I tried not to sigh. I was Mr. Cook too damned often in my life. I missed being just Ryan. “Thanks. Uh…my room is ready, right? I know it’s kind of late, but?—”
“We have the rooms ready for the ferry passengers,” she said, taking my ID and typing into her computer. It felt like a hundred years passed before she was passing me the room key and circling the location on the map.
Shit. No wonder it was so expensive. It was literally right on the water, which was not what my family usually booked. We took the discount rooms on the first floor by the service entrance. The rooms were nice, but nothing like this.
“This is our Winds Executive Suite. The entrance is down the beach path, to the right, and yours is the second duplex on the left. Your private beach path is accessible through your sliding back door, and your shared cabana and hot tub are number four.”
I blinked at her. I hadn’t even looked up the room accommodations for the upgrade. “My…shared cabana?”
“Each duplex shares a cabana and a private hot tub.”
“So…I could be soaking in someone else’s juices?” I asked before stopping myself.
She gave me a look. “Most guests are able to work out an arrangement so both parties are satisfied, and they’re cleaned, and chlorine levels are monitored every day. If there’s a problem, feel free to call down to the front desk.”
I could tell a dismissal when I heard one. I took my things and managed a smile before turning and heading out the back doors.
It had only been five years since I’d been to the island with my family, but nothing had changed. The sloping path down to the infinity pool that overlooked the water was set up the same way it had been before. It was nearing sunset, and the sky was a gorgeous cerulean blue.
The water was very clear, the winds humid and cool, and the place was all but deserted, with most families being back home for the holidays. I could see a couple of stragglers around the pool, and a few kids running along the beach.
Memories threatened to overwhelm me, of my childhood when I hadn’t yet realized how awful my parents were treating me. Back then, I had a sort of carefree ignorance where I could play by myself and ignore the snide tone in my mom’s voice and the disappointed edge to my dad’s. I hadn’t realized then I was already a disappointment. I wasn’t as smart as my siblings. Or as strong. Or as focused.
My siblings knew, but that was the curse of being second to youngest: no one ever told me that I was the failure until I was too old to do anything about it.
I would play alone while they all joined in on volleyball or went snorkeling. I was content to sit and watch tide pools for hours, making up little stories about hermit crabs in my head. No one asked where I was. No one asked if I wanted to be part of the little bubble they were creating without me.
And I had no idea I was being pushed out for so,solong.
The last time we’d come here was the year before I started my job as an EMT. It was right after I’d graduated with my master’s. That was the year they told me I could either conform or be cut off. I hadn’t been brave enough to go against my mom’s wishes then. But it was the moment I realized I never quite fit.
Like I was a square peg and they were the round hole, and in spite of being birthed and raised by them, I was never actually part of the group. I spent a lot of time alone that year, contemplating my life’s choices. And when I went home, I didn’t know if I’d ever be back.
I certainly didn’t expect it to be like this.
For a single moment, I let myself wonder what they were doing now. Skiing, probably. Or warming up by the fire aftera long day out in the snow. They were probably laughing and feeling a sort of joy I’d never known when I was with them.
Did they wonder about me at all? Did they ask?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
The bittersweetness was hard to swallow, but I wasn’t going to let that mood ruin me. To ruin this. I was reclaiming my past to make a better future for myself. Everything else could take a long walk off a short pier.
Making my way to the duplexes, I noticed a bellhop waiting at my door. He was skinny and tall, but awkward like he hadn’t quite gotten used to his growth spurt yet. He was leaning on the luggage cart, which looked sad and pathetic with my one single suitcase and a carry-on, playing on his phone.
He looked up several seconds after I came to a halt beside him. “Um. Do you, like, have the key?”
I produced it, and he swiped it against the door lock, then pushed inside. The room was nicer than the ones my family always booked. It was usually five of us crammed into two queen beds with a single, tiny bathroom to share. I was always relegated to a pile of blankets on the floor, which back then had been so much fucking better than sharing with one of my siblings.
The room was a spacious suite—a bedroom to the left, the living room to the right, which was bathed in the evening glow from its floor-to-ceiling windows. Just past the sliding glass door was a wooden path that led down to the beach, punctuated midway by the massive cabana and the hot tub. I could see string lights lining the pathways, which weren’t on yet, but I knew they’d give the path a sort of ethereal glow the moment the sun set.
“Um,” the bellhop said.
I turned to face him as he set the card on the stand holding the TV. “Sorry. I got distracted.”
“Okay.” His tone was entirely flat. Bored, most probably, and likely didn’t want to be here over the holidays. “So, like, there’s your patio. The hammock is around the side of the building. And you have to share the hot tub.”
“Right, yes. The front desk mentioned that if I had a neighbor?—”
