Lucy
Even though I can’t leave our property, I walk as far as I can get to the very edge of the cliff on our backyard, where Dad and Gil installed a bench for what they call “alone together time.” I think it’s where they secretly come to vape.
I slump down, close my eyes, and listen to the waves lapping against the rocks.
Here, I can forget about everything—about Erica, about Penn, about Ethan.
I can exist in a body and feel the breeze on my skin, smell the brackish mussels in the sand, press my feet into the warm pebbles, remember that I am here. I am whole.
I flick my eyes open and look up at the seagulls flapping their wings against the bright blue sky. Remember this, I tell myself. Remember how beautiful this place is.
“I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
I lift my head to see Ethan approaching, wearing running shorts, his chest bare, and a white tank top tucked into his waistband. He’s drenched in sweat, his curls damp against his forehead.
“Looks like someone was allowed to go on a run.”
“Nah, only on the treadmill,” he says. “But I saw you out here and…”
I slide over, making room. It’s not up to me if he takes the olive branch, but the least I can do is offer it.
The bench creaks with his weight. We’ve sat in this exact place so many times before, talking about nothing, holding hands and letting the silence get comfortable.
For a brief, terrible moment, I wonder if I’ll ever feel that cozy quiet with anyone ever again.
“I heard about Erica,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know what’s real anymore.” The space behind my eyes stings and I blink, wetness coating my lashes.
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Ethan says, his voice soft.
“About Erica or about last night?”
He makes a coughing noise. “Both? I was a dick.”
My chest unlocks, and I take a deep breath. “I wasn’t my best self either.”
Ethan clasps his hands behind his neck, his elbows pointing up to the sky, and I catch a look at him out of my periphery.
He’s always his most handsome after he exercises, when there’s pink in his cheeks and a sheen of perspiration on his skin.
I take in his profile, consider the crooked scar on his nose I’ve always found endearing, the curve of his jaw, the tiny gold hoop he never takes out of his ear.
I didn’t expect all that love and affection I’ve tended to for years to evaporate when I said the words break up.
But it feels like a betrayal that those emotions are still brewing, right beneath my skin, and yet, nothing in me wants to take back what was said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Penn,” I say. “I was scared.”
“I know.” He smirks, toeing the dirt with his sneaker. “To be fair, I would have supported you. But I know that wasn’t the issue.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
“And I’m sorry about writing that postcard to Billy. It was stupid.” Ethan leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees. “I didn’t think I could compete with Olivia.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I say.
“No. I shouldn’t have. Even if we were babies.”
I turn to face him, resting one knee on the bench. “Do you think we still are? In the grand scheme of things?”
“Yes,” he says.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to be a full-blown adult. Not yet.”
Ethan shakes his head. “No way.”
There it is. That comfortable silence.
What a relief to know that after severing the tie between us, there is still this. The luxury of being known.
“I hope we always know each other,” I say, the words feeling trite but necessary.
Ethan rests his palm on the bench, facing upward toward the sky. An invitation. I accept it and rest my hand on top of his.
“We will,” he says. “In some capacity.”
“Are we really going to try to be friends?” I ask.
Ethan shrugs. “Maybe. Let’s take it one day at a time.”
“Okay,” I say.
We sit together for another moment of quiet, listening to the water, the birds, the humming of cars puttering down the street.
I wonder if Ethan is also dreading going back inside, back to reality.
If he wants to extend this moment for as long as possible to delay the inevitable gossip that will surround us like a cloud of gnats.
The horrible details that are about to come out about Erica.
Ethan takes his hand away, and immediately I feel its absence, my skin resting on the wood of the bench.
“I’m just glad you’re not mad about Millie,” he says. “A weird mistake, you know?” He runs his fingers through his hair. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Millie.” I repeat my sister’s name, heat spreading on the back of my neck. “A mistake?”
Ethan stands and rests his hands on his hips. “I immediately felt bad about the kiss. I wasn’t very nice about it either. God, I have to go on an apology tour with the Gold sisters, huh? I hope she gets over it. Won’t do her any good to keep pining after me.”
“The kiss.” I blink, my vision blurring the water in front of me until it’s a mess of blue.
“She told you, right? You guys tell each other everything.”
My throat is sandpaper, and I clench my jaw, force my neck to bob my head up and down. “Of course.”
“Anyway,” he says. “We’re gonna be okay, Lucy. We are.”
He reaches for me and squeezes my shoulder, and like a fool, I let him.
“Keep me posted on Erica, okay? It’s hard to believe she…” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe it. I really can’t.”
“Mm-hmm,” I say as he trots off toward home. But I can’t get up. I can’t stand or move or cry because all I can see is a picture in my mind of my sister’s face attached to Ethan’s.
The boy whose entire existence I can sketch on a map, whose heart lay on top of mine, overlapping like shadows.
Ethan, who Millie had gone after last night, trekking off into the darkness in order to find. To kiss.
Ethan, who Millie had been…What did he say? Pining after him?
It’s not possible. None of it is.
And yet…
I spin around and watch as Ethan walks back over the boardwalk between our houses, the massive structures flanking him, our whole lives set on these four acres.
I grip the bench, and the wood slats dig into my hands so hard a splinter splits my skin.
A sharp pain travels up my arm, and I’m hit with a question so unnerving it knocks the breath out of me: What has Millie been hiding?