Chapter 41
Now
Not wanting—or perhaps not being able—to be in the room a second longer, I slip out the door and start to run. I’m not sure where I’m going, or what I’m going to do when I get there, only that I need to move, to breathe, to think, anything but stand there.
I make it all the way to A Deck before hot tears sting my eyes, vision blurring as I lean over the railing, wondering if I’m going to be sick.
Liam said all the right things. Beautiful, heart-wrenching things. But I still couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go with him.
I’ve spent my whole life scared. As a child, it was the constant volatility in my life. Of not knowing where we’d live or if my mom had a job or if we would make rent that month. When I got older, it was fear of being hurt, of going through the same heartbreak I saw my mom go through.
Then I met Liam, and loving him felt like balm on a burn, and the anxiety morphed into a fear of losing him, of losing the stability I’d spent my whole life yearning for.
It’s a fear I was able to push to the back of my mind for most of our relationship, but it was always there, hovering around the periphery, until my mom died and it reemerged, sharper, more painful than ever.
It’s not just that Liam wasn’t there for me when I needed him.
It’s that he’d seen all my broken pieces, felt the weight of my heaviest burdens, and decided he didn’t want them.
That the sum of my parts didn’t amount to something Liam was willing to fight for.
And in the end, when it mattered most, I wasn’t enough to make him stay.
And I realized it wasn’t instability, or a man, or even heartbreak I was most afraid of, but that I wasn’t enough. That deep down, at my core, I wasn’t worth it.
Perhaps it’s the same part of myself that’s never felt I measured up for my own family. That was always terrified of disappointing everyone. That’s been pretending to be fine, covering up my hurt, so I don’t have to burden those around me with my grief.
Now, despite everything that’s happened the past few days, every pretty word and beautiful promise, there’s a part of me that’s still afraid it’s not enough. That’s terrified to take this plunge into the same waters that nearly drowned me the first time.
Maybe we’d float to the surface, unscathed. But maybe we wouldn’t.
I don’t know how long I stay there, letting the ocean breeze dry my face until my phone buzzes inside my purse. My heart leaps into my throat, wondering if it’s Liam, but it’s a string of messages from my sister.
Come to Grammy and Gramp’s cabin!
We have a surprise.
Come now!!
Where are you??
I shove my phone back in my purse. I don’t want to see them.
Or hear about whatever surprise they have.
I want to be alone. I want to cry until my throat is raw and my eyes burn.
But the insistent buzzing inside my purse is relentless, so I wipe my eyes and tell myself I’ll stay for a minute, act surprised for whatever it is, then make some kind of excuse to leave.
But as soon as I arrive outside Grammy and Gramps’s stateroom and hear the excited chatter through the door, my visions of a quick exit begin to dim.
I knock, and a moment later the door opens. Bella appears, champagne flute in hand.
“Finally! You’re here! I’ve been texting you!” She looks past me. “Where’s Liam?”
“Oh, uh…” Before I can figure out what to tell my family, Bella cuts me off, pulling me into the room.
“It’s fine, we can tell him the news when he gets here!”
My gaze snaps between a positively giddy Bella and everyone else, already holding drinks. “What news?” I ask.
A smile ripens across Bella’s mouth before she flings her left hand out at me. My eyes widen when I see the massive diamond.
I gasp. “You’re engaged?”
Her eyes fill with tears as Chris pulls her into his side and recounts how he was planning it for weeks and was so worried Bella would figure it out. Then Bella jumps in to say she had no idea and was shocked when they’d returned to their cabin this morning to find rose petals all over the bed.
They go back and forth, correcting small details like if she gasped or screamed, and whether Chris kneeled then asked or asked then kneeled.
I try to smile and laugh at all the right parts of the story, but a deep-seated sadness festers in my belly.
All I can think is how my mom would have loved to be here. To see Bella beaming with a sparkling diamond on her finger. How excited she would have been for them. And how painful it is that she won’t see Bella and Chris get married.
I search their happy, smiling faces, wondering if they feel it too. If anyone will mention her. Or say how much they miss her. How badly they wish she were here right now.
But the conversation transitions to the pros and cons of a spring wedding in Seattle, and my sadness morphs into something else, something that pulses in the back of my throat.
Are we really going to stand here and laugh and smile and pretend like her absence isn’t this giant elephant in the room? Like no one cares that she isn’t here?
But maybe that’s it. Maybe they don’t care.
I try to push down the thought, to lock it away with all the messy feelings I’ve tried so hard to pretend aren’t there, but I can’t—I can’t pretend anymore—and before I can stop them, hot tears sting my eyes.
Bella stops in the middle of describing what kind of venue they’d like. “Roslyn? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
I twist my mouth into a smile, trying to mask the sharp edges of grief tearing me open. “Fine,” I tell her. “I’m so happy for you. Really…” I open my mouth, hoping something like Congrats or a celebratory scream comes out, but it’s as though I’ve stepped onstage and suddenly forgotten my lines.
“Roslyn?” Grammy asks, putting a hand on my arm. “What is it, dear?”
I reach for the words to tell her I’m okay. After all, this is Bella and Chris’s special moment, and I can’t ruin it. I can’t be the family fuckup again. But the tears begin to fall and my throat burns, my tongue tasting like copper and salt.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I’m so sorry. I’m really happy for you and Chris and I—” I wipe my eyes, determined to pull it together. “I’m fine,” I finally force out, but Bella doesn’t look convinced, and frankly, neither does anyone else.
“Hey,” Bella says, voice softening. “Whatever it is, you can tell us.”
That’s exactly the problem, I think. I can’t tell you. That’s why I’ve spent the last year pretending to be fine, because you don’t get it. Because none of you miss Mom the way I do.
“I think I should go,” I say. “I don’t want to ruin your moment.”
I run out the door, hoping I can get back to my cabin before I make an even bigger mess of things. But I only make it three feet down the hall before I’m doubled over, lungs burning, eyes wet with tears.
I’ve been trying so hard to keep it together, to be fine, even while on the inside I was falling apart, but I can’t do it anymore.
Not now. Not after everything that’s happened.
So there, in the hallway, I finally fall apart.
I give in to the hot press of tension corkscrewing in my chest, the heaviness in my bones, the bruising crush of hurt in my lungs.
I let myself feel every ounce of shame and guilt and hurt and fear until all my emotions are bleeding together.
I let myself feel all the grief and sadness I’ve tried to push down.
I’m crying so hard, I barely hear the door to Grammy and Gramps’s room open until Bella is standing in front of me.
“I’m sorry I’m ruining your engagement,” I choke, hating myself.
She shakes her head, her eyes wide with concern. “Roslyn, can you please just tell me what’s going on? Are you okay?”
I look down the hall then back at her. There’s still time to leave.
To tell another lie. To keep the truth buried inside me just a little longer.
To accommodate and appease. But as I wipe under my eyes, trying to stabilize my breathing, I realize that I’m exhausted.
Not just from pretending, but from the pain itself, from the effort of holding it in, of trying to make my grief more palatable.
Maybe she’ll hate me. Maybe I’ll just solidify myself as the family disappointment. But I can’t keep pretending.
“I’m not okay,” I finally say. “This past year has been the hardest of my life and I’ve been trying to keep it together, to be fine, the way everyone else seems to be, but I miss Mom so much.
” A sob splinters through my voice, but I keep going.
“Maybe you guys don’t miss her or care that she’s not here, maybe you don’t need her, but I do.
And it’s been so fucking hard without her.
” The words are tumbling out of my mouth, rushing out now that I’m finally letting them free.
“While you guys have all been moving on, relieved that she’s not around, I’ve been grieving alone, going through a fucking divorce and—”
Bella steps back, her expression clouding over with confusion. “What do you mean, going through a divorce?”
I wait for feelings of panic, to feel like the walls are caving in around me. Instead, I just feel angry. Angry that this is what she cares about. Not me. Not Mom.
“Yeah,” I say, not meeting her eye. “Liam and I split up three months ago.”
Her brow furrows. “Split up? As in…?”
I draw a choppy breath, the words that I know will bring everything crashing down around me hovering in the back of my throat. “I asked him for a divorce,” I finally force out.
“You what?” I turn toward the door, where the entire family has gathered, and judging by the looks on their faces, they’ve all heard.
Fuck. This isn’t how I wanted it to happen. Especially now that Liam and I are figuring things out. But I don’t see a way to keep lying, nor do I want to. I have to tell the truth.
“I asked him for a divorce,” I repeat. “We’ve been living apart for months.”
I watch, almost in slow motion, as their faces shift from perplexed to shocked to horrified. All the stages of grief in a span of seconds. It’s exactly what I worried would happen.
“But…but I don’t understand,” Grammy says. “I thought you two were trying to have a baby.”
“And last night you two seemed so happy,” Jonah says.
“You were kissing on the dance floor,” Bella adds.
“We’ve been pretending.”
I know that’s not entirely true. There were moments that were real. Or maybe they were all real, and in the end the only people we were fooling were ourselves.
“But why? What happened? Where is he?” Grammy looks up and down the hallway like she’s half expecting Liam to pop out from somewhere.
“He got off the ship. He had to leave for London because of a family emergency.” Then, more urgently, I add, “But we’ve been figuring things out. We’re going to talk when he gets back.”
Grammy’s mouth parts. “But when will he be back?” she asks.
I think of the moment we shared before he left. The way he’d cradled my chin as he told me he loved me. The tears in my eyes as I’d looked away, unable to watch him leave.
“I…” A crack catches the end of my voice. “I don’t know,” I admit.
Eyes widen, brows furrow.
I catch Bella’s eyes, hoping she can forgive me for being such a shitty sister, for ruining her special day, but she just stares at me, shocked.
“So, you’ve been lying this whole time?” Gramps finally asks.
“Liam and I didn’t want to hurt you all or ruin the trip,” I say, swallowing around the wedge in my esophagus. “And I was afraid of disappointing you again.”
“What do you mean, disappointing us again?” Grammy asks. “Why would you think that?”
A wave of frustration climbs up my throat as the words I’ve long held on to bob to the surface.
“Of course I think that,” I say, exasperated.
“You’re constantly making me feel like I’m this huge failure because I didn’t make the life choices you wanted me to.
You were disappointed in me for dropping out of med school.
You were disappointed when I waited tables instead of getting a good job.
You’re disappointed in me for not being a successful, bestselling author of serious fiction.
You’ve always treated me like I was a failure.
Like Liam was the only thing I ever did right.
How could I not be worried about that? How could I—”
“That’s enough,” Gramps cuts me off. “You’re not going to come in here after lying to us all for months and talk to your grandmother and me like this.
” He shakes his head, narrowed eyes focusing on me.
“You’re just like your mother. Always playing the victim, acting like the whole world was out to wrong her, when she was the one who threw opportunities away and made poor choices.
Never realizing how good she had something until it was gone.
Now you’re doing the same thing with Liam.
” His voice is controlled, but I can hear the barely contained intensity hovering behind every word.
“I don’t know what’s happened between you two, but you need to fix this, Roslyn. ”
Anger vibrates through my bones. I’ve always played it safe, first confiding in my mom, then keeping my feelings to myself where they couldn’t burden anyone. But she’s not here to confide in or stand up for me. Now I have to stand up for myself.
“You’re right,” I say, my voice coming out a lot stronger than I feel.
“You don’t know what happened between Liam and me.
You don’t know that Mom’s death tore us apart or that I’ve spent the last year crying myself to sleep every night.
You don’t know anything about me or what I want.
You never have.” I look at Bella. “I’m so sorry for ruining this. I hope you can forgive me.”
Then, my heart still pounding in my chest, I turn and leave.