By now, I can feel how hard I am blushing. “Doing what, exactly?”
Now it’s his turn to blush. “I don’t know if I can say what we were up to out loud, Sybil. I wouldn’t want to offend anyone.”
I take a shaky breath. The way he’s talking, the tone of his voice, the intensity of his eyes, the closeness… It’s almost too much. I feel heat forming between my thighs, coursing through me. I’m afraid if he keeps going, the need will become too strong. The need for him to touch me. To make good on these promises of things that never came to be. I might do something we both regret. I might—
“So as you can see, Sybil,” he says, shattering the fantasy in an instant as he pulls back, “I very much did not listen to my gut. Like usual, I did what I thought was right…”
I swallow hard, struggling to find my voice. “Because of your family,” I fill in.
“No! Because ofyou.”
The shame that washes over me when he says this is almost unbearable. “Because of what I did, you mean? How much it hurt you…” And it’s fair, even if that’s the only reason, even if he didn’t want to marry me just because of how I bolted on our wedding weekend. He’s not wrong. It was hurtful and selfish of me. I had my reasons, but that doesn’t make it right.
“No,” he says again, looking distraught. He swipes his hair out of his eyes and squints at me. “Sybil, you have it all wrong.”
“Then what—”
“I did the right thing that weekend because it was whatyouwanted,” he says quietly, no longer looking at me but into his drink. “My family kept saying you weren’t ready to settle down, but I didn’t believe them. Because every time I looked at you… I just saw love.” Jamie swallows, like he’s trying to dislodge a lump in his throat. “But then you ran, and I thought, maybe they’re right. That’s what I meant when I said I’d been looking for a reason not to marry you. Not that I wanted an excuse to end things, but that I’d genuinelybeen looking. Trying to see what my family saw. Until that moment, I hadn’t found anything. But suddenly, it was obvious. You wanted your freedom, Sybil, and when you love someone, you set them free. Right?”
I’m speechless, trying to figure out how to respond, when a new voice cuts through the heavy silence between us.
“Jamie! I’ve been looking all over for you.” It’s Genevieve, approaching us from around the bend in the bar.
I jerk back, sloshing the rest of my martini onto my bare legs.
“Oh shit.” I reach for one of the cocktail napkins on the bar and start mopping the vodka off myself. My cheeks heat with embarrassment.
Genevieve looks at me. “Hey, Sybil. Boyfriend still busy with the squids?” The sunniness hasn’t fully disappeared from her smile, but there’s an undeniable edge to her words. She moves to stand beside Jamie, her hand resting on his upper arm in a way that reads as possessive. “J, we need to go over those financial reports tonight. Are you up for it?”
“Uh, sure. Let me just close out my tab.”
“Oh no, you guys should stay!” I leap from my barstool and hold out an arm for Genevieve to take my spot. There’s a gnawing feeling of guilt. I might be a bit of a flirt, but I draw the line at other people’s boyfriends. With how he’s been acting, I’m leaning toward believing Jamie when he says they aren’t together. But that doesn’t mean Genevieve isn’t hoping this trip will change that.
And besides, what did I really think was going to happen here? That Jamie and I would both just suddenly forget all the reasons we were wrong for each other, all the ways we hurt each other, and have his way with me right here on the tiki bar?
“Oh, well, if you’re sure…” Genevieve is already sliding between me and Jamie.
“Absolutely! I need to get cleaned up anyway.” I gesture down at my vodka-soaked legs. “Y’all have a good night!”
As Jamie turns away from me and toward Genevieve, I finally admit something to myself.
I thought whatever was zinging between Jamie and me couldn’t be more than residual lust. I thought that I’d swept up all the shards of my shattered dreams by now and pieced them back together into something new. But now I’m not so sure, because there’s a sharp scrape against the inside of my chest, and it still feels like a broken heart.
10
FOR A TRIP THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE, AT LEAST PARTLY, ABOUT RESTand relaxation, I’ve been sleeping terribly. And it isn’t Halia Falls’s fault. The mattress is firm, the pillows are plush, and the sheets are soft. The problem, once again, is me.
I left Jamie at the tiki bar with Genevieve three hours ago and have been lying here ever since, unable to shut my brain off. In an attempt to exhaust myself into sleep, I try an old trick: coming up with an animal for every letter in the alphabet.Aardvark. Beaver. Cat.When I get to Zebra, I start over, this time coming up with Texas towns for every letter in the alphabet. I drift off somewhere between McKinney and Nacogdoches.
Except when I do get to sleep, I slide into one of those awful, lucid dreams, and I’m curled in a ball, crying uncontrollably, hardly able to breathe—like I’m drowning. One of those panic attacks I used to have a lot that first year of college, after the bad breakup with Liam. Full-body sobs wrackthrough me. From somewhere far away, I hear Nikki’s voice, trying to soothe me. Telling me to sit up and wipe my eyes. When I finally do, I’m not in my USC dorm—I’m at my wedding venue in Malibu. And Jamie’s there at the end of the aisle, telling me he has to do the right thing—which is to not marry me. And then I’m running away, but the aisle keeps growing longer with every step I take. I’ll never make it to the end. I’ll never escape the shame.
My eyes dart open for real this time, and I gulp in a breath, trying to calm myself. I’m here. In my hotel room in beautiful Hawaii. I sit up, trying to shake the dread and heartbreak from my dream. It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those panic dreams.
I reach over for the glass of water on my bedside table and take a large gulp, letting the uncomfortable feelings pass through me instead of trying to fight them off.
My phone screen says it’s a quarter past four—so just after eight a.m. back in Dallas. I go to my contacts and dial EMMA.
“Oh, thank god,” she says immediately, “I’ve been trying to give you space, but I am dying to hear what the hell is going on with you and Jamie. Wait, why are you up right now?”
