Chapter 27
My phone has gone missing.
Or, more accurately, it’s been—
“I didn’t steal your stupid phone,” Darcy grits out for the third time this morning, hovering over me as I look under her mattress. Nothing but dust bunnies. “Can we please get to work?”
“Not until I find it,” I say, sliding on my belly to look under her nightstand.
“If you find it, you’ll just sit there scrolling on it being distracted and miserable. We might as well use this time to get some actual work done.”
“Joke’s on you, I’ll be distracted and miserable regardless.”
“I’m serious, Cubby. Leave it. We have to get working. We need to have something to send everyone in a few days so they can start getting their parts together.”
The only thing I want to do less than work on this love song is have any sort of conversation or confrontation with the band after how we left things.
“Let me check the couch again.” I scramble to my feet, hightailing it out of Darcy’s room and into the den.
I’m about to lift the cushions for the umpteenth time when my toe catches on the leg of the coffee table, a sharp and bright burst of pain shooting up my leg.
I cry out, crumpling to my knees, scraping my shin along the pointed corner of the table as I go.
Every curse word in the books shoots out of my mouth as I bury my head against the edge of the love seat.
A stubbed toe shouldn’t break me like this but goddammit why is everything such an ordeal? Why can’t one thing go smoothly? I’m so frustrated, so tired of having to work so hard every single moment, and I want to scream at how utterly pathetic I am.
I bite into a pillow instead, the sharp, horrible feelings only growing.
I’m overwhelmed and tired and my mouth aches and my head is filled with bees and I’m sick of traveling and I’m stir-crazy after only being here two nights and I’m wrung out from tiptoeing back into closeness with Darcy when I know it’s going to leave me broken again.
I’m homesick for Iceland and homesick for my home home.
I miss being a little kid and having someone else take care of everything, every decision, every meal, every step.
I’m desperate to be left the hell alone and make my own way and be my own person without the scrutiny of the world and I’m so sick of feeling like I’m missing my life.
I never know what I’m waiting for, wanting for, but the hunger of it carves away at me.
“Cubby,” Darcy says, her footsteps quickening. She gently pulls me to her, and I go without a fight. “It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t nod or agree or tell her I’m fine or that I’m being ridiculous. She knows it. I know it. I cry anyway.
Eventually, I lift my head from the base of her throat, scrubbing my cheeks with the back of my hands.
“I’m worried about you,” Darcy whispers.
“I’m kind of worried about me too,” I admit with a wet, humorless laugh. My throat tries to lock around my next words, keep them in, but I speak up. “I think I might be a little depressed.”
This isn’t exactly news, but I’ve always been afraid of admitting to the label out loud.
It felt dark and ugly. A secret word to keep buried deep.
Sadness is easier to say, with its sibilant softness, the universality of the experience.
It doesn’t make people flinch if you mention it.
Depression is a diagnosis, one I’m scared to commit to, holding on to some fruitless hope that I can white-knuckle my way out of the numbness that often outweighs my simple sadness.
Saying it out loud, handing it over to another person to carry or recoil at, is terrifying.
Darcy’s hands ease my rough ones away, and her thumbs brush my continued stream of tears. I blink a few times, then, with a deep breath, look at her.
She smiles at me, soft and simple. “No shit, love.”
Silence stretches for the span of a heartbeat, then we start laughing. We’re quiet at first, our shoulders shaking. Then our entire bodies. Next thing I know, we’re tipping over on the floor, laughing so hard we’re gasping for breath, our temples pressed together and hands locked in a hold.
When our giggles die down, Darcy turns her head to look at me. She reaches out, brushing a fallen strand of hair off my forehead and tucking it behind my ear.
“I have an idea,” she whispers, a secret smile, all for me, curling her lips. “Will you go somewhere with me for a surprise?”
“It’s rather demented you would use this to blindfold me,” I say, dragging my finger across the gauzy fabric wrapped around my eyes, the same one the oral surgeon sent me home with to keep ice packs tied to my cheeks.
Darcy huffs. “Reducing, reusing, and recycling is actually very hot girl of me.”
“I don’t think that applies to medical materials.”
“God, Cubby, are you trying to get canceled?”
I reach out, trying to shove her shoulder, but I make full contact with her boob. I jerk my hand back so fast I end up smacking myself in the still-tender cheek. I am ready for a black hole to swallow me up, thanks.
“I’m done with this,” I mumble, ripping the bandage/blindfold off.
Darcy lets out a shrill whine. “Cubby, no! Put that back on. This is supposed to be a surprise.”
“This entire town is four square kilometers, how big of a surprise can it be? I’m not really expecting the Empire State Building here.”
“You might recognize a street from when we drove in.”
“I was high as a kite!”
“Fine,” Darcy says, nicking a curb as she makes a sharp turn into a parking lot and slamming on the brakes as she pulls into a spot. “Ruin the fun. See if I care.”
I blink at her. “You are being so dramatic.”
“And you’re contrary for the hell of it,” she says back, crossing her arms over her chest and fixing me with a glare.
“Something you’ve agreed to accept after over two decades of friendship.”
We continue to frown at each other, but colorful movement out the windshield snags my attention. I tilt my head for a better look at the red building we’re parked in front of.
“Ice cream? You made this big of a deal out of an ice cream run?”
“A surprise ice cream run,” she says indignantly, her dirty look turning into an adorable pout. “And the surprise also includes eating it on the beach, so … there.”
Our gazes hook, and we break into smiles.
“You’re absurd.” I lean across the center console to give her a hug. She smells like summertime and sunshine. She laughs, giving me a squeeze before letting go. It feels like my heart stays stuck next to hers as she gets out of the car and walks to the door.
I secure us a bench around back, facing out onto the rocky shore of Higbee Beach.
The waves curl up the shore in a steady rhythm, the sound lulling me into momentary peace.
I always wonder what waves are reaching for—their relentless charge at the sand, their inevitable retreat.
It seems sad that a wave’s purpose is only to crash.
“Here ya go.” Darcy hands me a strawberry scoop as she plops next to me.
“What’d you get this time?” I ask, mid-lick, nodding at her similarly pale pink swirl.
“Strawberry shortcake,” she says before dragging her tongue around the ice cream.
I balk at her. “That totally goes against our pattern!”
“What’s our pattern?”
“I get strawberry and you get some wild, outlandish flavor, and we steal bites.”
“I’ll still be stealing bites from you.”
“Why? We got the same thing.”
“No, no. Strawberry shortcake is loads different than plain strawberry.” She reaches over, licking the top of my scoop, then gives me a look as though she somehow proved her point.
“Still too close.” I steal a bite of hers. They’re identical. “You say you like variety.”
“Maybe I wanted to follow your lead today,” she murmurs, eyes still fixed on me. They slip to my lips then back up, and I catch a glimmer in the midnight blue that makes my stomach flip, heart beating up into my throat.
But I’m imagining it. Imagining some hidden meaning that’s absolutely not there.
“So, was this a good idea or was this a good idea?” she asks after a few minutes of silence, gesturing broadly at the shore.
“Don’t give yourself too much credit. We long ago agreed ice cream is always a good idea.”
“Would you say ice cream is a better idea than pizza?”
I take another bite as I weigh this incredibly important question. “Well, it largely depends on the emotional state of the person coming up with the idea.”
“Interesting. Let’s say the person is anxious.”
“Pizza.”
“Experiencing an existential crisis?”
“Ice cream.”
“Stressed?”
“Pizza.”
“Angry at the world?”
“Both.”
“I guess that takes care of our dinner plans for tonight.”
Darcy scooches closer to me on the bench as we giggle, our hips and shoulders pressed together. She closes her eyes and tilts her face to the sky, the sun caressing the barely there freckles across her nose.
“This feels just about perfect,” she says with a happy sigh, opening her eyes to look at me.
“Too bad I can’t take a picture of us,” I say after a few moments, slanting her a glance.
“Yes, too bad you’re the only person in the region with access to a mobile device with a camera,” she replies with a cheeky grin, pulling out her phone. She presses her cheek to mine as she lifts her arm, our squinting faces filled with sunshine and happiness.
Darcy lowers her arm, head bowed as she looks at the picture. She zooms in. “That’s a keeper,” she says quietly, placing her phone back in her bag.
We finish up our ice cream in contented silence, breaking it every few minutes to point out a swooping bird or a particularly big wave beyond the break.
“Wanna walk?” Darcy asks, taking my napkin and crushing it into a ball with hers, then chucking it in a bin.
I nod, and we pick our way along the boulders until we reach a long stretch of sand at the water’s edge. Most of the coastline is rocky, so the beach isn’t particularly crowded, only a few groups of people here and there that we’re able to get a decent distance from.