10. June
JUNE
I can already tell the hangover is going to be terrible before I even open my eyes. It’s the kind that aches at the very back of my head and threatens to split my skull in two if I crack an eyelid.
That’s fine, I can orient myself with my eyes closed.
I’ve woken up in enough strangers’ beds to know how to navigate something like this.
Except, there’s something familiar about the texture of these bedsheets.
Familiar in the way I can imagine the window just to my left, through which I can hear the faint sound of nearby waves.
The slightly musty smell of unused, clean linen is throwing me off a little, but that undertone of cranberries…
Then it hits me all at once.
One too many cups of wine and a stroll down the pier to catch the end of Richard’s compelling plea to sell the Shack. Meredith standing there, not immediately shooting him down. Her wide eyes as I yell at her.
Okay. Maybe more than yell. Perhaps I pushed a little too hard, and she pushed back a little harder. Then we both end up in the sea, fully clothed and screaming at each other.
I would’ve thought that would have sobered me up a bit, but the next thing I remember is being wrapped in towels and tossed into the back of someone’s truck. I think there was a shower involved somewhere, and then…
I fell asleep in my childhood bedroom.
Opening my eyes confirms it, along with a sharp pain that splits my head in two.
“Get your butt out of bed, June. Mom’s taking us sailing.”
Blearily, I turn toward my aggressor, finding Meredith standing in the doorway.
She has her hands on her hips, her hair pouring over her shoulders with a slight wave to it, like she slept in it still wet.
I shouldn’t stare at her hair, but there’s something novel about it—for the first time since she arrived here, she doesn’t look entirely put together.
I’d smile if it didn’t hurt so much to move my face.
Instead, I bark with as much strength as I can muster, “Get out of my room.”
Meredith does not look impressed. “What are you, twelve?”
“I’m hungover.”
She balks. “And whose fault is that?”
“Yours,” I groan.
Meredith purses her lips, an uptight response likely stuck in the back of her throat.
I take it as a victory and lie back down. I just need a few more hours of sleep, and then I should be safe to get home without throwing up.
Then something soft smacks me over the head.
“Ow!” I scramble up to glare at my sister.
The offending pillow is still clutched in her hands. “That’s for pushing me off the pier,” she says as she threateningly raises it above her head again.
I hold up my hand, then point at her. “Don’t you dare.”
She does dare.
“I lost my Versace sandals!” she yells as another blow bounces off my forearms, which are now braced to protect my head.
“You’re a lawyer! Buy a new pair.”
Another whack, this time around the side of my head. “I want an apology!”
“You’re getting nothing until you stop—ow!—acting like a crazy person!”
“Meredith! June! Get down here!”
We both freeze up at the sound of our mother’s voice. She never yells. I can probably count the number of times she’s done it on one hand, and each time she had been genuinely angry.
When I glance over at Meredith, I notice her mutual look of terror.
Despite my throbbing headache, we both spring into action immediately.
The morning sun glints off the water like shards of broken glass, and every shimmer pierces straight through my skull.
I brace a hand against the side of the boat, swallowing against the queasy churn of my stomach, while Meredith—who looks annoyingly fine—sits stiff-backed across from me, eyes narrowed at the horizon.
The Bluebird isn’t much to look at anymore, but she was something once.
The wood has worn soft from decades of sea and sun, and the once-bright paint has faded to a dull, chipping reminder of its former glory.
She’s small but quick, with elegant lines and solid bones.
Mom always said she was still up to competitive standards.
Dad always said, “Yeah, if you’re looking at forty-year-old regulations. ”
The memory is swallowed sharply down my throat.
“Where’s Sophie?” I ask to fill the silence.
Meredith doesn’t acknowledge me for a moment, so I cough very pointedly until she begrudgingly responds. “She had an emergency with her…Trent.”
“Her Trent?”
She flicks her gaze to me for a second, proving just how annoyed she is. “Did I stutter?”
“Who’s Trent?”
Meredith rolls her eyes and waves me off. “Ask her yourself.”
I scowl at that. “Right, of course. I forgot you two were best friends again.”
“Okay!” a sharp voice interrupts us.
We both shield our eyes from the sun as we look up.
Our captain stands at the helm, bright-eyed and sharp in a windbreaker that’s older than I am.
You’d never know Eleanor was almost sixty.
Not from the way she grins as she hauls on the mainsail, wind whipping her silver-blond hair around her face.
“Come on, girls. You haven’t forgotten everything, have you? ”
Despite my sour mood, I find myself moving on instinct. We must have cast off together a hundred times before; it’s basically just muscle memory at this point. Something that can be done in high winds or storms, stone-cold sober…or hungover.
I know my place. And, apparently, Meredith does, too.
Within minutes, we’re both in motion, adjusting lines and trimming sails with the kind of synchronized ease that can only be learned through years of practice.
We know this boat as well as we know each other’s worst habits; Meredith prefers a tight, calculated turn, while I rely too much on instinct.
But it works. We’ve always made it work.
We don’t even need to talk, which suits me just fine.
And after a while, I allow myself to enjoy it—the wind in my hair, the snap of the sail, the way the water slices clean beneath us.
Even my hangover starts to feel secondary.
“Got some color back in your cheeks,” Meredith comments mildly.
I glance over at her, and for the first time in days, she doesn’t look like she wants to strangle me. Then the wind shifts. Mom miscalculates. The boom swings too fast, too sharply.
“Duck!” Meredith shouts.
I barely drop in time before the boom sweeps across the deck, rattling the rigging. The mainsail luffs wildly, wind escaping where it shouldn’t. “Crap,” I mutter.
“The jib’s gone slack,” Meredith snaps, already moving to fix it.
I jump in to help, everything forgotten in the rush to adjust the sail before we lose momentum. She pulls on the sheet while I work the winch, our hands brushing in a familiar rhythm, slowly but surely getting everything back on track.
By the time we’re both shaking off rope burn, there’s sweat on my forehead and not enough air in my lungs.
Meredith isn’t in much better shape, either; she’s flushed, her careful poise broken by the heat and the effort of holding the sail steady.
Strands of hair stick to her forehead, and her breathing is quick.
She doesn’t look polished or composed or like the responsible older sister who’s always had her life figured out. She just looks…human.
That tight feeling in my chest loosens.
The surge of adrenaline fades, leaving behind something raw and unexpected.
She exhales sharply, adjusting her grip on the sheet. “That was…” She shakes her head.
“Yeah.” I swallow, glancing at her again.
And somehow, it’s funny.
Not just funny. It’s hilarious.
A snort escapes me, unbidden, and then Meredith makes a face—half-exasperation, half-reluctant amusement—and that’s it. Laughter bubbles up between us, helpless and breathless, like a wave crashing over the tension we’ve been holding on to for days.
I press my hands to my cheeks in an attempt to stop them from aching. “You look awful.”
Meredith groans. “I was just about to say the same thing about you.”
We’re still catching our breath when Eleanor leans back against the helm, the corners of her mouth twitching upward in unmistakable satisfaction.
I gape at her. “You did that on purpose!”
She smiles benevolently. “All I wanted was a nice morning on the boat with my girls. Was that too much to ask?”
“You didn’t ask at all,” Meredith mutters under her breath as we both slump back on the deck.
The sun is high in the sky now, warm enough to burn the bridges of our noses. The sunscreen is passed around between us, and Mom hands out salt-crusted baseball caps when we reach calmer waters. Eleanor takes her own seat and leaves us to lower the sails so we can just float for a while.
She smiles up at us fondly when we join her again. “You know, I haven’t been out on this boat for years. Richard was never that interested.”
The name dampens the mood a bit. “You used to sail this alone, right? Raced it to the Cape and back in less than six hours.”
Eleanor laughs. “I never said that, did I?”
“You absolutely did!” Meredith snaps at her. “You remember that Thanksgiving? You argued with Old Pete about it so much that he left before we even got the turkey out.”
I hadn’t thought about that in years. The memory has me laughing right alongside my mother.
“Yeah, well. He was probably right to call me out on it,” Eleanor admits once we’ve all calmed down. “This is nice, though, isn’t it? I’ve missed you both so much. It’s always so much better when we’re all together like this.”
I glance almost involuntarily at Meredith, who meets my gaze awkwardly. That flare of anger begins to spark again at her sheepishness, but… I’m tired. Like, I’m really tired. And it might be the hangover or the sailing or the sun, but I don’t feel like picking another fight right now.
“Don’t let Sophie hear you say that,” I joke instead, noting how Meredith’s shoulders sag in relief out of the corner of my eye. “She’ll think she’s missing out.”
But Mom’s face becomes more serious, reaching out to hold on to both our hands—her touch surprisingly fragile. “I love you both. You know that, don’t you?”
I open my mouth to affirm her, but I find myself hesitating.
It’s an imperfect kind of love, broken in some places and neglected in many others.
Still, it persists in fragile touches, salty smiles, and caring enough to get us both on a boat so we can have one day when we aren’t at each other’s throats.
And maybe that’s what love is, at the end of the day.
As long as you’re both still willing to put in the effort.
Mom has to leave almost immediately after we dock, leaving Meredith and me alone to say our goodbyes. The exhaustion is deep now, and I’m more than ready to get home and sleep in my own bed.
“Right, well…” Meredith trails off.
I break the awkward pause by turning on my heel, throwing a see-you-later wave over my shoulder.
“June?” Meredith calls after me, and I feel my feet slow to a stop. She closes the distance before responding. “What you heard last night. What Richard was saying. I need you to know that I’m not planning on giving up.”
I meet her determined expression with well-earned weariness. “Yeah? Because to me, it looked like you were more than willing to pack it all in.”
“He was making a case about the Shack’s financial situation, one that he supported with actual facts this time,” Meredith reasons. “I was hearing him out because, if we’re going to do this, we can’t afford to repeat those same mistakes.”
“That’s all it was?”
She hesitates. “No. But I’m not going to get into it unless Sophie is here and I have a beer in my hand.”
Though my curiosity spikes, the thought of more alcohol makes me nauseous. “Yeah, maybe let’s shelve it for later.”
“Tomorrow, maybe? At Birdie’s?”
I blink at her. “You want to go to Birdie’s?”
She shrugs a little helplessly. “I apologized to Eddie.”
“He’s too good to you,” I say, because it’s true and because I’m bitter and?—
“Which means you’re the only one left.” Meredith looks like she might be shaking slightly, but her voice remains steady.
“I’m sorry, June. For so many things. I don’t even know where to start, and I’m sure I’ll find even more reasons to be sorry the longer I’m here.
But mostly, I’m sorry I missed this. I’m sorry we never did all the things we promised we would together, and you can’t imagine how proud I am to know you did them all anyway.
” Her eyes tear up slightly, and she looks away.
“I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to my wedding.
You should have been there; you were always supposed to be there.
I’ve messed so many things up that my life is falling apart, and it all started when I thought I was better off alone. ”
“Mer…”
Her tears are flowing freely now. “I missed you so much. Even when I knew you’d be mad at me. Which I know makes me so pathetic, but?—”
I cut her off by wrapping my arms around her neck and pulling her in close. “You’re so dramatic.”
Her sobs vibrate against my shoulder, interspersed with more blubbering apologies. More wretched miseries. It’s almost cathartic to stroke the back of her head, her wavy, sea-salty hair getting caught in my fingers. To remember all the times we’ve done this before, only the other way around.
“Of course I forgive you, you idiot,” I say with a sigh.
She sniffles. “What?”
“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” I roll my eyes even though she can’t see me. “Let you cry on me some more?”
Meredith sniffs with an ugly kind of indignity. “You can’t mean that.”
“I’m so tired, Mer. I don’t think holding on to this stuff is doing me any good.” Inexplicably, my mind wanders toward a different boat, a different, deeper conversation. This is a part where I tell you I’m glad you did something for yourself. “I think I need to let it go, for me.”