Chapter 17 Cecily
I let the shower steam soak into my pores. The firm spray courses into my hair and runs down my back, my legs, and into the drain.
I want to wash this day off me. There’s so much to process.
Kicked out of school.If this were a yearbook superlative, I would be the one voted least likely to ever have this happen.
It’s not who I am.
I follow rules. I study. I work hard.
And I don’t fail well.
Case in point: Bryce and Jamie. I know in my rational brain that what happened with them was a timing thing, in much the same way that Alice Devereaux and Nate experienced their “similar themes” issue at Boone. Right place, right time. Or maybe wrong place, wrong time—depending on who you are in the story. In the case of Bryce and Jamie, he was in a bad emotional place, she was a familiar face, and whatever happened after that happened. When Jamie asked me—and to be fair, she did ask me first—of course it felt like a major blow to my self-esteem. So I started writing about it. Writing seemed like a safe space to take those feelings. It didn’t help that the online dating scene is a cruel manifestation of every reality show that’s ever existed. (Love Island? Double Shot at Love with DJ Pauly D and Vinny? Or, perhaps my all-time favorite, Love Is Blind?) There was no way to manifest winning at love out there in cyber-hell.
So I redefined the idea of winning by pursuing the only thing that was making me feel better: words, arranged into sentences, crafted into paragraphs, and woven into stories about girls who don’t need love in order to live a fulfilling life.
I thought I was one of those girls.
Now, I’m not so sure.
I’m mad at Nate. Like, really mad. If he had just kept his mouth shut, I wouldn’t have any of these issues. I could have talked my way out of the public FaceTime debacle with a few swift lies and a phone call to my family later on to clarify everything.
Probably.
It didn’t have to go this way.
Now, everything we worked for is gone—poof! Out the window like an accidentally erased Microsoft Word document. And for all the let’s snag an agent by adding accolades to my query letter business, now I’ll have even less to report on those letters. What am I going to write? Dear Agent, I was in an MFA program, but I got released after defrauding the program’s director. Please sign me though, because my writing’s hella strong. I don’t think so.
I’m royally fucked.
It doesn’t help that I’m not much of a fighter. Lots of people enjoy a good fight; they like to prove their points and be right. But I’ve always been of the mindset that it’s more important to be happy than it is to be right, so I just don’t fight with people. I’m an introvert at heart. I don’t like to scream and yell my feelings out there to the whole world. Plus, people don’t fight fair. They’re not genuinely listening to what points you make or what you have to say. In my experience, anything that looks like listening is actually just your opponent grimacing while internally constructing their rebuttal. Some people may find it annoying, but when life gives me lemons, I just ask the lemons to please leave me alone until I can figure out what to do with them. Which is what I am doing with Nate for the moment.
I hear him close the door behind him, and I am grateful for the lack of drama with which he leaves the room. I’m not sure where he’ll go—Nate and I have never fought before, so I don’t know what his standard operating procedure is for arguments—but I figure maybe he’s headed to one of the rooms downstairs to sit and read, or maybe he’ll grab a drink at the party (or even from the kitchen staff, who all seem to find him pretty charming) and try to talk Dillon Norway into reducing our sentence. I don’t know what his plans are, but it’s nice not to have this already embarrassing situation get even worse with the two of us engaging in a useless shouting match.
It’s tempting to make a list like I normally would, but right now I know the first thing I need to do is clear the air with my parents.
I wash my hair, and I give myself a much-needed scalp massage, then rinse all the suds off my body and wrap myself up in the towel hanging off the back of the bathroom door. My eyes peruse the shelf of split toiletries and notice our toothbrushes, side by side. Crazy to think that just six months ago, Nate was just a professor at my school, a presumably arrogant award-winning author whose weak stomach would likely never see another lobster again.
Man, how things change.
I dry off, pull on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, and wrap my hair in the towel. Then I park myself at the little desk and brace myself as I swipe through my phone, FaceTiming my mom.
Her tear-streaked face appears on the screen.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, Cecily,” she replies.
“I owe you an explanation. Where’s Dad?” I ask.
“He’s right here.” My mother shifts the camera angle so that I can see them both.
“Are Jamie and Bryce there too?”
“They’re downstairs. Should we get them?”
“Please don’t. At least not yet. Did Jamie see the livestream?”
Mom nods.
I exhale, making a mental note to call her next. “Is she okay?”
She shakes her head. “No, she’s not.”
“That’s fair. Don’t worry—I’ll talk to her.”
“She’s very pregnant, Cecily,” Mom reminds me. “Be kind to her. She’s fragile.”
“I know.”
“So you want to explain,” my dad chimes in. “Go ahead. We’re listening.”
“The man you spoke to—that’s Nate Ellis.”
“I didn’t like how he called you CJ. Your name is beautiful,” Mom says.
“He’s the author?” Dad asks.
“Yes. He’s actually pretty famous.” I gulp. “In addition to being an author, he’s a professor at my school. Well, was. Anyway, remember at Thanksgiving, the whole Tonight Show thing?”
My parents nod in unison.
“So I had been drinking that night. We didn’t know Questlove would be at the karaoke bar. Needless to say, I screwed up and kissed Nate in a moment of stupidity, and everything just spiraled form there. He was at risk of losing his job as a result of me being an ass, and I didn’t want that to happen, so I married him because the university rules said that student-teacher relationships are only okay if the student and teacher are married.”
“That’s ludicrous,” my father says.
“Which part?” I ask for clarification. “The student-teacher part?”
“No. The fact that you decided to marry him over a childish indiscretion.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, Dad, but it’s not like I was out there killing it in the dating world. Nate was one of the only people in grad school who was nice to me. I’m sorry, but a little bit of kindness goes a long way with me.”
“So you actually tied the knot—like, legally,” my mother says. It’s not a question. It’s a statement.
“Yes. At the county clerk’s office. Right after Thanksgiving. And everything was going fine. We were just friends, well, until this past week.”
“Meaning?” asks Mom.
I sigh. “We came to the residency, and we had to, you know, fake being a married couple. They put us in a room together, and let’s just say one thing led to another. And now we’re—I don’t even know what you’d call it. Dating, I guess.”
Mom shakes her head, her expression pained with confusion and, I’m guessing, disappointment. “That’s backward. So what’s your plan now? Just stay married to this man?”
“Well, we can technically have the marriage annulled up to five years after the date of the license. There are rules about that. If it was an arranged marriage or in any way a sham, you’re allowed to annul it. So we wouldn’t even have to get a divorce. At least I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.”
“What about when you actually do decide to settle down?” Mom asks. “It’s not exactly a desirable trait, having been married before.”
“Mom, I’m chock-full of undesirable traits. I’m too ambitious, too driven, too nerdy or bookish or whatever you call it; I’m just too extra all around. I would hope that, if I ever do get married, all those things would be reasons why my future husband would want to be with me in the first place, and because of that, he would understand once he knew the whole story. But I don’t think I’ll ever get married for real. The dating world sucks. Nate’s the first guy who I’ve had any sort of real relationship with since back when I was with Bryce.”
“That’s ironic, considering the fact that the relationship is actually not real, according to what you just explained,” Dad clarifies.
“No. It—what we have now—is real. It just started under false pretenses,” I correct him.
At least Ithink it’s real.
“And so what about the Bryce thing?” Mom asks. “Why did you say all those awful things? You gave Jamie your blessing to be with him. It’s unfair to go back on that now. Don’t you want her to be happy?”
“Listen, Mom. I love Jamie. She’s my sister, and of course I want her to be happy. But when she and Bryce first got together, they put me between a rock and a hard place. You can see that, can’t you? This boy who I used to be very much in love with decided to date—then marry, then impregnate with a fleet of babies—my sister? Even if years had passed, don’t you see how hurtful that could still be?”
My mom sighs. “I guess. But why didn’t you say anything back then?”
“Because I didn’t want to stand in the way of Jamie being happy. And it wasn’t like they were parading it around in front of me. They were miles away in a different state, and since I never had social media—you know, until a few days ago—I didn’t have to see any of the pictures they were posting or any of that other early-relationship shove-it-in-your-face kind of stuff. So I wrote about it. And that really helped. And look, my writing was praised to the point where I won an award for it. I never once used his name or hers for that matter. In fact, the only people who will ever know the story is about Jamie, Bryce, and me are those of us who were involved in it directly.”
Mom winces. “I didn’t know they hurt you, Cecily. I really thought you were over him and had moved on. I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “I am human.”
She rubs her forehead. “I just want all my girls to be happy.”
“Can I be honest?” I ask.
“Of course.”
I inhale, willing myself to be bold enough to say this thing that’s weighed so heavily on me since high school. “You never made me feel like you truly wanted me to be happy. I always felt like all you wanted was for me to become a wife and mother and that unless I achieved those particular milestones, I would always be a disappointment to you.”
Her face twists up.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Mom,” I continue. “I’m just telling you how I felt.”
She takes a breath and bites her lip, nodding slightly. After an awkward pause, she finally speaks. “I never meant to do that to you, honey.”
“But you see it, right? All the excitement you’d pour into Anna, Melanie, and Jamie—their weddings, their pregnancies, their kids? How could I ever really be enough for you if I didn’t bring those critical pieces to the table? Like, if all I did was get a good job that I liked and that made me happy, how could that possibly make you proud of me?”
“Sweetheart, I’ve always been proud of you.”
Tears spring to my eyes. “Not as proud as you are of them.”
“Oh, Cecily.” She rubs her forehead, losing herself in thought. “Did you know that when I was a girl, I wanted to be a veterinarian?”
“What?” I try to think back. Did she ever tell me that? I shake my head. “I don’t think you ever said anything about that.”
“Well, I did. I loved animals. But my parents—your grandparents—drilled it into your aunts and me that our job was to find husbands. It was definitely a different time back then, but I remember being sad about not being able to go to college. I thought I was doing better by my girls by making sure you all got the chance to go to college and study whatever made you happy.”
“But a degree is only good if you use it. Anna wanted to be an architect. Melanie wanted to produce music. Jamie wanted to be a trainer. Now all they do is raise kids.”
“Yes, but, Cecily, they can always go back later and pursue those dreams when their babies are grown up enough not to need them anymore.”
“It will be too late then,” I argue.
“You don’t know that. All I wanted was for you and your sisters to have options. But I’m still the product of my upbringing, and I have three sisters of my own who all were raised the same way. Family first. Kids, holidays, a happy and safe home—that was the job we were raised to do. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you weren’t enough. I just tried to do better for you girls than my parents did for me.”
I let that sink in. It definitely offers a different perspective. I wipe my cheeks.
“I love you, Cecily. I always wanted you to be happy.”
I nod. “I love you too.”
“And you’re happy, right? With the writing and the library?”
My lips form an involuntary smile. “I am.”
“Then that’s all I could ever ask for.”
Huh.It’s a revelation, and I’m overwhelmed by a feeling I can’t quite describe. But before I can put my finger on it, she continues.
“So you and Nate are dating?”
“We’re in a fight at the moment, but yes.”
“That’s kind of funny, if you think about it.”
“What is?”
“You’re dating your husband.”
“Oh, that. Yeah, I know,” I say. “We’ve joked about it too.”
“Are you happy?” Mom asks.
“He’s good to you, this Nate guy?” Dad piles on.
“Yes,” I say. “Everything is fine.” This is obviously a lie, but it appears I’ve successfully smoothed things over with my parents, so I don’t think it’s necessary to mention the fact that I’ve just been booted out of school.
I’m able to wrap it up, and then I make another FaceTime call and have a very similar conversation with my sister, who apologizes profusely.
“I never would have dated him if I knew you were still in love with him!” she gushes.
“I wasn’t still in love with him,” I explain. “I just felt like it was against girl code, but I love you, and you were so excited, so how could I tell you not to be with him?”
She then cries for about forty-five minutes straight on account of extreme pregnancy hormones. I spend the bulk of our chat calming her down, so that’s fun. It’s only before I end our call, as I’m pacing the room, that I realize that Nate’s dirty laundry bag is gone.
His toiletries are still there,I remember.
But then I check the drawers, and all his clothes are gone too. I check the closet, and so is his suitcase. I hang up the phone with my sister and I call Nate. Straight to voicemail.
Okay. Hm.I’m tempted to panic, but my rational brain comes to the rescue.
I check the time. It’s after nine. He probably just found another room to crash in for the night. Isn’t that what married couples do? A husband and wife get in a fight, and the husband sleeps on the couch.
This is the equivalent of Nate sleeping on the couch.
Maybe he’s in one of those awful rooms in the North Wind. God, I hope not, for his sake. But this is on me. I told him to leave me alone, and he respectfully did exactly that. So okay. Don’t double down on the crazy,Cecily. Just take a break from each other for the night. It doesn’t need to be a huge deal.
A thought hits my chest: What if he left the island?
Nope. He couldn’t have left. There’s no public transportation off the island after 6:00 p.m. in the winter, unless you’re airlifted by an emergency medical helicopter,I remind myself.
We’ll reconvene in the morning. If we have to be on the first ferry out of here, that would be the one to Point Judith that leaves at 8:00 a.m. So I’ll see him on the 7:30 shuttle van.
It’s fine,I decide. Remain calm.
Everything’s going to be fine.
I pop two melatonin gummies, because there’s no way I’ll be able to get through the night with all of the thoughts dancing around in my head. And then, because my body is useless when it comes to tolerance, I pass out like a dead person.
The alarm clock on my phone wakes me up at 6:30. I get up, get dressed, make the bed (as if I’m coming back or as if someone else might want to sleep in it), and pack all of my stuff. I pack Nate’s bathroom shelf lineup too, trying to push out of my mind the fact that he didn’t come back to our room last night.
Once I’ve lugged all my crap downstairs, I pop into the kitchen to see where Maggie is. At this point, the only people I’m not afraid to run into are the retreat house staff. Of course, as luck would have it, Lucy is there, her resting bitch face in all its glory. She’s smirking at me, the look silently shouting, I told you so. My response look is one of curiosity, like, You told me what exactly?
“Maggie is outside waiting to take you to the eight o’clock boat, Cecily,” she says, but the sinister smile on her face tells a different story.
“Thank you,” I reply.
“Best of luck to you with your writing endeavors.”
“Um, yeah. Thank you.”
I turn to leave and notice her smirking toward the kitchen door, where none other than Alice Devereaux is peeking out.
Makes sense that she would be just as shady in my final encounter with her as she was in my initial one, I think as I trudge through the early-morning ice remnants to the running van.
I open the door, expecting to see Nate inside, but it’s only Maggie.
“Morning,” she says, light-years more cheerful than Lucifer back in the main house. She’s wearing a tight black long-sleeve shirt that leaves her whole midsection completely bare. Across the chest, it reads, This is my (book) clubbing shirt. Normally, her getup would make me contemplate the Matthias dress code, but right now, it doesn’t even register, distraught as I am by the events of the past twelve hours.
“Hi, Maggie. I’m not sure if you heard. Nate and I need a ride to the ferry, please.”
“Not Nate. Just you this morning,” she corrects me.
“I’m sorry?”
“He’s not coming.”
“What do you mean? I mean, obviously I can see that he’s not here, but won’t he be joining us?”
She shakes her head. “Nope.”
“Is he staying? Did something change?” I pull my cell phone out of my coat pocket. No missed calls or text messages. I hit the green button next to his name. It goes straight to voicemail.
“I heard he left last night.”
“How? There’s no way out of here, right?”
Maggie cranks the heat up in the van, then puts it in drive and slowly pulls away from the main house. I try not to notice the lump that forms in my throat as my mind tries to process the idea that this will probably be the last time I ever see this place. She lowers her voice, not that anyone can hear us in here anyway. “When you live here year-round, any kind of news travels fast: bad, good, makes no difference,” she explains. “Nate got an Uber last night and chartered a plane back to New York.”
“What? Seriously?” I’m stunned. He just up and left and didn’t tell me?
“Facts. Jared—his Uber driver—posted it on Instagram last night. And everybody here knows the pilot, Frank Fredonia. Nice guy, but more than happy to shuttle disgruntled rich people around for the right price.”
That’s right. Unlike me, Nate’s got money. He doesn’t have to live his whole life on scholarship like I do.
“I can’t believe he didn’t tell me he was leaving.”
“Well, you guys aren’t really married, right? It was all a—ugh, what’s the word? Like, a fake-out?”
I shrug, staring out at the quiet of the wintry morning. “I think you mean a ruse,” I say with a sigh. “I don’t know, Maggie. I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
I turn around to see the small campus of the retreat center shrinking farther into the backdrop until finally it disappears entirely as we drive over a hill.
I feel goodbye sitting heavy in my gut.
How could he have left without telling me?