Happy Place(6)

“Of course gorgeous,” Parth says, “but I was going to say hungry. You want a sandwich or something, Har?”

“Takis?” Kimmy holds the shiny purple bag out in my direction.

“I’m good!” my mouth says.

You are VERY bad, actually, my brain argues.

Cleo frowns. “You sure? You do look sort of peaked.”

Sabrina ducks her head. “They’re right, Har. You’re, like . . . milk colored. You okay?”

No, actually I feel like I’m going to puke and pass out, and I’m not sure in which order, and having everyone’s undivided attention and worry on me is making things a hundred times worse, while the feeling of his undivided attention is pure torture.

“I’m fine!” I say.

Just furiously wishing I’d opted to put on a bra before my flight, or styled my hair, or maybe even just spilled a bit less mustard down my boobs whilst eating that airport hot dog.

Oh god. He’s not supposed to be here!

The next time I saw him, I was supposed to be in a sexy Reformation dress with a hot new boyfriend and a full face of makeup. (In this fantasy, I’d also learned how to apply a full face of makeup.) Most importantly, I was supposed to have no perceivable reaction to him.

Shit, shit, shit. As badly as I’ve wanted to avoid imploding our friend group over the past few months since the breakup, I now just as badly need to get the truth out so I can get away from him.

“There’s something I need—”

“Honey.” Wyn’s back at my side, his hands catching my waist as if in preparation to throw me over his shoulder and abscond if necessary. “Sabrina and Parth have something to tell you,” he says pointedly. “To tell everyone.”

My skin tingles under his grip. I’m suddenly convinced I’m not wearing any shorts, but nope, I can just magically feel his calloused fingers through the denim.

When I try to extricate myself, his fingertips sink into the curves of my hips. Don’t move, his eyes warn.

Bite me, I try to make mine reply.

The right peak of his lips twitches irritably.

Sabrina is getting a bottle of champagne out of the stainless steel and glass refrigerator, but she doesn’t look celebratory. She looks downright melancholy.

Parth goes to stand behind her, setting his hands on her shoulders. “We have a couple of announcements,” he says. “And Wyn already knows, because, well, we had to give him the full picture so he understood why it was so essential that he’s here this week. That all of us are.”

“Oh my god!” Kimmy half screams, instantly ecstatic. “Are you two having a—”

“Oh god, no!” Sabrina says. “No. No! Definitely not. It’s—it’s the house.” She pauses for a breath, then swallows and lifts her chin. “Dad’s selling it. Next month.”

The kitchen goes pin-drop silent. Not comfortable quiet, shocked quiet.

Cleo wilts onto a stool at the counter. Wyn’s hands scrape clear of me, and he immediately puts several feet of distance between us, no longer considering me at risk of confessing, apparently.

I stand there, an astronaut untethered from her spaceship, drifting into nothingness.

I’ve already lost the person I expected to marry. I’ve already moved across the country from all my best friends. And now this house—our house, this pocket universe where we always belong, where no matter what else is happening, we’re safe and happy—that’s going away too.

All the panic I felt at finding myself trapped here with Wyn is instantly eclipsed by this new dread.

Our house.

Where, the summer after sophomore year, Cleo, Sabrina, and I slept in a row of mattresses we’d dragged to the middle of the living room floor and dubbed “super bed,” staying up most nights talking and laughing until the first rays of sunrise spilled in from the patio doors.

Where Cleo whispered, as if it were a secret or a prayer, I’ve never had friends like this, and Sabrina and I nodded solemnly, the three of us holding hands until we drifted off.

The firepit out back where, in lieu of a blood pact (which struck me as dangerously unsanitary), the three of us had burned the same spot on our pointer fingers against the hot metal, then made ourselves laugh until we cried, concocting increasingly ridiculous scenarios where we could use our fingerprint scars to frame one another for various heists.

The wooden staircase on which Parth once orchestrated an elaborate cardboard luge race for us, and the little wood-paneled library in front of whose hearth Cleo first told us about a girl named Kimmy. The nail that stuck up from the pier where, a year later, Kimmy cut her foot open, and the rickety staircase Wyn had carried her up afterward while she demanded the rest of us chuck grapes at her open mouth, fan her with invisible palm fronds.

And Wyn.

The first time I kissed him.

The first time I touched him, period. Here.

This house is all that’s left of us.

“This will be our last trip.” Sabrina tugs her scarf from her head and tosses the slip of silk across the counter. “Our last trip here, anyway.”

The words hang in the air. I wonder if the others are also scrambling for a solution, like maybe if we pass around a hat and combine our spare change, we’ll find six million dollars to buy a vacation home.

“Can’t you—” Kimmy begins.