Cleo turns away, hiking up the shore toward the gnarled woods, and Sabrina looks at Kimmy.
She shakes her head. “She’s under a lot of pressure right now. Give her a break.”
It’s as close to an admonishment as I’ve ever heard Kimmy give, and she doesn’t wait around for Sabrina’s reply before striding up the path after Cleo.
Sabrina turns away, looking out at the water, shoulders square and arms folded. She gives one firm shake of her head on a laugh that rides the line between exhausted and hurt.
“Maybe we should eat,” I suggest.
“Great idea,” Parth chimes in, clearly as eager as I am to smooth things over.
“I’ll go grab the picnic basket,” I call, already picking my way back over the kelp-strewn rocks toward the docked boat. I kick off my sandals and hop in.
“What was that about?” comes Wyn’s voice.
I turn to find him walking up the dock. I look back toward the others. Sabrina and Parth are having an animated conversation on the shore, and Cleo and Kimmy are ambling through the woods, partially obscured by twisted branches of thick dark pine needles and yellow-green leaves.
“From what I’ve gathered,” I say, looking away before his closeness can hit my bloodstream, “Sabrina’s jockeying for an invitation to the farm, and Cleo’s annoyed that she’s jockeying.”
“And Kimmy?” Wyn asks.
“Annoyed with Sabrina for being annoyed with Cleo.”
The boat rocks under my feet as he steps down. “So where do we fit into this?”
“I don’t know, I guess I could be annoyed with Kimmy about being annoyed, and then that could potentially annoy you?”
“You never annoy me,” he says.
I look up, catch him watching me.
My laugh is breathless, woozy. “We both know that’s not true.”
He studies me for a second, brow furrowed. “Frustrate, maybe. Not annoy.”
“What’s the difference?” I ask.
His eyes drop to my legs and back up. “When you’re annoyed, you don’t want to be around a person.” His chin shifts to the left, not quite a shake of his head. “I always want to be around you.”
I want to call him out, to trot out those key moments from our history that decidedly disprove this. But I can’t. I can remember what the arcuate fasciculus does for the human brain but not exactly how to use it to make words.
“Here,” he says, reaching for the cooler. “I can get that.”
“So can I,” I say, lifting it against my shins.
“Harriet.”
I shuffle sideways.
He laughs. “So we’re back to this?”
“Back to what?” I say.
His brow scrunches against the sun, his full upper lip inching up like there’s a string tied to his Cupid’s bow. “Fighting about every tiny thing.”
“Is this fighting?” I say.
“Harriet,” he says. “Compared to the rest of our relationship, this is a brawl.”
I glance down the shore. Parth has his arm around Sabrina and they’re climbing the rotting wooden steps from the beach to the forested hill, catching up with Kimmy and Cleo now. I fight an urge to sprint after them, to take up the role of buffer or referee.
“Don’t,” Wyn says gently.
I look back at him, my low back aching. “Don’t what?”
“Go after them,” he says, drifting closer.
I swallow. “Why not?”
He pulls the cooler out of my hands and sets it on the bench. “Because we’re talking.”
“You mean brawling,” I say.
His lips twitch.
“Shouldn’t we be done fighting,” I say, “now that we’re broken up?”
The corners of his mouth twist downward now. “Harriet, we never fought when we were together. If we had . . .”
He trails off, doesn’t land that final blow. I feel it all the same, a knife twist in my heart.
From the shore, an air horn blasts, three times in rapid succession.
Neither of us moves, or even looks away. The wanting is palpable.
“Shit,” Wyn says, shaking his head. “I don’t like not touching you.”
I look away. Now my heart feels like one giant blister, too tender, too delicate. If only he’d felt that way sooner. If only I had any clue what went wrong, how I lost him. If only I believed there were some way to fix it. But he’s not the only one who’s done things he can’t take back. And revisiting what’s happened will only make the pain worse.
The air horn blows again. I clear my throat. “You get the cooler, and I’ll grab the picnic basket.”
He nods for several seconds, then hoists the ice chest into his arms and turns away.
23
UNHAPPY PLACE
AN HOUR OUTSIDE INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
A QUIET BI-LEVEL at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. A place where everything is familiar but nothing belongs to me. Trees standing too still in the stiff humidity. Mosquitoes buzzing, moths gathering around the streetlights, the screech of cicadas emanating from the woods.
I managed to put this off for a long time, but I couldn’t anymore. It meant too much to him.
At the doorstep, I ask, “What if we leave? We can pretend our flight got delayed.”
“Delayed for what?” Wyn says. “It’s June.”
“Too sunny,” I say. “The pilots couldn’t see with all that light.”
He cradles my face in his hands, his brow knitting. “I’m great with parents, Harriet. Talking to old people is one of my very few God-given skills.”
I’m too anxious to call out the self-deprecation. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”
His fingers thread into my hair. “If you want to run, we can run. But I’m not scared.”
“I’m making them seem terrible,” I whisper, “and they’re not. I don’t know why I get so anxious just being here.”
His mouth nestles into my temple. “I’m here too. I’ve got you.”
The words dissolve into my skin, fast-acting relief. “Just . . . please still like me after this.”
He draws back, looks down the plane of his face at me. “Are you planning to stab me or something?”
“Only if there’s no better way to put you out of your misery.”
“Harriet.” His mouth moves to the peak of one of my eyebrows and then to the other. “If it was possible to stop loving you, I would’ve managed it in that first year of desperately trying to. I’m here. For good.”
“Well, if I’d known you needed help getting over me, I would’ve brought you to Indiana much sooner.”
Holding my gaze, he reaches one hand over my shoulder and rings the doorbell.
My parents answer the door looking like a tired Norman Rockwell painting. Mom’s wearing an apron, and Dad’s got a David Baldacci book in hand, an immediate confirmation that they were in separate rooms until three seconds ago.
They take turns stiffly shaking Wyn’s hand, and despite having braced myself for an awkward reception, I’m still embarrassed by the stark contrast between a weekend with the Connors and a Kilpatrick family welcome.
After several seconds in the doorway, I ask, “Did Eloise make it?”