Normally, I’d rather roll down a mountainside covered in broken glass and sticky traps than create conflict, but the longer this goes on, the harder it’s going to be to get out of our lie.
“That’s amazing.” My voice lifts two and half octaves. “But I have to tell you—”
“Harriet.” And there he is again, at my side with arms coming around me from behind and his chin resting atop my head, and now, when Think of your m*****f****** happy place flashes through my mind, all I can think is, If only I were still on Sober Ray’s death trap airplane!
“That’s not,” Wyn goes on, “the end of the announcement.”
Again Kimmy claps her hands together on a gasp.
“Still not pregnant,” Sabrina says.
Kimmy sighs.
Parth’s beaming with his very distinct I’ve got an amazing surprise for you smile. The one that preceded the New Orleans–themed birthday he threw for Cleo, or the moment he presented me with the stethoscope he’d gotten engraved as a med school graduation present.
He and Sabrina share a knowing smirk.
“Oh, come on,” Cleo says.
Kimmy throws two Takis at Sabrina’s head.
She swats them away. “Fine, fine! Tell them.”
“We’re getting married,” Parth says.
Confused looks are exchanged throughout the room.
“That’s . . . usually what follows an engagement,” Cleo says.
“No, I mean on Saturday,” he clarifies. “We’re getting married. Here, with the six of us. Nothing fancy. Literally a little ceremony down on the dock, with all our best friends.”
My whole body goes icy cold, then blisteringly hot. My face and hands are numb.
Wyn releases his hold on me again, and when my gaze slices up toward his, I see my own misery reflected on his face.
We’re trapped here.
My ears ring, my friends’ voices becoming a muffled warble. A blue Estelle champagne flute is forced into my tingling fingers for a toast, and my hearing clears enough to catch Parth crying, “To everlasting love!”
And Sabrina adding, “And our best friends forever! There’s no other way we’d want to spend this last week at the cottage.”
GO TO YOUR G.D. HAPPY PLACE, HARRIET, I think, followed by, NO, NOT THAT ONE.
Too late.
4
HAPPY PLACE
MATTINGLY, VERMONT
A STREET DOWNTOWN lined in old redbrick buildings. An apartment over the Maple Bar, our favorite coffee shop, for our junior year. Cleo and I have met our new roommate Parth only once, but Sabrina had a class on international law with him last spring, and when he told her rooms were opening up in his place, we jumped.
He’s a year ahead of us, a senior, and two of his roommates have already graduated, while the third, a business major, is spending the fall semester abroad in Australia. I’ll take his room, because in the spring I’m doing a term in London. The other roommate and I can easily switch places over winter break.
Mattingly’s a small school, so even though we don’t know Parth Nayak, we know his reputation: the Party King of Paxton Avenue. Called such partly because he throws amazing themed parties but also because he has a habit of showing up at other people’s parties with top-shelf liquor, a dozen beautiful friends, and an incredible playlist. He is a Mattingly legend.
And living with him is great. Though he and Sabrina—both natural leaders—occasionally butt heads. The real Parth is better than the myth. It’s not just that he’s fun. He loves people. Loves throwing them parties, picking out perfect gifts, making introductions between people he thinks should meet, finding the quietest person in the room and bringing them into the thick of things. The world has never felt so kind, so positive. Like everyone is a potential friend, with something fascinating and brilliant to offer.
By the time I leave for London, I almost wish I were staying.
The city is gorgeous, of course, all that old stone and ivy blending seamlessly into sleek steel and glass. And thanks to the last semester, I’m more prepared than ever to socialize with strangers. Most nights, at least a handful of people from the study-abroad program go out for pints in one of Westminster’s endless supply of pubs, or grab crispy fish-and-chips wrapped in newspaper and eat it as we walk along the Thames. On weekends, there are champagne picnics in sprawling gardens and day trips to art galleries, hours of browsing as many iconic London bookshops as possible—Foyles and Daunt Books and a whole slew of others on Cecil Court.
As time wears on, people couple off into friendships and relationships. That’s how I escape the constant pining for my friends and our corner apartment overlooking Mattingly’s redbrick downtown: I start spending more and more time with another American, named Hudson, and in those hours when we’re studying—or not studying—I stop, if only for a while, imagining the seasons passing outside Parth, Cleo, Sabrina, and Mystery Roommate’s bay window, the heaps of snow melting away to reveal a quilt of springy pale green and bursts of trout lily, wild geranium, bishop’s-cap.
The closer summer gets, though, the less of a distraction Hudson offers. Partly because we’re both obsessively studying for exams, and partly because the thing between us—this romance of necessity—is approaching its sell-by date, and we both know it.
My parents text me roughly five hundred times more than usual as my flight home nears.
Can’t wait to hear all about the London program in a few weeks, Dad says.
Mom writes, The ladies at Dr. Sherburg’s office want to take you out to lunch while you’re here. Cindy’s son is considering Mattingly.
Dad says, Saved a ten-part documentary on dinosaurs.
Mom says, Think you’ll have time to help me get the yard cleaned up? It’s a disaster, and I’ve been so swamped.
I’d hoped to have a quick trip to see them before flying back to Vermont, but they’re so excited. I end up spending two months counting down the seconds in Indiana, and then fly directly to Maine to meet my friends for Lobster Fest.
My flight gets in late. It’s already dark, the heat of the day long since replaced by a cold, damp wind. There are a couple of cars idling in the lot, headlights off, and it takes me a second to find the cherry-red sports car. Sabrina specifically got her driver’s license so we could cruise around in it this summer.
But it’s not Sabrina standing against the hood, face illuminated by the glow of a cell phone. He looks up. A square jaw, narrow waist, messy golden hair pushed up off his forehead except for one lock that falls across his brow the second our eyes meet.
“Harriet?” His voice is velvety. It sends a zing of surprise down my spine, like a zipper undone.
I’ve seen him in pictures of my friends over the last semester, and before that, on campus, but always from a distance, always on the move. This close, something about him seems different. Less handsome, maybe, but more striking. His eyes look paler in the cell phone’s glow. There are premature crow’s-feet forming at their corners. He looks like he’s mostly made out of granite, except for his mouth, which is pure quicksand. Soft, full, one side of his Cupid’s bow noticeably higher.
“A whole semester apart,” I say, “and you look exactly the same, Sabrina.”