Chapter 20
Electricity zips through my body, jerking me. My head whips . . . with the music?
Am I on a dance floor?
I pan my gaze to the mass of girls on the wood surface, doing what Willow Smith says. I grab my neck, expecting pain, but there’s none—because I’m twenty-seven, not forty.
I can whip my hair all I want!
My eyes flick around, taking in the commotion.
But it’s not commotion, I realize. It’s glamour and twinkle, a scene from a storybook.
We’re under a crystal chandelier, billowing fabric, a tent.
A DJ spins in the corner. The girls are in gowns.
Guys in tuxedos. I know these faces, so many of them.
Alpha Gammas. Fraternity boys. Ghosts of faces past.
I glance at the tablescapes: whites, creams, and sages.
There must be thirty tables of ten. This is a massive wedding.
Towering arrangements of peonies, roses, eucalyptus.
Candles everywhere. The scene is grand. The romance, colossal.
And I don’t remember it whatsoever. It’s true that I’ve been to dozens of weddings, but I don’t recall this one. There are zero bells ringing.
Water. Let’s get some water. I panic when I reach the edge of the dance floor, though. Where’s the bar? And how will I know my table number? Where my purse will be holding the pickleball, right? I’m slashing my gaze around when I feel a hand on my elbow and turn.
The brown eyes fasten me instantly to the floor.
The asymmetrical yet immaculate work of his features.
He is half Greek, after all. Brown hair, slight curl.
Olive complexion. Tall, but not terribly.
Slightly unshaven, always. Lean, thin even, but I know the muscles are carved like marble under his trim black tux. Broody. Pillow lips. Half smile.
Holden Locke.
The boy who shattered my heart is holding my arm, but he’s not a boy anymore. Holden’s a full-on man.
Part of me wants to yank my arm away, but the larger part cannot move. What is he doing here? What am I doing here? Who’s the bride?
My eyes find the sweetheart table, and I see Eve and her Navy Seal, kissing to the clink of silver on glass.
At the last minute, I missed this wedding the first time. Frankly, I still held guilt over it. I was a bridesmaid and everything. But Maxwell was in the hospital after aspirating an almond that afternoon. He’d choked, and we could’ve lost him.
I look down. Sure enough. Sage gown. Still deep in the back of my future closet, unworn. I’ve never forgiven myself for the absence, even though Eve never once held it against me.
With Holden’s skin still touching mine, another thought blazes through me. No, no, no. This is the night Quinn meets Alan. My eyes launch into a search, fix-it mode activated. Can I stop them from meeting? But I don’t see my friend anywhere.
I’m still standing here like an idiot, I realize. I want him to speak first, though.
“Hey,” he says finally.
“Hey.” My tone sounds sharper than I intended.
“You look . . . wow. Beautiful. Unbelievable.”
Unbelievable? Tell me about it. “Thanks.” I tighten my lips. “You know Eve? I guess I forgot.”
“Yeah,” he says. “We were prelaw together. We work at the same firm now. In San Diego.” He shoves a hand through his hair, lifting his voice over the music, now pulsing a remix of Rihanna’s “We Found Love” featuring Calvin Harris.
“Do you think we could talk?” he asks nervously. “Somewhere . . . maybe outside?” He motions to the vista outside the tent, draped with market lights, dotted with cocktail tables. I see the soft glow of other houses beyond.
That’s right. We’re in Eve’s parents’ backyard, in sprawling Rancho Santa Fe, a luxurious enclave of San Diego.
It’s absolutely stunning. I’m pretty sure we’re on the tennis court.
My sigh in response is dramatic, admittedly.
Where’s Quinn when I need her? Should I be having this conversation?
When it comes to Holden, I can’t be trusted.
I ponder, realizing Holden’s future Facebook message comes to Older Me almost thirteen years from now, at which point he still thinks of me—at least sometimes.
But the last time we spoke in person was still that day at Panda Express, junior year, after a full year of dating.
He pulled away after we slept together. We both called our bond love, often.
It wasn’t—at least not good healthy love.
But we were together nonstop, until the last couple months before the big explosion, at which point the mind games began.
Thanks to therapist influencers, I now have the words for love bombing, gaslighting, and even diagnosable narcissism.
His last text—a few weeks after the Panda showdown—said simply: I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t text me anymore.
Full ghost.
In the wake of that text, friends continued to see him with other girls—out for dates, upstairs at parties, you name it.
It never, ever made sense to me—proclaiming his love and taking something important to me, before instantly skulking away.
For a season, Quinn even used to hide my phone so I wouldn’t try to reach out to him.
“I’m saving you from yourself,” she said. “Trust me.”
I knew she was right.
And still, tonight, I hear myself say, “Sure. We can talk.” I feel my nude heels trailing behind him to a tall table under the sky.
My head nodding, Yes, why not, when he asks if I want dessert.
I’m standing here with my past and a chocolate chip cookie, deciding I’ll hear him out. “Wow,” I say. “This is delicious.”
One side of his mouth hitches up. He also looks great, I hate to admit. He’s aged well. Darker eyes, handsome lines.
Be careful, I hear a voice say. You had six-pound twins cut from your stomach, and that makes you tough. But you’re still not invincible to this guy.
“So,” I say, swatting away the nagging internal warning. “Long time.”
“Yeah,” he says, with something like regret in his tone. “Long time.”
“You’re a lawyer, huh?” I say. “Good for you.”
“It’s all right. I work all the time.”
“You?” It’s childish, but I hope it lands as a barb. I might be the real adult here, but I don’t have to behave entirely.
“Yes, me.” He toe-taps my ankle. “I got into Pepperdine Law.”
I nod, staring into my cookie, pretending I didn’t know this. It’s true that I never texted or called, but it’s not like I don’t have the Internet. “You still play music?” I ask, remembering his fingers touching the piano.
Touching me.
He nods. “Piano mostly. Some guitar. I write music. It’s a good outlet for me.”
“Well,” I say. “You were always incredibly talented.”
I used to love watching him stare at the keys, lost in the beautiful sounds he spun into the air.
He was so tortured; I knew this. I know this.
I always hoped music might save him once it became obvious that I couldn’t.
Frankly, I’m having trouble reconciling Holden Locke with the law, but I guess stranger things have happened. Like this night, for example.
“As were you,” he responds, sipping his red wine. “Talented. Any more acting for you?”
“Nope. I did my time in LA.”
“And now?”
I toggle my head back and forth. “Little of this, little of that.”
Quinn, earth to Quinn!
“Anyway.” I shrug. “You wanted to talk?”
He tilts his head back, burying his hands in his pockets. “Where do I even start?”
“Maybe with ghosting me. After saying you loved me forever and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Oh. And sleeping with me and then disappearing—when you knew how much that meant to me.” Why hold back now? “Not a bad place to start.”
He laughs. “Ghosting, huh?”
Why not introduce the term to its perpetrator? “Disappear? Like a ghost?” I explain. “Are you still that way? Or does this job of yours require two feet on planet earth?”
He shakes his head. “So feisty.”
I smirk back. I am feisty. With a thirteen-year-old to reckon with now. I lift my cup. “Sorry. You were saying?”
He adjusts his bow tie, then flattens his palms on the table. “I just wanted to say . . . that I’m sorry. So unbelievably sorry.”
He taps a finger on my napkin, those fingers always doing something. I remember this about him. So twitchy. The guy needed a fidget spinner. On hand at all times. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he says, holding my stare, unbreaking, letting the words drape between us.
I let my eyes drop to his mouth, pouty and soft, for merely one little second.
“I know I treated you terribly,” he continues. “And I want to ask . . . for your forgiveness, I guess.”
“You guess?”
He blinks. “I’m sorry, Sutton.” He clears his throat. “Will you forgive me? I was a coward. I was crazy about you—I felt it all. And I didn’t know how to handle it. We were twenty years old. I was a kid, and I was selfish and dumb, and I’m sorry.” A pause. “Sorrier than you’ll ever know.”
Cookie midair, mouth full of crumbles, I swallow. It didn’t hurt to hear him spell out his regret. It didn’t fix the past, but it helped.
How long did I wait to hear those words, the apology that never came?
But more so, does he really mean it?
It sounds like he might’ve rehearsed this conversation in therapy—but that might not be a bad thing. His parents were awful toward him. He never really understood how to have a relationship. He was awful, to me and no doubt many other girls.
I give a sigh and tilt my face to the stars.
“Holden Locke,” I moan. “Is this an apology tour?”
He takes one step closer to me. “If one stop counts as a tour.”
Just as I think, Don’t come any closer, his hand covers mine. He touches my thumb, brushes the nail.
“I’m sorry, Sutton,” he says again. “I really am.”
I yank my hand away before I am swept into this nonsensical pull I feel toward this boy. This man? Forgiveness? For him?
Is this happening?
I fold my hands on the table. “You know what?”
“What?” He’s wide-eyed—and it’s delicious, holding the power.
“I forgive you,” I say.
I don’t want to hold on to bitterness anymore.
His mouth curls. “Dance with me?”
“Don’t push it,” I say, bumping his hip with mine before walking away.
No less than twenty minutes later, though, we’ve found each other again. Like two planets, circling. We’re on the dance floor, laughing and dancing to “SexyBack,” keeping a fair distance from each other, like we’re nineteen again.
The gap between us doesn’t last long, though, as the illusion of safety implodes. My hands graze his fingers, accidentally, but then they linger, on purpose. We keep drawing closer.
I don’t touch his hair, but it matches the folds of my memory as I watch it moving, along with the length of him. I shiver at his breath on my ear, and then, at his words:
“I really hate that I hurt you.”
I look into his eyes, and down at his teeth . . .
Just as hands grab my shoulders and save me from a deep kiss.
“What do you think you’re doing?” hisses Quinn. “Are you drunk?”
“No! No! I—” I scramble for answers, looking back to Holden, who chops a wave into the air.
He looks so good.
Wait, am I drunk?
“No,” I confirm. “I’ve only had water.”
In our matching dresses, green silk spilling around us, she pulls me to our table and plops me down in a chair. I shift on the cushion and squeal when I see the silver chain purse hanging next to me.
“My purse!” I cry. “Thank goodness.” I snap it open and breathe when I see the pickleball.
Quinn peers into the purse too—and her green eyes swell. She covers her mouth. “Oh my gosh.” Slowly she takes the seat next to me. Then cups my face in her hands.
“Is it you?” she whispers. “Old Sutton? Back from the Future? That’s totally the name of your movie.”
Relieved, I nod. “Yes! You remember?”
“I’ve only been waiting four years for something that exciting to happen again.”
“ER life isn’t exciting enough?”
She pokes me. “I’m still in my residency. At UCI. But you want to hear the best news?”
“Of course.”
“We’re roommates again. On Balboa Island.”
The news is so great, I almost cry.
Balboa. The Ferris wheel.
I have literally always wanted to live on the charming island.
“What street?” I ask giddily, picturing it, our life together.
“Agate. Right down from the ferry. You’re going to be obsessed. We got the best deal ever on the cutest two-bedroom cottage.” Her eyes narrow. “Anyway. I just saved you from that. You’re welcome. What on earth were you doing? What did that weasel want?”
Was he really that bad?
Am I already reaching for justification?
Did we always have such hot chemistry?
She scans a hand in front of my eyes like she’s trying to X-ray my thoughts. “Earth to my alien friend.”
“Sorry,” I say. “He actually . . . apologized. It was heartfelt. I think he meant it, Quinn. I really do.”
“Well, good,” she says smugly. “I hope he meant it. It’s about time. Just don’t tell me you gave him your number or anything.”
I shake my head—but my insides froth greedily knowing he already has it. My number hasn’t changed since ninth grade.
Okay, Sutton, be cool.
More so, be careful.
Now Quinn smiles wickedly. “I, on the other hand, just met a guy.” She wiggles her brows . . . and my heart drops.
No!
I’m too late.
I reprimand myself, all but smacking my wrist. Caught up in Holden’s apology, I missed the chance to save Quinn.
“Oh yeah?” I squeak. “What’s his name?”
Mentally I say it in chorus with her:
“Alan. He said he’s going to call.”