Sabrina blinks and scans us.
“It’s not that,” I say. “It’s just . . . really sudden.”
“We’ve been talking about this for a decade,” she says.
“And we’ve never decided what it would even be,” Wyn says.
“Who cares what it is?” Sabrina says. “It’s about the bond.”
“Maybe next time,” I suggest. “We can pick a design tonight, and then everyone has some time to get used to it, and then—”
“I’ve already put a deposit down,” she says. “I got the shop to stay open for us.”
Cleo rubs the spot between her brows. “Sab. You should have asked us before you did that. You can’t assume we’ll go along with whatever you want.”
“What the hell does that mean, Cleo,” Sabrina says, hurt splashed across her face.
“She just means this is a big, permanent decision,” I say. “We all need a little time to commit to this kind of thing.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Cleo says calmly. “I meant what I said. That she can’t just decide how things should be between all of us and then bulldoze all of us to get her way.”
“She’s not bulldozing anyone,” Parth says, stepping in toward Sabrina. “She’s doing all of this for you all. This whole trip was for you. All of it.”
“If it’s for us,” Cleo says, “then you’ll respect my decision not to do something I’m uncomfortable with.”
“You have, like, nineteen separate tattoos,” Sabrina says. “What’s so uncomfortable about this one?”
“Can we please drop this?” Cleo says, averting her gaze.
“Sure,” Sabrina says. “I’ll drop it. I’ll drop the fact that one of my best friends keeps canceling plans and the other will barely text me back, and my dad’s selling the only place that’s ever felt anything like home to me, and that no one except me seems to give a fuck that we’re growing apart.”
She turns back toward where we left the car.
“I’ll talk to her,” I tell the others, chasing her down the sidewalk. When I catch up, I reach for her wrist. “Sabrina, wait.”
She tries to keep moving, forcing me to run to keep my hand on her.
“We all care about this friendship,” I say. “It’s just—”
She spins back, eyes damp. “Sudden?”
My heart plummets toward my feet. I don’t understand why she’s so hurt, but it’s obvious she is. Sabrina never cries.
But she’s crying now. Full-fledged tears streaming down her face, and I need to fix this, to make her understand this isn’t about her.
And in this moment, the last moment I have to make a decision, I see no other way.
“It’s not about our friendship,” I say.
“Of course it is,” Sabrina says. “You’re checked out, and Cleo doesn’t want to spend any real—”
“It’s about Wyn,” I say, before this conversation can go any further off the tracks.
She stares at me, dark eyes glassy, hair frizzed with humidity.
“I can’t get a matching tattoo with him, Sabrina. We’re not even together anymore.”
Her voice comes out small, cracking: “But it seemed like you guys were working things out.”
I shake my head, trying to untangle what she’s just said. “What?”
“This week,” she goes on. “It seemed like you were back together.”
Back together?
How could it seem like we were back together . . . to someone who didn’t know we’d broken up?
Unless, of course, she did know.
31
REAL LIFE
Friday
“YOU KNEW?” I say.
She doesn’t reply.
“Sabrina,” I snap.
She throws her arms out to her sides. “Of course I knew! Not that I heard it from you. Not like my best friends tell me a single thing about their lives these days.”
It’s like missing the top step, only to realize the stairs lead directly to the edge of a cliff.
I get out, “How?”
“Parth visited Wyn a few weeks ago.”
The harbor starts to swirl around me. “Did he . . . tell him?”
“No.” She crosses her arms. “Wyn went to the bathroom, and Parth was going to send you a picture of himself or something from Wyn’s phone. Only when he opened your text thread, there was nothing new for months. And I guess Wyn had this whole long message drafted, apologizing for how things ended.”
“So he read it,” I say, the words bitter on the back of my tongue.
“It wasn’t intentional,” Sabrina says. “And not the whole thing. But enough to know what happened.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I say.
“Me? You’re the one who hid this, Harry. For months you’ve told me almost nothing about your life, and meanwhile Cleo cancels every set of plans she makes, and Wyn wasn’t even going to come this week until I begged, and—”
“Wait.” I close my eyes, shake my head.
It can’t be.
It has to be.
“That’s what this is all about?” I open my eyes, lungs compressing. “This whole trip?”
Sabrina’s shoulders square, her chin rising.
I think of all the moments Sabrina shoved Wyn and me together. I think of all the times she weaseled out of even a few minutes alone with me. Even on the drive from the airport, she had the music blasting and windows down so that even if I’d wanted to tell her about Wyn, she could plausibly deny hearing it.
The anger floods me now. Anger like I’ve never felt. “This trip down memory lane? The bathroom with no fucking door? This was all—all some game to you?”
“A game?” she says. “Harriet, we were trying to help you. You and Wyn belong together.”
“How could you put us through all of this?” My vocal cords are shivering from anger.
Sabrina’s eyes flare, but her mouth jams shut.
“You made us bend over backward all week. You tortured us,” I say. “How could you all do this?”
“We didn’t know,” comes a quiet voice.
Cleo has followed us, the light from the Hound & Thistle limning her in red gold. “Didn’t know you and Wyn broke up,” she says. “Didn’t know this whole week was a sham.”
“It’s not a sham,” Sabrina says. “We were helping them.”
“Helping us do what?” I say raggedly.
“Get back together!” she replies.
“If we wanted to be together,” I say, “we’d be together!”
“Oh, please,” she says. “You don’t know what you want, Harriet! You’re losing the love of your life because you’re too indecisive to just pick a wedding date and a venue.”
White-hot hurt blazes out from my chest. “We’re not together because we don’t want to be, Sabrina! Because we can’t make each other happy, no matter how badly we want to.”
“Really?” she says. “Because Parth saw what Wyn wrote, and it sure sounds like, once again, you sat there and let your life happen to you instead of fighting for what you want.”