I slam on the breaks. “What?”
“There’s a raccoon.”
“Are you serious right now, Finn?” This should be sweet, Finn’s eagerness to save another little furry animal’s life, but for some reason all I can think of is all the times Finn was sweet to me, and in the end, it didn’t mean anything.Sorry, Miss Raccoon, you might think he loves you now, but tomorrow you’ll be roadkill.
“You have to try to save everyone, don’t you?” I say, pulling back onto the road. “No creature is safe from Finn Hughes,Boy Scout extraordinaire: stray animals, Sybil, your dad.” I regret the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth.
The silence in the car hangs heavily until Finn breaks it. His voice is soft as he says, “Maybe you’re right, Emma. But at least I don’t avoid my own problems by trying to run the lives of everyone else around me.”
“Excuseme?” I demand.
“You’re bending over backward to keep your sister afloat instead of just letting her learn by failure. You forced Nikki to go onLovedBy, and she got her heart broken. You’re constantly badgering Willow to stop smoking. You drag us across three states trying to force Sybil to get married.”
“I don’t force my friends to do anything. I just know what’s best for everyone.”
“And what about what’s best foryou?” Finn challenges. Then he sighs and rubs a hand across his face. “God, Emma. Sometimes I swear you don’t even know yourself. You push everything down but expect people to read your mind.”
I flinch, knowing that the words wouldn’t sting so much if they weren’t true. But I can’t deal with being lectured by Finn right now. “This whole trip has been a mistake,” I mutter to myself, thinking back on everything that’s gone wrong over the past thirty-six hours. The kayak fiasco at the Hotel Del Coronado, all the Vegas mishaps…
“Well, maybe your life would be a little better if you were a little more willing to make mistakes,” Finn says, “and forgive other people for theirs,” he adds pointedly.
“The only mistake I’ve made this trip is feeling like I could trust you. Especially after what happened the last time we saw each other.”
Again, images of the Dalton wedding spring into my mind. The dripping of an ice sculpture and the loud banging of a commercial kitchen. The hot wash of shame slicing through the sting of winter cold.
I turn to look at Finn, daring him to tell me I’m wrong, and in that moment, I lose control of the wheel.
21
MISTAKE FOUR: THE OTHER WEDDING
(Four and a half years before the wedding)
IT WASDECEMBER 31;a new year was just on the horizon, and in a few months, I’d be turning twenty-four. I was full of glittery, naive optimism. Sunlight burst against white-topped mountains, and the gently drifting snowfall made it seem like crystals were dancing everywhere in the air. That amazing feeling of being on vacation after months of the hard grind in New York settled into my bones as Nikki and I traipsed in our heavy ski gear onto the shuttle heading to the lodge.
Katie Dalton’s wedding was tonight, and a bunch of us had made plans to arrive early and spend the day skiing. Wasn’t that the point of a wedding in Vail?
To be honest, though Katie Dalton and I ran in the same friend circles in high school, we were never super close, so I was a little surprised to have rated an invite to her wedding—surprised and thrilled. And not just because it gave me an excuse to travel to Vail for the first time. But because Finn was invited also.
“He’s totally in love with you,” Nikki said. I had brought her along as my plus-one, since Willow and Sybil had been invited as well, and we never missed a chance for the Core Four to reunite. Currently, Nikki was wedged between me and the window of the ski shuttle, scrolling through the last three months of my text chain with Finn—everything since that night on the rooftop back in September. Though I couldn’t see the screen, I could probably recite most of the messages verbatim, I’d reread them so many times:
Things are complicated with Pilar
I want to make it work.
You’re one of the most important people in my life. I can’t lose that.
After those initial texts from Finn, it was like a dam broke open. We’d text all day and into the night like teenagers—sending funny memes, having heated debates about our favorite TV shows (Mine: anything Shonda Rhimes. His: a 1970s show calledM*A*S*Hthat he swears still holds up). But it was more than just that. Finn confided in me his insecurities about the next round of funding for his company. I told him how worried I was that Liz wasn’t taking her SAT prep seriously. Maybe it was the buffer of sending messages through a screen instead of talking on the phone or speaking face-to-face, but it felt like we were finally able to open up toeach other. Like we were connecting on a deeper level and growing the intimacy that had sparked to life on my rooftop three months ago.
I’d broken up with Preston the day after he returned to the city from his trip. He’d been slightly taken aback. I don’t think anyone had ever broken up with him before. But it wasn’t fair for him to be with someone who wasn’t all in. And there was no denying that I hadfullymoved on.
Beside me on the ski shuttle, Nikki squealed as she read, and I forced her to show me which texts had elicited that response.
Sybil and I went up to the roof tonight…
Oh yeah?
Thought about you.
