CHAPTER ONE
TUCKER
My life has flashed before me a handful of times in my mere thirty-two years of existence. First, when I was eight and my appendix exploded after I ignored the pain for too long. Second, when I narrowly avoided a three-car pileup on the highway during a major snowstorm. Third, and currently, is when I find my piece-of-shit fiancé cuddled in bed with a kid who barely looks legal. I’ve always imagined finding him cheating in the throes of passion, bent over another man, about ready to come.
This tender scene I’ve stumbled upon is infinitely worse.
Their hands are delicately entwined on top of the covers. Their breaths are slow. The air smells faintly of sweat and sex, and a half-full glass of water rests on the nightstand. My heart beats so fast I fear it’ll leap out of my chest and jump right out the window. But it doesn’t. I slowly back out of the room, grab my scant, meager, and most important belongings—which are my guitar case, wallet, and duffel bag full of clothes for the laundry room downstairs—and walk out the door without looking back. Not before leaving my engagementring on the counter, of course. Sometimes a heart breaks slowly, but sometimes it breaks all at once, like a piece of fine-blown glass dropped on the ground. My heart was meant for breaking since birth.
The Boston air is chilly when I step out the front door of the apartment building. The only good thing about the chilled air is that it rushes into my lungs in bursts, reminding me I’m still alive despite feeling very close to death after witnessing the end of my long-term relationship.
What does it say about me that I can so easily leave a life behind without an ounce of fight? That the first thing I want to do is run home, where I know my wounds will be lovingly bandaged and cared for like I’m a scared child again. Like that first night I’d slept in the too-quiet house on the beach, the waves gently lapping the shore outside, after years of only hearing screaming as I fell asleep. Perhaps I was meant to have a broken heart and always built to run.
Under the bright white glow of a streetlamp, I lean against the brick wall that’s been the symbol of home for a few years now. What an idiot I’d been. It’s two in the morning, but I know that if I call my dads now, they’ll answer like I’m still five years old, crying out for comfort after a night terror.
I press Dial before I can change my mind.
Two rings later and Dad answers with a sleepy “Everything okay, kid?”
Tears well up just at the sound of his voice. “Can I come home?”
The rustle of Pop waking up filters through the phone, and Dad sighs like I’ve just asked the color of the sky.
“Kid, you canalwayscome home. Do you need a plane ticket? A bus ticket?” Dad asks, sounding increasingly worried with each word.
“Do you need us to come get you?” Pop asks, voice much gruffer and lower.
“No,” I say firmly, not needing them to get any ideas. They’re not going to drive fifteen hours to come get their son who’s having a midlife crisis. “I’ll see you soon.”
And then I hang up before their love or kindness can choke me. No tears tonight. None. I hike my guitar case higher up my shoulder and start walking as I order a rideshare. Thirty minutes later I’m at the airport, heading toward the counter to see if there’s any last-minute flights to South Carolina. Thankfully, the older woman at the ticket counter takes pity on me. Must be because I look like I haven’t slept in two days—I haven’t—or because I look like I’ve been sent through the heartbreak blender.
Four hours later I’ve landed in South Carolina with grit in my eyes. The canyon-sized crack in my heart grows ever wider with each step, but somehow that crack doesn’t hurt as bad as I know it could once the marsh air flits in through the rideshare windows.
“Here for a visit?” the elderly male driver asks conversationally.
“Coming home,” I reply, earning a smile from him, and I do my best to smile back, but I know it doesn’t reach my eyes.
We cross the bridge that takes us to the island, and the intracoastal water is the symbol of home after so many years away. The early morning sun hits the water in the marsh, the reeds blow in the wind, and I know without a doubt I made the right decision to come home. Heartbreak never seemed to feel as bad here on Hope Island.
The house still looks the same, too, even though I haven’t been back for years. White siding, light blue shutters, and a white door that gets stuck a little at first, so I’ll have to usemore strength on the second push. After paying the kind and mostly quiet driver, I stand in the driveway, gathering the courage to climb the steps. I haven’t been home in so long. Somehow there was never time, and holidays were spent with Anthony’s family. What a fucking idiot I was. I know I can always come home—this is where everything will be okay—but the steady thrum of anxiety about the questions of why I’ve taken so long to return make it hard to take that first step.
The decision is ultimately made for me.
Pop opens the door, pushing it wide open, and strides out without a single moment of pause. Before I realize it, I’m cocooned in his arms, my head still fitting perfectly below his chin since he’s a giant of a man. That’s when the tears hit. I can’t hold them back any longer when he’s holding me close, hands gliding up and down my back like they did every time I had a nightmare as a boy. I’m so relieved to be home.
A second set of arms come around us; thinner, smaller, but still very much the arms of my dad, who lovingly taught me to play guitar despite my perpetually grumpy attitude.
“Tuck,” Dad says softly, way more emotion than he usually allows in his voice. We stand outside under the early morning sun for a while, my parents holding me close, and the tears slowly dry as I come down from the emotional peak I’d dreaded for almost twelve hours. “Let’s go inside.”
Dad leads us inside, his hair just as ginger as it always was, but with a scary shock of gray throughout it now. I do not like the reminder that they’re getting older, but also, so am I.
Mid-July at home always means the buzz of heat bugs outside and fresh lemonade in the fridge. I’m not surprised that Dad shoves a cold glass of lemonade into my hands as I take a seat at the island. His and Pop’s stares are a little unnerving, probably because they know if they wait me outlong enough, I’ll crack and spill all the beans at once. Despite not being their biological son, I’ve always felt like they somehow mixed a blend of themselves together to make me. Nurture over nature, I guess.
“So?” Pop says, large arms crossed over his chest, that steely, concerned look on his face that used to be reserved for when he caught me sneaking out for a party. “Wanna tell us what’s up, kid?”
“Not really.”
“Well,” Dad says, clearly stating I don’t have much of an option.
