My heart flatlines. Where is she?
“The truth is, I’ve wanted to make music ever since I was a kid,” Theo says, laughing so self-consciously that it redirects my attention back to him. “But obviously I don’t have any musical talent, so I have to come at it from the business side. My mom was all excited when I majored in finance. She thought I’d become a stockbroker like my best friend, Bryan, and finally make us rich, but I chose this.” He squeezes a ring around my ankles. “She thinks I’m doing this for my dad, because he loved music so much. Chasing his approval. But it’s not that.”
“Huh. So you became a Suit because you couldn’t be a musician?”
“What’s that line you wrote in ‘Twin Flames’— ‘If I can’t hold you, I’ll spend my life standing as near as I’m allowed’? That’s how I feel about music. I figure I can at least be a witness to other people’s genius. Or a midwife to it, if I’m lucky.”
“I’ve never heard a man aspire to be a midwife.”
He releases one ankle, leans forward, and taps his sunglasses on my face so they dip down, revealing my eyes. “Maybe you’re hanging out with the wrong kind of men.”
“That doesn’t sound like something Manifest’s Grim Reaper would say.”
“The real nickname’s the Fixer. Just so you know.”
“That either. I think you might be in the wrong job, Suit.” But I know what it feels like to love something so much you’ll settle for whatever small piece you can get. A wave of anguish passes over me as I scan the beach, stillempty of Ginny. My voice comes out thick. “Does wanting what you can’t have ever get easier? Does it ever feel like it’s enough?”
Theo is quiet for so long that I stop looking for Ginny on the golden dunes and refocus on him—only to find him studying me, eyes scrutinizing my face. “Sometimes,” he answers quietly. “On the very best days.”
Chapter 25
Theo
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
I help Hannah lug her surfboard and cooler back to her house after the beach. When I rest the board next to her door and turn to leave, she clears her throat and says, “Do you want to come in?”
For a moment—like an idiot—I look around me, as if she’s talking to somebody else. “Oh—yeah, s-sure,” I stammer. “Why not?” “You can kick your shoes off anywhere,” she says, opening up and flicking on the lights.
I enter cautiously, trying to take it all in but also not look like I’m awed to be here in Hannah’s inner sanctum. On the outside, the small bungalow is painted a faded sky blue, one of the marine colors I’ve come to associate with her. There’s a palm tree in the front yard and limp landscaping that looks like someone put in a lot of effort about a year ago, but the neat rows of flowers have since died of neglect.
The inside is more surprising. I wouldn’t have pegged Hannah as an interior design kind of person, or even a neat person, judging by her hotel rooms on tour. But her living room is tidy and soothing, with cream walls and a sandstone couch. Green succulents drape over a bookshelf full of records,and oversize tour posters line the walls— Sleater-Kinney, Rilo Kiley, Sleigh Bells. It looks like something you’d
see in an Instagram ad for modern design on a budget.
“It’s peaceful,” I say. “I like it.”
Hannah kicks her sandals into a large pile of shoes by the door. “It’s all Ginny.”
I toe my shoes off, too, then carefully arrange them by hers.
She pads into the kitchen. “Want a beer?”
I peek down the hall, where it looks like the bedrooms are. “Uh, no thanks. But water would be great.”
“Feel free to snoop,” she calls from behind the open fridge door. “I’m sure you’re dying to.”
She’s not wrong. I wander down the hall, studying the photographs of beachscapes that line the wall. They look personal, not like the kind you buy in big-box stores. In one of them, I recognize the view from where we just were, Carmela Beach, with its high, white-capped waves and San Gabriel Mountains in the background.
The door to my left is open, so I peek inside. It’s a bedroom, with an unmade bed pushed against one wall, the white comforter rolled down, blush sheets messy and slept-in. There are framed pictures of grinning people everywhere, and a massive pink bookshelf overflowing with books, not records. A crowded blond desk holds a slender white MacBook, floral-print notebooks open to scribbled pages, pink sticky notes in the corner, a half-full glass of water. Despite the fact that it looks like whomever this room belongs to just stepped out and will be back in a second, it doesn’t feel like Hannah. This has to be Ginny’s room.
Without thinking, I enter.
I’m drawn to her open notebooks, rubbing my thumb over the pages to feel the indentations of her pen marks.Get Han notes on Give Up chorus—draggingshe’d scribbled, followed byPick up BC at Walgreens before date!!!, thenOat Milk, Cilantro.
Hanging above the desk is a wall calendar turned to June 2023, almost a year ago. The weekend of the seventeenth is circled, and in the same looped, slanted handwriting, it says,Weekend at Mom and Dad’s.Then, smaller and lower,D-Day. A combination of fascination and dread builds in my stomach.
There’s a MacBook on the desk, plugged into a charger. I don’t know what compels me to run my finger over the touchpad, but I do, and the computer awakens. A text inbox sits in the center of the screen, as if someone has left it up to reread. I know I should look away, lock the screen—but the messages are from Hannah, and I can’t help myself. I scroll through them.
