was one of the people dancing on a table when it broke, and I moved all the debris so no one got hurt while she went inside to serve guests edible pink glitter Jello shots.

"You'll never believe who's here!" she says, her icy blue eyes hazy, and I realize that she's drunk.

"Are you dr—"

"Hari is here!" she exclaims in a half whisper, eyes darting around conspiratorially like it's some big secret.

"Hari?"

"Hari Virani," she emphasizes, like it will help me read her mind.

At my blank look, she sighs dramatically. "Come on, Liv. You have to remember Hari. We had every class with him until you transferred. The guy with the sexy British accent." She slaps her hands against her mouth like she said something she wasn't supposed to. "I mean annoying. His annoying British accent. The alcohol has got me mixing up words."

That detail triggers my memory. "Ohh. That Hari." Most of our summer nights at twelve and thirteen years old were spent bundled up in sleeping bags and tents at Jenna's cottage, where she'd rant for hours about how awful Hari was. "And actually, saying it's a British accent is technically imprecise. He wouldn't have a British accent, he'd have a cockney accent or a Yorkshire accent or—"

"He has whatever British accent the hot guys who play princes in those steamy historical romance movies you force me to watch have," she cuts me off, annoyed, this time not catching her implication that the accent is hot. "But that's not important right now. What's important is that he's here at my house, walking around, most likely talking shit about me to all these people, and just waiting for the opportunity to corner me and make me feel stupid and weak." She glares at the open expanse of partygoers as if directing it at the boy she can't even see. "Maybe I should hook up with Cooper. He beat out Hari for the 8th grade soccer captain and I know it still kills Hari inside. If Hari sees that he'll definitely leave me alone all night, and Cooper is hot, he'd be a good distraction. I could use a good distraction."

"You need the distraction, huh?" I ask, and she nods, her short hair bobbing at the movement. I pull the stands that got caught in her shiny lip gloss away from her face. "Maybe you should sober up before making a decision like that? Especially since it's only been a couple months since you broke up with Adam."

Adam, who's one of Alessio and Dylan's best friends. Adam, who Dylan and I grew up with. Adam, who introduced me to Alessio once we started high school. Adam, who Jenna dated for two years before they broke up at her high school graduation.

"Psh, that was like, forever ago," Jenna waves me off.

"But still—"

"Olivia," she interrupts me for the umpteenth time. She puts a hand on my shoulder, and since she's practically a runway model, height and all, she has to duck her head to look in my eyes. "This may be hard for you to understand, because these days you seem to hate all forms of fun unless your boyfriend specifically instructs you to have fun, but people are actually allowed to do whatever they want. I don't need permission from anyone. You know I hate giving up control, unlike you."

My stomach churns at her tone. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She drops her hand and steps back. "It means Alessio says 'jump' and you say 'off which cliff?'. Your life doesn't have to revolve around him, Liv. I bet you spent all night doing whatever he wants and getting him food and making sure he's comfortable, while I just saw him playing strip poker in the living room and having a grand old time." Her words are a punch in the gut, but she doesn't notice. She sticks out her other hand, which is holding a sweating can. "Now, take this vodka cooler—it's mango, your favorite— and try to have some fun at my party."

She shoves the open drink into my chest, and I'm forced to take it. There's a ring of her pink lip gloss on the lip of the can, but it's mostly full.

"Now, I'm going to flirt with Cooper and try to pretend the annoying British guy isn't here. Go have fun," she commands, then she's gone. I stare after her for a few seconds before I head inside.

Jenna is a lot of things: unrelenting, dominating, loyal to a fault, and sometimes intimidating to people who don't know her, but she never says things just to hurt people. Is that what people think of me? That I'm Alessio's pathetic, overly doting girlfriend? That can't be true. That's just drunk Jenna saying things she doesn't entirely mean. She's always been so independent, so used to locking down her emotions, so of course to her, a relationship like mine and Alessio's doesn't make sense. Even when she was dating Adam, they acted like two individuals instead of a couple.

In the living room, there is a game of strip poker going on, and I have to commend the players for sticking with the pink theme all the way down to their undergarments, but Alessio isn't here. Annoyed, I head back into the kitchen. Everyone at this party has seen my boyfriend except me. He's here, and his first thought isn't 'hey let me find my girlfriend who I haven't seen in weeks'? I shouldn't have to run around and beg my own boyfriend to see me instead of playing beer pong or strip poker or whatever else he's doing instead of hanging out with me.

My stomach growls, and I dump Jenna's drink down the sink before throwing the can in the recycling bin and grabbing a pink plastic plate. I hadn't realized how late it's gotten and that I haven't had anything to eat all night. Most of the food has been ravaged already, but there are two slices of pizza left. And they happen to be my favorite: Hawaiian. Maybe my luck is turning around.

Just as I grab a napkin, Kyle bounds into the kitchen, practically shaking the floor.

"Good, more pizza!" Kyle exclaims, grabbing both slices in one large hand. He sees me standing there and pauses. "Oh, Olivia. You didn't want these, right?"

My stomach growls in protest as I say, "No, they're all yours."

"Awesome, they're so good, this is like my twentieth slice," he says before shoving them both in his mouth practically in one go as I set my sad, empty plate back down.

I should just go home and call it a night. It's well past midnight, but it's not too late to crawl into bed with a pack of mini chocolate cupcakes and finish my book about coding and programming. I'd much rather be doing that than be here, annoyed, alone, and hungry. If Alessio doesn't want to see me, fine. I tried all night, and he couldn't bother to seek me out or answer his phone, so I'm not going to waste more time trying to chase him down.

I text my sisters to let them know I'm ordering an Uber in case they want to come home with me, but before I order it, my phone pings with a text.

It's Alessio. Finally.

Got to Jenna's late and got wayyyyy too drunk trying to make up time. Took an Uber home. Didn't want you to see me like this. I'm sorry.

Pissed, I exit out of the conversation without replying and confirm my own Uber to take me home.