16. June #2
“You gonna help?” I throw over my shoulder at Meredith, who stands absently at my side, staring at our ridiculous sister.
“No.”
I pause, my hand tightening around the rope. “What?”
“No, wait,” she says as if she’s backtracking. “What if we don’t?”
My grip loosens. “You mean, leave her out there?”
“Just for a minute. Let her stew.” She shrugs, lips twitching upward. “Serves her right.”
“I can hear you!” Sophie shouts from below, deeply offended. “Do not let me stew!”
I hesitate.
Then my lips curve into a smirk.
“You know what?” I say. “Yeah. I think that’s fair.”
“Excuse me?” Sophie yelps.
We tie the rope loosely, so she can’t drift too far, then step back from the rail in unison, leaning our elbows against it as if admiring the scenery instead of ignoring our deliberately overdramatic baby sister bobbing indignantly below.
“I hate you both!” Sophie calls.
“Love you, too,” Meredith and I say at the same time.
We glance at each other.
And, somehow, the tension that’s been strangling us loosens.
“Come on, let’s sit somewhere quieter,” I offer as Sophie’s insults get more colorful.
Meredith looks at me as if I’ve offered her something altogether more important.
We find ourselves perched on the other side of the boat, side by side, almost arm in arm. Meredith—having swiped them from the box on our way over—silently slaps a salt-crusted cap on my head to protect my scalp from the midday sun.
It’s such a small thing, really. It doesn’t matter in the scheme of everything else. But the fact that she cares enough, even now, to make sure I’m looking after myself… It’s the final straw. The final chunk of ice to melt, which has been thawing since the moment we both got on this boat.
I take a breath. “I’m sorry.”
It costs me something to get the words out, but I no longer care to recall what it is once they’re settling between us.
Meredith’s face softens instantly. “June…”
“I mean it.” I stare out at the horizon. “For the hospital. For what I said. For acting like you were even capable of doing that to me, to Eddie. I’m sorry.”
She sighs. “I’d been lying to you all. I can’t blame you for coming to your own conclusions. It hurt, though, in the moment. So thank you for apologizing.”
“I felt so alone,” I admit. “After New York. After everything with… I couldn’t trust my own head anymore.
And then finding out you’d been lying—even if it wasn’t the lie I thought—felt like you and Mark were just laughing at me.
Like I was just some big game for you both, an excuse to get back together. ”
She swallows.
“And obviously that’s not true. I know that now,” I press on, quickly. “But I was so convinced my version was real. And now I’m back to square one, just not trusting myself anymore. Like, how many other things have I got wrong? What if he…”
I can’t say his name. It clogs my throat.
“You mean, Ashton?” she offers quietly.
All I can do is nod and try to get my breathing under control.
“It’s okay, let’s just sit quietly for a moment.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I’m fine, I’m just…” Another breath. “Meredith, what if we’ve got it all wrong? What if he’s not who we thought he was?”
She considers the question with the unfathomable wisdom granted by an additional two years of existence. “You mean, what if he’s innocent?”
I nod again.
“Then isn’t the fact you’re still in love with him proof that you should probably trust yourself more?”
I huff a laugh despite the tears rolling down my cheeks. Despite the ache in my chest. Her words were delivered less abruptly than Trent’s but carried that same bitter tune.
With quick hands, I wipe the evidence of my misery from my face. “I’m an idiot.”
“I think we’re both idiots.”
“So, you’ll forgive me then?”
She smiles, small and aching and real. “If you forgive me, too.”
I bump her shoulder gently. “You should probably apologize then.”
“I thought I’d already done that.”
“I could hear it again.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry, June. I wish I were better at taking care of you. Seems I’m a little out of practice.”
“I’m thirty-six,” I quip back. “I can look after myself.”
“Yeah, well. Still a baby sister to me.”
There’s nothing else to say; my head rests on her shoulder as her arm wraps around mine. The horizon glimmers, unchanged since the start of the conversation, yet the way we look out at it feels entirely different.
And something finally settles. At ease for the first time in months.
It’s…wonderful.
It’s healing; it’s?—
“Oh crap, we forgot about Sophie.”
We’re on our feet in an instant, crossing the boat to the opposite rail.
And freeze.
The life ring is still there. But Sophie is not.
“Sophie?” Meredith calls sharply, voice flipping instantly to full panic.
“Sophie!” I shout, scanning the waves. My heart slams against my ribs. I dart from one side of the boat to the other, searching the water, the foam, everywhere for even a flash of movement. Nothing.
“Oh, God,” Meredith breathes out. “June, I don’t see her!”
“I’m looking! She was literally just… Sophie!”
“What?”
We spin. There, just casually stretched out on the top deck, sunglasses on, towel under her, sunbathing, is our youngest sister.
Sophie wiggles her fingers in a lazy wave. “You guys were bonding. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
There is a full five-second silence where my brain goes through every stage of grief, rage, admiration, and overwhelming homicidal intent.
Then Meredith turns to me, and I turn to her.
We don’t speak. We don’t need to. We move as one.
Sophie realizes what’s about to happen half a second too late. “Wait. Wait! Don’t!”
We grab her, each taking an arm, lift her squawking off the deck, march her to the rail while she shrieks with laughter and outrage, and throw her back into the ocean.
Her splash is even louder the second time.