Page 100 of The Summer Show

I pushed through the door, where I encountered my first obstacle: security.

“You cannot go in,” the security guard told me.

“But I have to.”

He folded his arms and puffed himself up to appear bigger. “No.”

You don’t just tell someone who works in education that they can’t do something. Educators push the growth mindset every day. Can’t and impossible are for other people’s toolboxes. The fact that he was telling me I couldn’t enter the amphitheater only meant that I couldn’t enter through this door, specifically.

That’s how I chose to interpret his words. My mind was already working on other solutions.

I pivoted and jogged back out to the temporary entrance built by the crew. With the steroids in charge of my breathing, jogging was a breeze. Hard to believe that a little over twenty-four hours ago, I was gasping into a nebulizer mask.

Outside again, I called Ana as I walked around the structure, hunting for a way in. “Where did Nick go today? I know he went somewhere,” I said as soon as she answered.

There was a pause. “Kathleeeeeeen,” she said, dragging my name out. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“Why? Because the why really matters right now.”

She zeroed in on the anxiety in my voice. “What’s wrong.”

“My best friend won’t tell me what’s going on.”

“That’s a good point, dang it. Okay.” She sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell you. He took your mom to the airport in Athens. He wanted her to stay good and gone, so he waited until she boarded her flight and the plane left with her on it.”

“But …” —my brain wrestled with itself— “… why?”

“Because the big doofus is crazy about you! When you were in the hospital … I’ve never seen him that distraught about anyone or anything, and I remember when Thanos loosened all the wheels on Nick’s skateboard and the whole thing fell apart while he was skating down the hill near the monastery. He howled when Thanos’s grandfather plucked all the gravel out of his butt—and by the way, I never told you that story, okay?”

“Already forgotten.”

Totally not forgotten.

“He’s in love with you, Kath. Completely smitten. My brother would do anything for you, including making sure your crappy mother got the heck out of Greece.”

“That makes two of us,” I said. “Okay, I’m about to something completely crazy, because Nick is currently doing something equally crazy and being a giant turdhead about it.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Probably, but that’s not about to slow me down.”

“Kath—”

I ended the call before she could protest, ask questions, or interrogate me about the status of my sanity. For the record, I’d never been more sane.

And also I’d found a way in.

* * *

Actually, it was just the original entrance, and the security guard had gone to the bathroom. His bladder emergency was my perfect opportunity.

I pushed down the door handle and slipped through as soon as a me-sized gap appeared.

Nobody noticed that I was suddenly in the amphitheater, where I was not supposed to be. Probably because every eye in the place was focused on the burning tower rising up from the center.

That wasn’t the surprising part. I had expected fire, and figured heights would be involved, seeing as how it was the one thing that terrified Nick in his recent state of mind. No, the shocking part was that the crew had somehow combined my fears and Nick’s, and the result was a tower made of books.

Logic dictated that the whole thing couldn’t be books all the way to the center, because otherwise fire would have brought the structure crashing to the ground before now. But from the outside it appeared to be all books, rising up into the night sky.