12. June
JUNE
I watch Eddie disappear down the winding path back to the house, Meredith standing there, looking after him like a building with all its windows blown out.
Something akin to guilt prickles in my chest. Not quite because, objectively, none of us knew what kind of games Meredith had been playing behind our backs. She’d lied to all of us; I’d just suspected an altogether different lie.
Was she telling the truth now?
The fact that Eddie had been caught in the crossfire wasn’t my fault. But watching my oldest friend walk away from the woman he had loved since he’d learned the meaning of the word wasn’t exactly easy, either.
From the look of sympathy on Sophie’s face, I suspect my younger sister of reaching a similar sentiment. She finally exhales and turns back to us. “We should probably give her some space,” she says pragmatically. “Do you need a ride back to town?”
It’s an obsolete question; we both drove here. So, I don’t bother answering. Instead, I continue to stare at the sand where Meredith stood in a daze, my thoughts spinning in a nauseating blur.
Was she telling the truth now?
The question presses against a bruise. I hate it.
I hate that it exists. That, at this point, after everything, I still don’t know how to believe her.
I don’t know whether it’s my own stubbornness, clinging to a belief I’d held for so long, or whether it’s just Meredith, my dear sister, who held our fragile trust in one hand and, intentionally or not, crushed it once again.
And I don’t know what’s worse. The narrative I’d constructed with the snippets of information available to me or…
Because if Meredith didn’t want Mark, if she never wanted him, then what was I doing? What did I see in New York? Was I even in my right mind?
And then?—
Mark.
If he kissed me, if he said it meant nothing, and all that time he’d been manipulating her, pushing her, pulling strings to keep her tied to him, but leaning in to kiss me like I was a convenient pressure valve.
Heat floods under my skin. Shame. Embarrassment. A raw, humiliated anger.
Had I been used?
Had I been that stupid?
Which narrative was more straightforward to believe?
Was she telling the truth now?
“June?” Sophie is suddenly in front of me, arms crossed.
My response comes out as a whisper. “I’m good for a ride, thanks.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I swallow. At some point, Meredith had retreated into the house. I hadn’t noticed.
Sophie ducked her head, forcing me to look her in the eye. “You’re just not going to say anything? Really?”
I blink at her, slow, like it takes a second for language to reach me. “I… Sophie… I’m just trying to?—”
“No.” She cuts me off, her voice trembling.
“Absolutely not. I’m sorry, but no. Meredith just told us she tanked her relationship, put herself back in that house, lied to a man she cares about, and practically let Mark hold her life hostage because she was terrified of losing you.
And you can’t come up with anything to say? ”
The sting hits deep. And the worst part is…she’s right.
If Meredith is telling the truth, she’s absolutely right.
My throat tightens, but before I can respond, Sophie barrels ahead. “All she’s done is try to fix things for you, and you’re standing here acting as if she owes you an apology?”
“She lied,” I say. It’s all I’ve got. It comes out small and pathetic. “She still lied.”
“Of course she lied,” she snaps. “She loves you, and you were under enough stress that we all worried it might kill you. You think she wanted to tell you she made a deal with the devil to keep you out of prison? You think that felt good to her?”
I flinch.
Because I’ve been so busy drowning in my own twisted storm that I didn’t once look up at my sister and think she might be drowning, too.
“Leave her alone, Soph,” Trent murmurs. “Look at her.”
“Just—” The word comes out of Sophie’s mouth too sharply. She softens the next part, but I can see from Trent’s face that the damage is done. “Let me get this off my chest, all right?”
He scoffs. “Yeah, because you’d be the first to justify lying, wouldn’t you?”
Her eyes widen. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he bites out. “You’re acting like lying’s some noble sacrifice. But it’s not. People always get hurt, most of all you.”
“This isn’t about me?—”
“Really?” he snaps. “Because you sure as heck seemed fine sneaking out of the house last night and pretending you didn’t.”
The color drains from her face. “You…think I’m lying to you?”
“I don’t think.” He drops his gaze. “I know. I heard you come in, watched you pull up to the house. I’m not stupid, you know.”
His rising voice is enough to pull me back to the present, out of my well of self-pity. Registering, vaguely, that Trent is drawing Sophie’s fire away from me. That he’s confronting her now to give me space to process.
Tears sting my eyes.
Pull yourself together.
You’re the oldest one here. You’re supposed to be looking after him.
“So, yeah…” He huffs. “Since it seems to be the day for spilling secrets, why don’t you share with the class, Sophie?”
Her face crumples. “I’m not lying to you.”
“But you are keeping something from me.”
“Trent—”
“No.” He backs away. “If you’re not gonna tell me, then we’re done with this conversation.”
“Trent,” she tries again, voice cracking.
He turns to me instead, grabs my wrist firmly, like he needs to hold onto something before he breaks. “Come on,” he mutters. “We’re done here.”
I barely process it before I’m being pulled away, my legs moving automatically.
“Trent, wait!” Sophie calls after us, desperate, but Trent doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t look back.
I, however, shoot one look over my shoulder.
Sophie Holloway, blindsided. Meredith Holloway, ruined. Trent Holloway, furious. June Holloway, utter disaster. It sounds like the start of a very bad, very frustrating joke—a whole family walks into a bar, on the verge of snapping in half…
We walk until the wind swallows Sophie’s voice. Until the house is a distant shape on the dunes. Until the only sounds are the surf and Trent’s too-shallow breathing.
Finally, he stops. Right there on the damp, packed sand, a long piece of driftwood crusted over with salt offered a place for him to collapse. He drops my wrist as he does, like he’s only just realized he was still holding it.
I don’t have the words yet to comfort him, though I know that’s what I should be doing. There are too many of them fighting in my throat.
He drags both hands down his face and mutters, “God, I’m so sick of lies.”
“Yeah…” Is my intelligent, supportive response. What an excellent sister I am.
We stay in silence for several moments, the sea breaking against the sand only a few meters away. There are worse places for your life to feel like it’s falling apart, I suppose.
Then, suddenly, Trent is up, as if he can no longer bear the stillness. The water’s cold enough to sting, which is probably why he walks straight into it up to his calves without hesitation.
I follow because I don’t know what else to do.
He paces in a slow circle, head tipped back, wind pushing his hair off his forehead. His chest rises and falls like he’s trying to breathe something out of his system.
Finally, he stops moving.
“At least Meredith is finally telling the truth.” He kicks at the water. “Makes one of us in this family who isn’t a miserable liar.”
I don’t react quickly enough. My brain is still stuck on, Was she telling the truth now?
He notices my silence. “What?”
“I just…thinking,” I say because that’s all I’ve been capable of doing. Thinking and thinking and thinking, being sucked into a black hole of thoughts that threaten to suffocate and overwhelm at any moment.
The water helps, actually. Maybe Trent is on to something with this.
“You believe her, don’t you? You were there,” he says quietly. “New York. All of it. Did you suspect anything? Did she ever tell you something was wrong?”
A wave curls around my feet.
I inhale. “She told me she thought he might try something.”
“Mark?”
I nod. “But she also told me she didn’t want him. At all. She was clear about that.”
“And now?” he presses. “Why don’t you believe what she’s saying now?”
I turn and look at him. Really look at him.
Our pact hangs between us like a live wire. It had felt a bit silly at the time, spontaneous. But now…
No lies.
I hold out my hand; he wades over and takes it without hesitation, reading the severity on my face with ease.
“No lies,” he parrots back my thoughts, squeezing my hand in reassurance.
I breathe once, twice. “There was a night,” I begin. “Around Christmas.”
Trent’s whole posture shifts. Alert. Delighted. As if he’s heady with the feeling of finally being trusted. Of being treated like the adult he’s about to become. I can’t begrudge him that. It’s almost funny to see, tugging a smile into the corner of my mouth.
But it makes me wonder if I’m about to make a terrible decision.
“When Mark came to Nantucket,” I continue anyway. “To tell me he’d had the no-contact order lifted.”
He nods eagerly. “I remember, he ruined Christmas dinner at Birdie’s. You and Mer took him back to yours, right?”
“We were alone,” I say. “In my living room. It was late. Meredith had gone. And he was…being Mark. Getting under my skin the way he always does. And maybe it was the wine or something—though now I’m wondering if it was always about Meredith—but…”
The grip on my hand tightens almost painfully. “But?”
“He kissed me.”
The words fall between us like a dropped match.
“You’re joking!” His outrage was immediate and almost hysterical.
Not at me. Never at me. Trent is…
“I pushed him off,” I kept going before I lost my nerve. “Told him to sort himself out.”
“Of course you did.” He’s shaking his head, not even a flicker of doubt.
“But then we never spoke about it again, until, well, recently. For a second there, I really thought it might’ve meant something.” I freeze. “To him. I thought it might… I thought it was me he wanted. But now…”
“June.”
It’s an admonishment, and I run my hands through my hair. “Okay, it really messed with my head. All right? I don’t know how I feel about it, or how to feel about it now…with everything Meredith just said.”
He nods slowly, running both hands through his hair like he’s mimicking me. Out of his depth in an increasingly literal way. “Okay. Let’s just…think about this for a second. You haven’t told anyone, right? This is the first time you’ve said it out loud?”
“Yes.”
“And doesn’t it sound…” He hesitates. Then adds, “Completely ridiculous?”
I blink. “What?”
“I mean it,” he insists. “Doesn’t it sound like classic manipulation? You were only just starting to look like a human again at Christmas, and he took advantage of that, right? He’s a loser, June. That’s what losers do. They screw with people.”
I wrap my arms around myself.
“So, Meredith says he wanted her. You say he kissed you. And maybe…” He lifts a shoulder. “Both are true. Also, maybe both aren’t true. But that doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it?—”
“Because we shouldn’t be giving him the time of day!”
“That’s…” I pull away from him, torn between my gratitude for his unwavering support and the frustration of confiding in a teenager. “It’s a lot more complicated than that.”
“Is it?” He steps closer.
I swallow. “Yes.”
“Because, from where I’m standing, it’s really pretty simple.”
And it finally hits me that this was a really terrible idea. I should have left when Eddie did and avoided all this. I just hadn’t wanted to lie to this poor boy again. Didn’t want him to look at me the way he had at Sophie. I should’ve just kept everything to myself. I should have?—
Lied to protect him from more hurt.
“June.”
I’m stunned into silence.
“You can’t be in love with Mark because you’re still in love with Ashton.”
I didn’t want to hear it. But I did.
I couldn’t hear it. But I needed to.
“Trent, you…” I was going to be sick.
“It’s okay, June. No one thinks you’re?—”
“I’m sorry.”
I run.
Water splashes up my legs in my haste, ice prickling my skin as I race back across the beach. Back toward the house, back toward my car and home, the familiarity of my own suffering. Doing my best to ignore it, to suffocate it, to squash it entirely.
But as I lie back in bed that night, I know the seed has taken root.
What if the most devastating truth was that it was that simple all along?