And then, of course, there’s Elijah. Why did I have to make it weird last night? But why’d he need to be affectionate afterward? No, no...that was definitely on me. I’ve got no one-night-stand experience, other than him, but I assume even random hook-ups don’t, like, punch each other in the shoulder afterward. They feign affection in some meaningless way, like lying on someone’s chest until it’s cool to slink away.
I shower and go downstairs, where Elijah’s reading the paper at the table.
“I got some sandwiches in Seaside,” he says, nodding in front of him. Everything that was easy between us has evaporated.
I thank him and take mine to the back deck, where I attempt to practice my wedding speech, though I’m mostly listening to the sounds of him in the room behind me. This whole situation is...impossibly awkward. Maybe I should just rent a car and drive myself—I could claim I was doing it just to get Kelsey’s bags there in time, and if Carol’s healthy enough for two days on her own doing God knows what, Betty and Elijah can handle any situation that presents just fine.
I go upstairs, throw on my bikini, and walk outside without a word. I set up an umbrella on the beach and dive into the water, which is once again full of seaweed. By the time I look back toward the shore, Elijah’s sitting on a towel beside mine, arms casually draped around his knees as he watches me. There are circles under his eyes, a sag to his shoulders.
I’ve got my own shit to deal with, but as I walk out of the water, I’m more worried about him. I can’t think of a time since that day on the beach so long ago that I’ve seen him look this exhausted.
“Are you okay?” I ask, pressing my towel to my face.
He gives me the smallest nod imaginable. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t offer to remove the seaweed from my hair so I comb through it with my fingers, unknotting the tangles.
“The thing you said last night...I didn’t mean to break you,” he says hoarsely.
I turn toward him. “I know you didn’t. It’s fine. I shouldn’t have said it.”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
“My mom’s sick,” he finally says.
I freeze. “What?”
“She’s actually doing better now, but...she started having balance issues right after you and Kelsey left for college.” Hestares at the waves ahead of him as if he’s staring at a blank wall. “She got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when you were juniors.”
I don’t understand—that was eight years ago. How could I not have known foreightyears? How could Kelsey not have told me?
“How bad is it?” I whisper.
He presses his lips together. “Hawk got her into this study at Emory. She’s in remission at the moment, but you saw her.”
Several things suddenly line up so clearly that I’m shocked I never put them together.
The elevator.
The way Kelsey suddenly chose to move home instead of going to grad school, and hasn’t joined Hawk in California, though she can do her job anywhere.
And Elijah, who’d once planned to go back to grad school so he could get his PhD and design bridges...starting a construction business in Oak Bluff instead. Where he lives, at home. With his mother.
I ache for all three of them, for the things they’ve given up, for the hit they took...but there’s a small stab of betrayal in my chest, too.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” I whisper. Judy always said I was like her third kid, but she didn’t include me when it mattered. She stopped expressing any interest in seeing me after I left for school. She kept me in the dark about this.
“At first, she didn’t want you or Kelsey to know until you’d finished college. She didn’t want you guys worrying, coming back to check on her, turning down opportunities you’d never get again. And then you went to med school.” He shrugs, as if that’s that. As if me going to med school explains why, all these years later, shestillhasn’t said a word. Only a week ago she was lying about it.Did something to my hip.
“Was sheevergoing to tell me? I mean, I’m twenty-nine. I’ve barely seen her in years.” Though that’s starting to make sense too. Maybe she didn’t want me to see how badly she was doing.
He runs his hands though his hair. “I think she was putting it off and then...we saw so little of you there was no reason to bring it up.”
It hurts that they hid it from me, but I also hate that I didn’t notice. Wouldn’t a better friend have grilled Kelsey about moving back to St. Samuels when she’d never, ever expressed an interest in it? Shouldn’t I have forced Judy to see me? Shouldn’t I have called Elijah on his sudden change of plans?
I didn’t, because a part of me never felt I had the right to demand anything of them. I assumed Judy had lost interest in me. It made sense that Elijah didn’t want me.
After all, my own parents had been the same way.
