Chapter 29 Lili
Twenty-Nine
Lili
By the time I get home, I feel wrung out. I step listlessly up the front steps and into the house. I’ve cried harder in my
life, much harder, but never from a place of shame.
Guilty tears burn far more bitterly than grieving ones.
I did this to myself. And worse, I did it to someone else too. Somewhere on this island I’d so desperately wanted to come
back to, there is a girl crying because of hurt I knowingly inflicted upon her.
Because I did know. With every step I took toward Wren in that back room, I knew I was walking closer to something that wasn’t
mine, no matter how much I wanted it to be.
I can’t be sure if he’d been fighting within himself during those final few seconds of our almost kiss. Maybe he would fully
have let me go in another heartbeat, all on his own. Maybe he would have realized that he didn’t want to throw away years
with Eryn for a fleeting moment with me. Maybe the feelings for me he thought he was struggling with paled in comparison to
what he has with her.
And maybe he would have let me down gently, apologized for leading me on because of his temporarily confused thoughts.
Maybe I’d have been the one to run off while he and Eryn went on to happily ever after.
Or maybe I’m just a worse person than I thought, because I’m fantasizing about a reality where I can escape my guilt and become
the victim, when the truth is I’m anything but.
I close the door behind me with a bang and I’m thankful that the house remains quiet. Goldie must still be at Mrs. Mayhew’s
and Mom must be in her room. All I want right now is to crawl back into my bed and hide from the mess I made at the museum
and the twisted thoughts in my own mind.
But I don’t make it halfway up the stairs before Mom steps into view at the top and I freeze because I’d swear, based on the
look on her face, that she knows exactly what happened today.
“Mom?”
She studies me for a second without any of her usual warmth, then turns her back to me, saying, “Come into my room, Lili.
Now.”
There’s no way she knows. How could she? But my heart isn’t listening to logic, and it hammers like a cannon in my chest with
every step I take after her.
She’s staring out the window in her bedroom, so small that it fits only a twin bed and a tiny reading chair. I linger half
in, half out of the doorway until she gestures to me to sit on the bed. The frame squeaks when I sit, and dread begins to
inch up my legs, like quicksand I can’t escape. Somehow, she knows.
“What you did today was hurtful in more ways than you know.”
The tears that I thought I’d used up on my bike ride home replenish in an instant. “I know.”
“Do you?” She finally turns to face me. “Because I just spent the last hour comforting a girl who doesn’t understand why you keep choosing everyone else over her.”
My thoughts are so tear soaked and bitter that I don’t understand her at first, and I almost ask her why Eryn came here before
realizing she’s talking about my sister.
“Goldie?” I’m so relieved that she doesn’t know about the actual horrible thing I did that day that I flop back on the bed.
“I went with her to Mrs. Mayhew’s like I promised, but something came up and I couldn’t stay as long as she wanted. I told
her I’d make it up to her, and I will. I do want to see everything.” But while my brain is pulled in another direction, for
once, Kezia Gardner is going to have to wait.
“Hey!” Mom’s uncharacteristically sharp voice has me sitting back up in a second. “To you it may seem like no big deal, but
she is ten years old and you are her world, and the fact that you keep showing her how unimportant she is in yours is crushing
her.” Mom spins away, pushing her hair from her face before turning back to me again. “I had these conversations for years
with your dad about you, and I can’t believe I have to do this again with you because you’re now the one who refuses to see
that there is a little person who just wants to be with you.”
I am struck silent by the mention of Dad.
“All summer you were the only thing she’s talked about. ‘Wait till Lili and I do this’ or ‘Wait till I show Lili that.’ Only
you were never here.” She exhales audibly before adding, “If you only knew how little she wanted, how small a thing from you
could have made her happy.” She shakes her head. “She was so sure she’d found something that you couldn’t say no to, and more
than that, that there was finally something she could do with you.”
I say nothing. I can’t find my voice, knowing that I’ve hurt yet another person I care about and I didn’t even notice.
Mom doesn’t know how low I am in that moment and continues to lay into me.
“I’ve let you run off to that museum since the day we got off the ferry because I trusted you to find a balance.” She sits
beside me and lifts her hand to push my slightly sweat-damp bangs back to better see my face. “Lili. You are so much like
your dad that sometimes it scares me. Oh, there’s a lot of good you got from him,” she adds when I close my eyes. “You’ve
got his passion, his determination, and his resilience.” She brushes my hair back again, the soft gesture tempering the sting
to come. “But you’ve also got his single-mindedness, which can make you neglectful and even selfish at times.”
My chin quivers.
“Honey, I am not saying any of this to make you cry, but I need you to understand that this situation with Goldie is important
and could have lasting effects on your relationship with her. So.” She lightly slaps her hands to her knees. “Here’s how things
are going to go, starting tomorrow. You may only volunteer at the museum three days a week; the other four you spend with
me and Goldie. I’m fine if you want to go out with Wren or your other friends a couple of nights a week too. But maybe invite
Goldie sometimes too?” She nudges my shoulder when I don’t so much as lift my head. “Lili?”
I can’t help it. I start to cry, big, body-racking sobs.
And the whole thing just pours out of me, the early clash between me and Wren, the totally uninvited attraction that grew into something more, something that I thought was only dangerous to me because it was obviously one-sided, until maybe it wasn’t, and then the horrible, awful almost kiss when Eryn walked in.
I’m not even sure if she hears everything through my tears, but she must catch enough because she hugs me close.
“And she was your friend too, not just his girlfriend?”
I nod miserably. “She’s the only person who’s treated me like she liked me from the moment she met me.” I pull away from Mom’s
embrace; as good as it feels to be comforted, I know I don’t deserve it. “And I’m sorry about Goldie too. Honestly, I didn’t
even realize that I was hurting her. I will fix it, no matter what it takes, I will.” My throat tries to squeeze shut again.
“But I don’t know what to do about Wren and Eryn.”
Mom doesn’t try to hug me again. “I don’t think there’s an easy answer.”
“I feel horrible for hurting her, but I also feel horrible because I don’t feel as horrible as I know I should.”
“Because you like Wren?”
I can’t face the question, so I ask one of my own. “Did you ever like a guy with a girlfriend?”
She nods. “More than once.”
“And did you ever . . . ?”
She stares at me with sympathy on her face. “Lili. I think you are going to have to ask yourself some hard questions here.
What do you want after today? Eryn’s friendship, or as much of it as she can give you now? Or Wren? Because I don’t know if
it’s possible to have both.”
I genuinely like Eryn and don’t want to lose her friendship. And Wren is . . . I still don’t know. After today, could he still have feelings for me? If given the choice, would he choose me over her? Would I want that, knowing what it would mean to Eryn?
Do I even deserve to be chosen?
I feel like crying all over again.
Mom stands up. “It’s hard stuff, making mistakes and then having to deal with the consequences. And this was a big mistake.”
“I know.”
“But I’m telling you now, don’t start running from them, because that is a hard habit to break. Your dad did that, and I have
to believe he’d tell you the same thing right now if he could.”
I flinch slightly, not liking the full picture that all my inherited tendencies from him are making. Because the truth is,
I know he wasn’t a perfect man. Like with my feelings for Wren, I know there are memories of Dad that I’ve been trying to
push away.
Like getting a postcard in the mail when I would have given anything to hear his voice.
Like the fact that he stayed here and never let me visit, no matter how many times I asked.
Like the fact that he died before telling us that he was even sick, forever robbing me of the chance to say goodbye or ask
him if I could have done something, anything, to make the last seven years different.
Mom turns to leave, but I call her back.
“I’m like you too, aren’t I? A little?”
She smiles then, warm like sunshine. “I certainly hope so, because I’d love to take at least some of the credit.”
She leaves me then, a mix of regret and hope and fear slumped on her bed, but she’s right about one thing, at least. I’m not
going to run.
Right now, a huge part of me wishes I’d never come back to Nantucket. I’d have never met Wren or hurt Eryn, and I’d have never gotten so consumed with finishing Dad’s research into Kezia and would have been there for Goldie without even having to try.
I know I’ll have to find a way to apologize to Eryn even if she can’t forgive me, but I can’t think about Wren anymore right
now. Goldie is where I need to start. I still have a chance to do something good before summer ends.