Lucy
By the time we get to the Club for the tennis tournament, all I want to do is run in the opposite direction.
“Come on, girls,” Mom says. “Keep up and stay close.” We follow her toward the tennis courts, where bleachers are set up along the perimeter so everyone can watch their neighbors try to cream each other in straight sets.
“Remember,” Mom says as she adjusts her visor, “no going off alone, okay?”
“Yes, Mom,” Frankie says, annoyed.
The last thing I want to do is stick around my family—especially Millie, who keeps looking at me with a mixture of puppy dog eyes and desperation.
Part of me feels guilty for still having all of this anger, especially since I kissed Olivia, but I can’t seem to let it go.
Every time I look at her, I picture her with Ethan, whether it’s fair or not.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter, since apparently I’m “tasked” with talking to Olivia, which is what I was going to do anyway.
I glance around the welcome area and spot Olivia hanging at the back edge of the circle talking to Erica.
A buzzing swarms my chest, and as if she senses my gaze, Olivia lifts her eyes, and they meet mine.
She lifts a hand and waves. The smile breaks out on my face easily, and I relax, taking a step forward but not before Frankie elbows me in the side.
“I thought you guys dropped out when you broke up?” she asks.
“What are you talking about?”
Frankie thrusts her finger forward at a piece of paper hanging on the bulletin board. At the top of the page, big print says 18–25 Mixed Doubles.
“You and Ethan are on court three. Playing Dylan and his older sister.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I spin around, looking for Ethan, and sure enough, he’s jogging toward me, a resigned look on his face.
“Ah, man,” he says, approaching. “Guess I forgot to take us off the bracket.” He’s wearing tennis whites, a sweatband cinched around his forehead.
“Oh yeah? Sure looks that way.” I cross my arms over my chest, furious.
Ethan glances down at his getup. “I thought I was playing singles.”
“Unbelievable.” I start to storm away toward the clubhouse, desperate for Olivia not to see me like this, ugly and rotten.
“What’s the big deal?” Ethan’s trailing behind me now, his voice sharp at the edge. “I thought we were cool.”
I’ve stomped so far that we’re now away from the crowd, closer to the beach, and I spin around to see his stupid face. “Cool?” I ask. “Cool?” I shake my head, unable to find the words to tell him how deeply not cool we are.
“Well, yeah. I mean…I see the way you look at Olivia. Didn’t take you long to move on.” His mouth is pursed, like he’s practiced that line over and over in the mirror, like he was waiting for a chance to deploy it.
“Me kissing Olivia is not the same as you kissing Millie.”
“Oh my god, so you did it?” He presses his palms to the top of his head. “Once again. Lucy the hypocrite!”
I ball my hands into fists by my side. Shit. I did not mean to admit that to him now, but how can he not see that what he did is so much worse?
I shake my head and look up to the clouds, furious. “You kissed my sister.”
“And you kissed your ex, who you were probably hung up on the entire time we dated.”
“No, I wasn’t! I loved you, Ethan. And I always will in some way. But right now, I’m pissed as hell at you.”
Ethan blinks, stunned, and the tips of his ears turn red. “I loved you, too,” he says.
“That doesn’t mean we can or should be together,” I say. “You know that, right?”
Ethan wipes his arm across his face. The ire inside me softens but doesn’t dissipate, and as I look at him, I realize I’m not mad at him.
Not really. Because he didn’t choose this.
I did. And the person I’m really mad at is the person who could have avoided all of this pain, who could have told Ethan the truth earlier. I’m only mad at myself.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Maybe we both need some space. It was stupid to think we could be friends.”
“Lucy,” Ethan calls, but I turn on my heel and start walking as quickly as I can to the pergola around the side of the clubhouse, forcing myself to keep going, to not look back and see where he is or what he’s doing.
Everything swirling in my chest is a frustrating mix of contradictions.
I don’t want to be with Ethan. I know that.
But the idea of him with Millie, of him with anyone, is more painful that I imagined.
Under a pergola covered in wisteria, I drop onto a bench and rest my forehead on my knees. My hands make fists, and I force myself to breathe in and out, to focus on the distant sound of waves crashing and tennis balls thwacking, which is why I don’t hear the footsteps coming up behind me.
“Hey.” I lift my head and see Olivia walking toward me in a tennis dress and sneakers, her smile wide. But when she sees my blotchy complexion, the tears in my eyes, her mouth falls and she sits down beside me, touching her fingers to my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
To my horror, I whimper, and Olivia wraps an arm around my back and pulls me to her. She smells of lilac and sunscreen, of summer.
“Gonna take that as a no,” she says softly into my hair, which only causes me to cry harder. “Is this about Ethan?” she asks.
I nod, pressing my teeth into my bottom lip. “But,” I start, “not because I want him back.”
Olivia nods slowly. “It’s okay to feel sad for something you don’t want.” She keeps her arm steady around me, running her fingers up and down my back.
“He kissed Millie. Or Millie kissed him. Or they kissed each other. I don’t know. That’s what’s bothering me.”
Olivia twists her face into a grimace. “Oof. That’s kinda gross.”
“It is, right?”
“Definitely.” She pauses. “But is that all? A one-time kiss?”
“You’re saying a one-time kiss doesn’t mean anything?” I raise an eyebrow at her, and she lets out a laugh.
“Touché.” Olivia leans back on her elbows and looks toward the water, the tiny waves rolling toward us. “I think it’s normal to be freaked out. And that you still care for Ethan.”
I open my mouth to protest, but she holds up her hand.
“Come on. Don’t deny it. It’s not a bad thing.
That’s how relationships are. They don’t end abruptly, or start that way either.
And our job as people who want to love, who want to feel that kind of tether toward another person, is to accept that the people we like aren’t ours to keep or control or put in tiny boxes. ”
I take in her words, watching her mouth set into a straight line. It’s not a smile nor a frown, just a neutral, placid look of understanding.
“When did you become a fortune cookie?” I ask.
“I’m just saying that nothing will take away the time you guys had together. Just like nothing will take away what we had.” A small smile forms on her lips. “What we could have.”
The edge of her arm grazes mine, and I lean into her, testing how close I can get before she pulls away. But she doesn’t. She stays still.
“What are you saying?” I ask, my voice quiet.
Olivia reaches her fingers up to graze my cheek. “All I mean is if I do this,” Olivia whispers, tilting her head slightly, so close I can feel her lips hovering in the space above mine, “it doesn’t change anything about your past or mine. It can just be a kiss.” She pauses.
The freedom in that statement is overwhelming.
I don’t know what I want from the future, from her, but I do know that it feels good to lean forward and close the space between us and press my mouth to hers so gently, she’s a feather, a fine piece of linen, a slick of ice.
I don’t want to think about Ethan or Millie or anything else besides the rush of air and warmth filling my lungs.
The promise that life is a steady drumbeat, moving me forward—only forward—and that every action does not need to symbolize some great betrayal, movement, change.
A kiss can just be a kiss.
And maybe that means I can learn to forgive Ethan and Millie.