Chapter 18
Liz had been watching them from the bar. Waiting for the crash. Like a doomed and underpaid babysitter, she kept one eye on Cam and one eye on Mac.
Liz willed herself to relax. To let PJ twirl her, to bump hips with Brenna, let Cam serenade her with each verse of the bar’s sing-along soundtrack. For the most part, the bachelor-bachelorette party had been fun; the weekend was moving along. She just had to get through each day until she found out her future.
The more she let the fantasy of Milan form in her mind, the more she savored its possibility for escape. Liz had lived her entire life in New York—Long Island, then Manhattan. Milan scared her in the best way. A new language. A new culture. A new map. She could get lost.
Liz realized that maybe, this time…she wanted to get lost.
It had just taken the ring, the official engagement, for her to finally admit it.
Then a commotion of movement outside caught her eye. Through the back windows of Matthew’s, she saw Maggie jump up from the patio table where she and Mac had been sitting. A new person had approached them, the same guy whose frisbee found Maggie on the beach back in June. There were pained looks, some exasperated faces, and then suddenly Maggie took off, racing out the bar’s side exit. In her wake, it looked like Mac said something to the guy, who then shook his head and walked away.
Liz watched as Mac looked around Matthew’s, face forlorn, until his eyes landed on her, their gazes meeting through the window. She raised her hand, beckoning him inside. Back to their friends, back to their lives.
He turned and went after Maggie instead.
Liz breathed in but her emotions were unsteady. Why did she care what Mac did? He was a grown adult. He wasn’t her responsibility.
And yet.
Something about Maggie’s exit, the worried expression with which Mac followed…
Something was wrong.
Liz followed them.
She shouldn’t have, but she followed. She listened to their breathless words and hated herself for eavesdropping. She just wanted to make sure Mac was okay.
Liz heard them kiss, their voices silenced, the sounds of clothes colliding, bodies intertwining, and knew that was her cue to leave. Maybe the mess would come in the morning, or months from now. Or maybe never. Maybe this was how it was always meant to be. Liz and Cam and Maggie and Mac. She couldn’t help but smile, just a little.
She had wanted that fantasy as much as, if not more than, any of them. She’d always wanted a sister. Why not have your best friend become your sister-in-law? They could sign their future children up for the same ballet classes, backyard dinners on Sunday nights. Liz had rooted for this. She had wished for it on shooting stars. Couldn’t she root for it again?
And then the crash came. She heard Maggie’s stuttering apology, snapped out of the daydream. It had never been real. A pretty story, nothing more. Liz grimaced through Mac’s confession, Maggie’s rejection.
She felt the colors blurring, her emotions heating up. She couldn’t just listen silently as one of her best friends—her future brother-in-law—had his heart ripped out all over again.
Liz intervened, stepping out of the shadows, but as soon as she saw Mac’s face, she knew it was the wrong move. He looked at her with guilt and embarrassment and annoyance, but more than anything, with sadness. By being there, Liz would only make it worse.
“Why did you follow us?” he said. “We were just—”
“She’s just using you, Mac!” Liz couldn’t help it; her frustration, her emotions from this entire weekend couldn’t be bottled up. Maggie was back and it overwhelmed her. Filled her with hurt over everything they’d lost. That Liz had lost. That Liz would never get back. The words spilled out. “She’s messing with you like always.”
“That’s not true,” Mac said.
“She comes to you when she wants attention. And you just give it to her—”
“You don’t know anything about our relationship.”
“What relationship, Mac? She hasn’t been home in years. You may be drunk but you’re smarter than this.”
“I can handle my own shit, Liz.”
“I was just trying to help—”
“Well, you’re not my mom, okay?” he snapped.
Liz felt like her heart had been ripped out through her throat. “At least you have one.”
He winced. “Liz, that is so unfair.”
“Just forget it. Go after her if you want. What do I care?” Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t care about acting sensible, measured. Anger took control instead.
Mac stood frozen, a deer in headlights.
“Just go,” she whispered, the tears now loose and falling down her cheeks.
Mac shook his head and followed Maggie home.
Liz sank down onto the ground.
White, she thought, looking down at the cocktail napkin she still had in her hand, wet and clinging like a needy lover to the drink she’d run outside with. Ripped up into tiny pieces. She paired it with a memory.
White: the hospital walls she had stared at for months on end.
She could close her eyes and still see that hallway where she’d waited. Sitting on the floor, sobbing in Cam’s arms. The cancer had come back at an aggressive level, and now her mom was gone.
The second-worst day of Liz’s life had been nearly five years before, the awful Wednesday morning in October of freshman year at NYU, when Nancy first called with the news.
Her doctor had found something.
Cancer was something that happened in books and TV shows and movies, thought Liz. To other people, to other families. Not to her. Not to single parents who were also best friends of their only children. Not to a woman a town counted on. Not to Nancy.
And yet, here they were.
Liz had rushed home immediately. Together, they read and reread the pamphlets and printouts about Nancy’s ovarian cancer, the next steps, the recommended plan. It was so scary, so serious. Liz was too angry to cry.
Those next months, she was with her mom at every appointment, or she covered shifts at Grey’s Garments. Liz helped the business endure through a school year’s worth of graduation and sweet sixteen dresses, weddings gowns and more. For a decade, Nancy had put her clients’ deadlines above everything else. Now she needed to focus on herself. Liz would do anything to help carry the load.
Her mother made Liz promise to keep the extent of her diagnosis a secret. It felt too personal, too private, and she didn’t want their community getting worried. Nancy could picture the fuss, the too much attention. That was typical Nancy, never wanting anyone else to hurt just because she was in pain. It was bad enough that her daughter was sacrificing so much of her freshman year to be by her mom’s side, she said. Nancy was already a single mom, a working mom. She’d long ago reached her quota of knowing, pitiful stares.
It had killed Liz, not telling Maggie the truth about what was happening with Nancy, but she had to respect her mom’s wishes. All she was allowed to say was that there was a health issue, that Nancy was going to doctors and Liz would have to spend more time than usual helping out at home. Deep down, she tried to telepathically beg Maggie to ask more follow-up questions, to insist on not taking “She should be fine soon” as a satisfactory answer. To come back to Long Island with Liz just once, to see Nancy herself. But Maggie was on a different planet those days. Liz couldn’t reach her.
It would be okay, though, Liz had told herself as the chemo progressed and her mom responded well. They were on the right side of statistics as they watched Nancy’s numbers count toward hope. It went as well as it could. Nancy was in remission.
It was nearly the end of spring semester when Liz could finally breathe.
One week later, Maggie sat Liz down with an announcement of her own. The news that she was transferring.
Liz was devasted, but also oddly grateful that Maggie’s timing somehow—maybe instinctively—aligned with Nancy’s remission. Liz had only momentarily stopped drowning. The pain was still familiar, but numb. No, if Nancy had still been sick, if Liz had still been treading water when Maggie abandoned her for LA, Liz wasn’t sure she’d have ever risen to the surface again.
She learned then and there that people wouldn’t stay. Her dad first. Up and gone. Now Maggie, too.
Maggie left and Liz was reeling, but she managed to stay afloat. She managed five years of relearning to swim, of trusting the waves, of daring herself to float on the surface, to let the sun kiss her face. To celebrate, to cherish that she had her mom.
Then came the worst news of all. Five years of peacetime, erased with one terrifyingly too-late scan. The cancer was back with a vengeance. Nancy and Liz stayed calm as they levied the troops and prepared for the second round of war. But they were outnumbered. And they were unlucky.
The cancer had spread to her liver and lungs.
Six months later, Nancy was gone.
Liz knew then that it had all been some mirage. A trick of the light, a knockoff daydream she’d naively hoped would come true.
Nothing could last forever.
Cam stepped in. He was the only person she had. They were two years out of college and found themselves reviewing her mother’s will. Selling the house, packing away Liz’s childhood. Her heart broke each and every day.
There was nothing left.
There was no one else left.
There was only Cam. Liz burrowed into him like he was the last safe space left in the world. He was there. Mac was there, too. The entire Peters family was there for every second, every day, Liz remembered. They built her back up bone by bone. Slowly, excruciatingly, Liz found her way.
Since then, she’d had to hold them all tight and close. Suffocating and desperate, the only option. She had to protect them, she had to repay them.
She had to make sure they never slipped away.
“Lizard? What’s wrong?”
She looked up and saw her fiancé’s face, Cam’s eyes shining with concern. She let out a sob, rushed toward him, hugging him as tight as she could. She needed to escape, to burrow back into him, to be rescued and swept away.
“It’ll be all right,” he whispered.
She nestled her head further into the curve between his shoulder and his neck. She wanted to forget everything, to fall asleep right there.
Then she looked down on the ground and saw his phone.
The screen was facing up, the display completely shattered.
“Cam, what did you do to your phone?”
He winced, caught and guilty. “It slipped,” he said, but Liz recognized the lie. She heard the sadness in his voice, the tiredness in his throat. Something had happened to Cam tonight, but this time she didn’t feel like dealing with it.
She didn’t have the energy.
She was exhausted. She was empty.
She could only look around and see how far from perfect they’d fallen.