Chapter 13
Now
After dinner, Ben and Jonah leave to get the kids ready for bed, Liam and Gramps head to the bar to discuss Liam’s research—because no one cares how much Liam drinks—and I go back to the cabin to grab my laptop.
Apparently, I’m still just drunk enough to convince myself I might actually get words on the screen.
Back up on deck, I find an empty chair.
On either side of me, endless ocean stretches all the way to the horizon, blurring the line between where the sky and sea finally meet in a perfect crest of pink and blue and orange.
A warm breeze tangles in my hair, licking the sides of my neck, and for what feels like the first time all day—maybe even all year—I try to ground myself in the moment.
Since the accident, I’ve had a hard time enjoying things the way I used to.
The sun never feels as warm, colors not as bright.
Even music and movies and books I used to love have lost some of their flavor, as if I’m moving through a blander, less vibrant version of the world—a world without my mom in it.
A world I’m no longer sure how to navigate.
If she were here she’d remind me to stop and appreciate the small things. A gorgeous sunset. A lungful of salty air. Golden sunlight feathering across my skin. Then she’d tell me it’s okay to cry, to not be fine like I keep pretending I am.
If my mom were here, she’d hold me close and pat my hair like when I was little.
She’d tell me that I was her softest. That I wasn’t like Jonah or Bella.
That I was more tenderhearted, which was just a nice way of telling me I was the sensitive one.
Then she’d tell me that heartbreak wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a person because it meant you’d been hopeful, and being hopeful is the bravest thing we can be.
But right now, I don’t feel brave. Or hopeful.
“Hey, Roslyn.”
I look up to see Bella standing over me, her eyes bright, awash in the pinkish glow of golden hour. Her blond hair is swept up in a messy updo, and she looks so much like Mom, it’s like seeing a ghost.
“I was wondering where you went after dinner,” she says, taking a seat beside me. “You practically ran off as soon as the bill was paid.”
“Oh, just trying to get some writing done,” I tell her, gesturing to the very-much-closed laptop on my lap.
The space between her brows pinches. “Is everything okay?”
The question, or perhaps the worry in her voice, catches me off guard.
Bella and I have always been friendly, but we’ve never been the type of sisters who hung out or shared clothes.
When we were younger, I pinned the distance on the seven years between us—she was learning fractions while I was losing my virginity to a guy with My Chemical Romance posters over his dorm bed. But when we got older, it became clear that we were very different people.
And while I was always close to Mom, Bella wasn’t.
I remember the two of them getting into screaming matches when Bella was a teenager, usually about how Mom couldn’t hold on to a job, or how embarrassing it was that she had a different boyfriend all the time.
After high school, Bella went to undergrad on the East Coast and only ever came home for Christmas. She never said as much, but I always had a sneaking suspicion it was because of Mom. That she was a part of my sister’s identity that she wanted to shed.
And to some extent, I understood. Life with Mom wasn’t easy. The endless rotation of boyfriends and jobs. The constant moving around. But it’s part of why I haven’t felt like I can talk to Bella about Mom’s passing. Not when my grief feels like a burden she isn’t carrying.
“Everything’s fine,” I tell her. “Why do you ask?”
Bella shifts her weight like she’s trying to choose her next words carefully. “Things got sort of weird with you and Liam at dinner,” she says finally.
My entire body feels like it’s ensnared in live wires, one misstep from being barbecued alive. Did she see Liam and me fighting? Or does she mean the tense moment at the dinner table?
“Everything’s fine,” I say again, forcing back the panic in my voice. “We’re doing great.”
“You sure?”
“Super sure.”
She pauses, taking me in like I’m a slide under a microscope, before she finally pushes out a heavy breath. “Okay, good. I’d hate it if you two were fighting.”
“All couples fight,” I say, the line coming clipped, rehearsed.
“Yeah, but not you and Liam.” She says it like it’s a fact, no different than the Law of Gravity or the Pythagorean theorem.
“Of course we fight,” I tell her. “But we didn’t tonight,” I add when her mouth turns. “We’re good.”
She nods, but her eyes flash with an uncertainty that makes my chest cramp.
“Maybe this is silly,” she says after a beat, “but I’ve always thought of you and Liam as this perfect couple.”
Guilt rises in my throat, hot and furious.
I should be used to this by now. After all, I’ve been lying about Liam and me for months.
But the lying feels worse when it’s my little sister, whose list of teenage crushes included Harry Styles, one of the guys from BTS, and Liam.
When he’s been the only reason for my little sister to ever look up to me, and now, I’m letting her down.
“Bella, there’s no such thing as a perfect couple,” I say diplomatically.
She brushes the comment away. “I know, I know. But Mom always had so many shitty boyfriends. And I feel like you and Liam were the first couple to model a healthy relationship for me.” She blushes before she adds, “I mean, every time Liam looks at you, it’s like he’s just realized what love is all over again. ”
My pulse scatters, tendrils of heat winding their way around my skin.
She means in the past, I tell myself. Not anymore.
“Yeah, well…” I clear my throat. “We’re happy!”
God, I can practically feel my nose growing as I speak.
“Probably doesn’t hurt that the poor guy gets a boner just looking at you,” she jokes.
“He’s thirty-six, not thirteen,” I say, giving her a look.
Her mouth curls up. “Yeah, well, that’s not what I saw.”
“What did you see?” I ask, hating how fast the question spills out of me.
She tilts her head, dying sunlight kissing her skin. “He kept looking at you then adjusting his pants.” She laughs at the memory. “You two have been together for nine years and he’s still down bad. You must give incredible head.”
“Bella!”
A peal of laughter spills from my sister’s lips, and my heart aches. It’s nice to hear her laugh. I just wish it wasn’t because of a lie.
“I’m just saying. Things with Chris and me are good, but his dick doesn’t twitch every time I walk by.” She chuckles, her eyes filled with mirth.
My blood turns to heavy sludge in my veins. She must be seeing things. Or maybe Liam has jock itch. There’s no way Liam—who is fine—is getting hard at the dinner table. Not over me.
When I don’t respond, she pushes out a wistful sigh. “I wish Chris and I were still like that. But we’re definitely not in the honeymoon stage anymore. Chris pees with the door open and we have way less sex now than when we were first dating.”
“That’s normal,” I tell her, thinking about when Liam and I first moved in together and hot date nights turned into folding laundry together on the couch. “The honeymoon stage isn’t meant to last forever.”
“It seems to with you and Liam.”
A cold burn of shame presses against my chest. I wish I could grip her shoulders and scream that it’s all fucking fake.
That we didn’t have sex in the airplane.
In fact, we haven’t had sex in over a year, not since Mom died.
That we’re frauds and whatever idea of a honeymoon stage she’s thinking of is in all likelihood made up by Hollywood and people like, well…
me. People who write love stories and perpetuate myths like happily ever after and fate.
But not only am I a liar, I’m also a coward, so I change the subject.
“Besides him peeing with the door open, how are things with you and Chris?” I ask.
Her brow scrunches, mouth pinching into a tight line. “We’re good, I guess. I just…” She swallows, rocking back and forth on her heels. “When did you know Liam was the one?”
I blink, surprised. My title as older sister has mostly been in name only. Bella never talks to me about boy troubles or anything more substantive than what to get Grammy and Gramps for Christmas.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean, like, when did you know he was it for you?”
I stiffen, thinking back to when Liam and I first started officially dating.
The small moments. His arm on my waist as I fell asleep.
The way he always texted me to make sure I got home okay.
I fell for him in the quiet. The still. In the moments when he made me feel safe and cared for.
When he started to feel like home. Like someone who would always be there to catch me.
But in the end, he hadn’t. He’d just let me fall.
“I knew pretty early on,” I tell her. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just curious.” She says it like she doesn’t really care, but I can tell something is bothering her.
“Bella, is something wrong?” I try.
“I just…” Bella licks her bottom lip, eyes slanting away then back to me before she finally says, “I just thought Chris would have proposed by now, you know? It’s been four years.”
“Have you talked to him about it?” I ask.
She shifts uneasily. “We know we want to get married, and we’re both going to graduate med school this year,” she says. “I just don’t understand what’s taking so long.”
“Maybe he’s already ring shopping,” I try. “Or maybe he’s just waiting for after graduation? Or after residency?”
She shrugs, her lips tightening into a line before she asks, “How did you get Liam to propose? Did you tell him you wanted him to? Or did it just happen?”
I instantly feel like an impostor. I am no more qualified to give relationship advice than perform brain surgery.
“We talked about getting married,” I tell her. “But I had no idea he was planning to propose, and frankly neither did he.”
I think about the day Liam spontaneously popped the question in my grandparents’ kitchen.
There hadn’t been a ring, or flowers or a candlelit dinner for two, but we’d been so in love, so completely head over heels for each other, that it hadn’t mattered.
Now the memory feels like pressing down on an old wound to see if it still throbs.
Bella nods, clearly dissatisfied with my unhelpful answer, before she turns and walks to the deck. After a beat, she says, “It’s weird being here without Mom.”
My limbs stiffen, blood feeling heavy in my veins as I instinctively reach for Mom’s bracelet.
“Yeah, it is,” I say, wondering where this is going. If we’re finally going to broach the subject.
Bella sighs, tucking an errant blond hair behind her ear. “I miss her but…there’s a part of me that’s sort of relieved she’s not here, you know?”
My breath stutters unevenly. “What do you mean?”
Maybe I imagine it, but Bella’s eyes drop to Mom’s bracelet on my wrist. She crosses and uncrosses her arms, mouth shifting to the corner of her jaw.
Finally, she says, “If Mom were here, she and Gramps would be fighting the whole time. She’d be pissed that Chris got to come when she wasn’t allowed to invite whatever flavor-of-the-week boyfriend she had.
I’d try and explain that Chris and I have been together for four years and that it’s different, but she would act like it wasn’t and…
” She sighs, letting her voice trail off, lost to the warm evening breeze.
“Anyways, I feel bad saying that but it’s true. ”
I try to swallow, but my throat’s too stiff.
Is this really how Bella feels about Mom not being here? Relieved?
I want to argue, to tell her she’s wrong and she shouldn’t talk about Mom like that, especially when she’s not here to defend herself, but the words bottleneck in my throat, trapped there by swells of emotion I’m not sure I can get past without breaking down.
After a beat, Bella says, “I need to ask you a favor.”
My brows draw together. “What?”
“I got all these old photos of Grammy and Gramps on their wedding day.” She digs a manila envelope out of her crossbody bag and starts showing me old photos of Grammy in a white dress and Gramps in a tux, fifty years younger, looking at each other with adoration in their eyes.
I pick out one of Grammy feeding Gramps a piece of cake. “These are so cute. Grammy looks beautiful.”
“I know, right? I was planning to make a collage to show at the vow renewal ceremony, but Jonah keeps giving me all these other tasks to do. Flowers. Catering. Music.” She makes a face. “I was wondering if you could do it?”
My chest falls. Bella and Jonah are planning stuff without me? Then again, they’ve always been closer than I am with either of them. Probably because they have the whole doctor thing in common.
“Sure,” I tell her, contorting my mouth into a smile. “Of course I can help.”
She beams back at me, passing the envelope over. “Great. Thanks!”
Once she’s gone, I stare at the blank document on my computer screen, hoping for inspiration to strike, but the words don’t come, and sometime after midnight, I admit defeat.
When I get back to the room, Liam’s already fast asleep in a makeshift bed on the floor. Despite the rhythmic sounds of his breath and the less than five feet of space between us, I feel more alone than ever.