GROW UP GINGER

New Venice always looked like a postcard.

The kind people keep — not because it's the most beautiful place they've ever been, but because it photographs as safety. Cobblestones golden in afternoon light. Pastel shopfronts. Café awnings striped in colors someone chose to seem cheerful. A town that has decided, at the level of architecture, that nothing bad could happen here.

I used to believe it.

I was seventeen years old, one month shy of eighteen, staying at my cousin Megan's house for the summer before university. My aunt had gone on vacation with my mom that morning, leaving us the house, a fridge full of food, and the kind of weekend that felt like it had been engineered for trouble.

* * *

I woke up to the sound of her laughing at something on the phone.

Megan was propped against the headboard in her pajamas, hair piled on top of her head, talking over Bonnie and Olivia in three-way speakerphone the way she always did — like she could hear every conversation happening at once and choose which one to respond to.

"Morning, Meg."

"Hold on a second, girls." She put her hand over the speaker. "Morning, sleepyhead. Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah. What time is it?"

"Almost noon. We should get breakfast."

I yawned and let myself, for a moment, just exist in the warmth of her room. Sunlight came in sideways through the curtains. The air smelled like cheese bread from the kitchen.

"Who are you talking to?"

"Bonnie and Olivia. They're coming over tonight." Megan's eyes went bright. "We're going out."

"Out where?"

She smiled in the way she smiles when she already knows what I'm going to say. "A club party."

"Megan. I'm seventeen."

"Your birthday is next month."

"That's not how time works."

"I have a friend who can help with that." She grinned. "It'll be fun. And you can't wear pyjamas."

"I don't have anything to wear."

"That's what downtown is for." She turned back to the phone. "Sorry, girls. Anna just woke up. Yeah, she's coming with us tonight."

A long, excited noise came through the speaker that I couldn't quite parse. Olivia's voice, probably.

We ate at the counter, leaning against it, laughing about nothing. Cheese bread and fried sprinkle biscuits — she always remembered. The kind of morning you only recognize as good after you know what came after it.

Megan made me feel safe.

I want that on the record.

* * *

The dress shop was small and warm, full of the particular light that boutiques cultivate — soft, flattering, specifically designed to make you believe you could be someone slightly better than yourself in the right outfit. Bonnie and Olivia had descended on it with the confidence of regulars. I trailed behind, holding things up to myself in the mirror and putting them back.

Through the shop window, I caught a glimpse of something: a tall, blond man crossing the street outside. For a moment, everything around me slowed. He moved with a relaxed purpose, hands in his pockets, not looking at anything in particular. I had just enough time to notice him before he was gone.

I stepped outside to look. The street was empty.

"Who are you looking for?" Bonnie called from inside.

I came back in. "Nobody. I thought I saw someone."

Megan was very focused on a skirt she was holding. I decided not to ask.

* * *

Evening settled over the town and the four of us gathered in Megan's living room, clothes and accessories spread across every surface, the air full of debate and laughter. I held up a simple dress.

"Am I doing this right?"

"You're underdressed," Bonnie said immediately. "First impressions matter."

"I'm not trying to make an impression. I'm trying to survive a party."

Megan appeared behind me in the mirror with a dress that was, objectively, too much dress. "Try this. You might even meet someone interesting."

"That's not why I came."

"It never is." She held it out until I took it.

Outside, the sky had gone purple and the town had shifted into its evening register — quieter, warmer, full of the particular promise of a night that doesn't know yet what it will become.

* * *