Chapter 2
EASTON
I’m in the middle of packing my suitcase for the trip home the next day when Elijah’s sister calls. Kelsey has been my best friend for more than two decades, and the way her brother broke my heart is one of very few things I’ve never told her.
“Let me see the ring!” she squeals.
My chest constricts. It’s weird the way I’ll forget for a couple seconds that I just got dumped and then remember as if it’s happening anew. And it hurts, but not the way it should. I think, mostly, that it’s shock. Shock and my complete inability to believe he meant it.
“I’ve been waiting all morning for a text,” she continues breathlessly. “I didn’t want to call in case you two were having amazing post-engagement intercourse.”
As if Thomas and I would ever stay up all night doing anything.
“So...he actually broke up with me instead,” I say. It hurts, but for some reason I laugh.
It’s just fucking bizarre, still, that it all turned out the way it did.
She sucks in a breath. “Wait...is this a joke?”
I shut my door, so that my roommates don’t overhear. I’ll tell them about the breakup, but not every horrible detail of it.
“Nope,” I reply. “He was off with Devon Hunt all weekend, and Devon convinced him that he’s too young to be getting tied down.
” I set a stack of T-shirts in my suitcase then lie down in bed.
I have more than my share of absent-minded scientist inside me—if I try to multitask here, I’ll wind up leaving my bridesmaid’s dress behind.
Or all my underwear and socks—and God knows I can’t replace them in my hometown.
We don’t even have a real grocery store.
“But...but...he bought the ring,” she argues.
I understand her inability to accept this. I’ve made the same arguments all morning myself. He bought the ring, he had it sized, he chose a wedding venue, he reserved a church.
If we lived in medieval times, treatment of this kind would be the gravest insult. One of my brothers would probably need to duel for my honor, and they would, but mostly because they love guns.
“Crazy, right?” I ask. “I felt like such an asshole. And I blew fifty bucks on a blowout too.”
“Easton, honey,” she gasps. “How can you sound so calm? This is terrible.”
She expects me to be destroyed, and maybe I would be if I thought this was real but probably not. You can only break someone badly once. Her brother took care of that ages ago.
“I’m fine,” I reply, surveying the piles of clothing on my bed. God only knows what I’m going to wear down south for the next two weeks. I’ve been in Boston for most of the past nine years.
“This all worked out perfectly. Since I already got the lab covered for that trip to Sweden we’re no longer taking”—Another thing I can’t get over—how quick he was to cancel all our plans without a second thought—"I’m going to come home before the wedding instead and help you with all the last-minute shit before you go to New Orleans.
I’m just sorry if you’ve already finalized numbers with the caterer. ”
My voice is slightly too high, too happy. The room spins a little and I close my eyes.
“I don’t care about that,” she says. “And honestly, I don’t need help. Hawk’s mom and mine have done everything. But come on…you thought you were getting proposed to. You’ve tried on the ring. I’ve seen the ring. I have the date on my calendar. It had to be a blow.”
A better friend would open up to her, would sob, but I just..
.can’t. I don’t want to open up, not even to myself.
If I spend even a moment really considering what’s happened, my brain will run around unchecked, asking questions that will only hurt worse: Is there something about me that’s inherently unlovable?
Or is my judgment about people and situations incredibly bad?
It's a path I can’t go down right now, with her or myself.
“This is just cold feet, Kelsey. Thomas is going to spend one week off on this yacht and realize he fucked up.”
She sighs, as if she disagrees. “Do you want to stay with us?”
I swallow. She can’t begin to understand how awkward staying at her home would be. “Thanks, but I’m gonna stay with my dad. I’m sure the house is a disaster and he’ll need some help.”
“Well, my mom would be thrilled to have you if you change your mind. She’s dying to see you.”
My throat tightens. Judy Cabot was once like a parent to me, but she’s made no effort to see me in years.
Every time I was home, she made an excuse—flu, company, so many appointments—until I finally stopped trying.
For all my flaws, I know when I’m not wanted, but I guess we’re all playing nice for Kelsey’s big day.
“Just promise I’m not going to be the only singleton at the wedding.”
“You’re in luck,” Kelsey says. “Lots of singles. Including my brother, of course.”
I wince.
When Kelsey got engaged, I asked her who’d walk her down the aisle. I knew it would be Elijah. I’d just wanted to hear his name—a trial run to see if it still hurt.
It did. It still does.
I really wish I wasn’t facing it, and him, alone.
One day later, I land in Savannah and take an Uber home.
It’s only mid-August, but already the trees hang heavy as if tired of the weight, the leaves turning that late-summer green, so dark they look black in the shade.
The highway is baking too, and even with the windows closed, I can smell fresh tar going soft in the heat.
Eventually, we get off the highway and take back roads until we hit Oak Bluff—the last bit of civilization before we cross the bridge to St. Samuel’s, the tiny barrier island where I was raised.
That’s when I roll down a window to feel the thick, wet air on my skin.
I’d swear that I haven’t missed home, but every time I hit this bridge, I find some old piece of myself that’s been tucked into a dusty corner of my brain.
Right now I’m remembering this: the damp air on a summer morning before the sun was full.
Biking to Oak Bluff to buy donuts at sunrise, getting scolded by Martha at the Stop-n-Shop over my bare feet when we both knew I’d do it again.
The glint of the sun on the ocean, visible only from the bridge’s crest, as I’d return home.
Mostly what I’m remembering is how hopeful I once felt, as if the world was infinite and mine for the taking. It’s been a very, very long time since I felt that way—so long I’d almost forgotten I ever did.
Once we’re over the bridge, the driver turns to the left rather than continuing toward the beach.
Unlike the Cabots’ oceanfront home—its cozy screened-in front porch set right atop the dunes—we are several lots back, in a gray-blue house so different from theirs that it hardly seems fair to call us neighbors.
It was always an eyesore. My mother’s small efforts to keep things up ended when she took off fifteen years ago, and my dad’s small efforts to occasionally stay sober ended then too.
And yet...the house has a new roof.
I’m hard-pressed to imagine my dad expending the effort to have someone replace it, and even harder-pressed to imagine where he got the money. It worries me, more than anything else. When money flows into the Walsh household, it’s typically the illegal kind.
I lift my suitcase up the single short step to the front door, inhaling, bracing for the worst as I enter.
It’s pretty much as I expected. First of all, there’s the smell.
Because we’re so low to the ground, the house floods frequently and never quite loses the stale, dirty odor of saltwater and sewage and a filthy carpet that was left soaking wet for too long.
The floorboards are trimmed with pockets of black mold, but I can’t see most of them because there’s a year’s worth of garbage blocking the narrow hall: fishing gear, empty cases of beer to be recycled, waist-high stacks of old newspapers.
It’s August and he hasn’t even put away his winter jacket or the insulated boots he fishes in when the water’s cold.
I guess it’s a good thing Kelsey wasn’t counting on me to help, because I’ll be here instead, catering to a man who no longer even likes me.
“Dad?” I call, and he answers with a grunt.
I find him where I knew I would: propped up in his recliner with an open can of beer on the armrest though it’s not quite noon. There’s a table full of empties in front of him.
He frowns at the sight of me. “What are you doing here?”
My clasped hands twist like a child’s. Any fondness he felt toward me was entirely gone by the time my mom left, but I wish he’d at least fake it a little.
“Sorry. It was kind of a last-minute trip.” I should have called him, but I couldn’t risk having him tell my brothers I’d be here. “I won’t stay long. Kelsey’s getting married in New Orleans in two weeks.”
I look toward the ceiling, garnished with brown stains from water damage. I can’t imagine Kevin getting the money for the roof or caring enough about my dad to spend it, but he’s the only possibility.
“Did Kevin help you with the roof?”
Dad stills, as if caught at something. “Yes.”
He’s lying. I assume that means I don’t want to know what actually went on to acquire that roof. If he or my brothers now owe someone a favor, I need to be far away when it gets called in.
I decide to let it drop. There will be other conversations to have...whether he’s taking his meds, when he follows up with the cardiologist, and I know better than to push a man who’s had six or seven beers by noon.
He sucks down half of the beer in his meaty grip. “How’s Harvard?”
It’s always emphasized that way when he says it. Harvard. Snidely, as if it’s a euphemism for something worse. I choose to ignore this too, but as always, inside, I’m asking What did I ever do to you? Why do you hate me so much?
I’ve only been in this house for five minutes, and I already can’t get enough air.
“It’s good. I’m gonna run into town for groceries.
” I grab the keys off the table. There are always at least six banged up cars sitting outside—he used to spend all his free time working on them when I was younger and even talked about opening a shop.
Eventually, drinking became his prevailing interest, and then his only one. “Text if you want anything.”
“Buy more beer!” he shouts after me.
“I’m not buying you beer,” I reply as I walk out the door.
What crushes you in adulthood isn’t the bills or the stress. It’s realizing that you aren’t going to get everything you want, and that if you do get it, it won’t feel the way you’d hoped.
That’s what’s so bittersweet about returning home: I remember all the things I wanted, and how I wanted them with a fervor they didn’t deserve. And just as I pull up in front of the Stop-n-Shop, the thing I wanted most exits the store.
Elijah ducks slightly as he walks under the doorframe, a reflex when you’re as tall as he is.
He’s far too tall for me. It’s definitely for the best that he wasn’t interested, because how would I ever have given birth to his monstrous children?
I’m fairly familiar with how human anatomy works, having gone through med school, and I’m positive that no one my size was meant to procreate with someone of his.
I check my reflection in the rearview mirror. My makeup has somehow remained in place despite the South Carolina heat, so I take a deep breath and step from the car.
His eyes widen when he sees me, a breath of uncertainty there, as there should be. The last time he saw me, he said, “Hey stranger,” and I said, “Go fuck yourself, Elijah.”
I usually handle myself better in those situations. I’m not sure why I slipped up that time.
Any wariness is gone in the blink of an eye, however, buried deep beneath his trademark smirk, the one that lifts high on one side.
My jaw grinds in response.
Humans are hardwired to prefer symmetry because it indicates stronger, healthier genetic material. Even babies prefer a symmetrical face to the face of their own mother.
That fucking lopsided smile of Elijah’s should be a major red flag, but is instead a dimpled mating call, one all females respond to.
For the better part of two decades, it was all I could see.
He strides toward me. He’s the same kid he was, in some ways—all cheekbones and soft lips, perfect jawline and thick, slightly rumpled hair.
Now, however, his lankiness is absent. He’s got the broad shoulders he always wanted—maybe it’s the build he was destined to attain, or maybe it’s because he works in construction, but either way it’s grossly unfair.
He should be hideous now—hideous and looking at me with stars in his eyes, the kind that say, “Easton, you’re the one who got away.
” Instead, he’s smiling his asymmetrical smile and blocking the sun with his unnecessary height, and my heart wants to hammer the way it did, back when I was a dumb teenager.
Some of my adolescent stupidity lives on indefinitely, it would seem, like a dormant virus.
“Well, if it isn’t Oak Bluff’s favorite villain,” I say as he approaches. I’m not the only girl Elijah screwed over. I’m just the only one I care about.
His mouth works its way upward. “Favorite? I had no idea. Do I get some kind of plaque?”
“Oak Bluff can’t afford plaques, and don’t get too flattered. It’s a town of five hundred. You’re a big villain in a small pond. In Boston, you’d be run of the mill.”
“I suspect I’d still be big, though,” he replies with his lashes lowered, unmistakably suggestive. And how dare he? How dare he be suggestive and flirty with me after the shit he pulled?
I force a laugh. “Big? You should get some more life experience.” I toss my keys in the air and catch them. “I certainly have.”
That gleam in his eye turns to flint.
“See you at the wedding,” I call cheerfully as I open the door—as if I’ve won this exchange, when it didn’t go at all the way I’d hoped.
I look better than I did back in the day and I’m a doctor twice over, which is pretty cool.
Definitely cooler than having a construction business, Elijah.
Yet there was none of the groveling I’d hoped for.
The air inside the store is icy and stale, but in a good way. It brings to mind biking here after a day at the beach and the taste of a bomb pop, pulled straight from the ice cream case.
For a single moment, too, it makes me think of Elijah, the way I once saw him.
As my future.
I’m not sure why, after all these years, it still feels true.