“What happened?” Elliot asks.
“We grew apart,” “He moved to Tokyo,” Seb and I say at the same time.
I look at him.We grew apart?Is that really why he thinks our relationship ended?
Hank and Elliot exchange glances.
“Well, yes,” Seb says quickly, “I guess the breakup was kind of complicated. You see, I’m a photographer.” He gestures down to his camera, still slung across his chest. Then panic paints his features. “Um, I mean, I sometimes take pictures in addition to being a, uh…” I mouth the words at him:marine biologist. “A marine biologist, right,” he adds, and it’s all I can do to not kick him. “Anyway,” Seb continues, “I got this really amazing job opportunity in Tokyo. So I went, and that was the end of things.”
“But you were engaged?” Genevieve says, looking at me curiously. “Why didn’t you go with him?”
I hesitate. Seb’s been mostly sticking to the real-life facts of our relationship so far, but I really don’t want to get into everything that happened with Tokyo right now.
Luckily, Seb, who is clearly relishing holding the group’s rapt attention, jumps in with the save. “Oh, we were young and stupid. Neither of us wanted to be tied down. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
Again, not quite how I remember things. But I try to keep a blissful smile on my face, pretending along with Seb that this is just a small blip in our past, a funny anecdote we can laugh about now and not one of the worst heartbreaks of my life.
“So how did you get back together?” Hank asks.
Seb’s lips twist into a grin. He removes his arm from around my shoulder and leans his forearms on the table. Automatically,Hank, Elliot, and Genevieve do the same. He’s got them eating out of the palm of his hand. For a second, I worry Seb is going to tell them about all the times we “got back together” after the Tokyo breakup—aka all the ill-advised hookups we indulged in whenever he was passing through town, while I was still single and lost—before I met Jamie. But instead, he says, “About a year ago, I heard that Sybil was getting married.”
Immediately, my spine tenses.
“I saw a social media post from one of her friends that she was at her bachelorette party, and I decided to give Sybil a call to wish her well—just as old friends, of course.”
“Babe, I don’t think anyone wants to hear this story,” I say, the words tumbling out in a rush as I try to convey the urgency I feel without making it obvious. I was mildly annoyed and begrudgingly amused by Seb’s antics before. But now he’s verging toward dangerous territory.
“No, no! Keep going!” Harriet says, raising a heavily made-up brow, and I fight the impulse to fling a forkful of grilled steak salad at her.
“So I called, and we talked, and it was like no time had passed,” Seb says. “We still knew each other so well. And I could tell that things weren’t over between us—”
“Seb,” I interject. He needs to stop this, right now. But he’s either oblivious or getting some sick enjoyment out of this, because he keeps going.
“The next thing I knew, word came around that Sybil had decided not to get married after all. Guess he just wasn’t the right guy.”
His gaze drifts toward the other picnic blanket. It’s subtle—I’m sure Hank and Elliot won’t have even noticed—butJamie has. He’s gripping his fork with excessive strength, his knuckles white. Acid fills my throat. Jamie didn’t know about Seb’s phone call. There was no need for him to. It was irrelevant. Seb’s making it out to be way more than it was. He’s making it sound like I left Jamiefor him.
I stare at Jamie, silently pleading with him to meet my eyes, but he refuses. Seb slings an arm around my shoulder again, tugging me close to his side.
“And the rest,” he says, dropping a kiss to the crown of my head, “is history.”
15
IT WAS THEWEDNESDAY BEFORE MY WEDDING, THE NIGHT OF MYimpromptu bachelorette party. The Core Four had enjoyed a beautiful ocean-side dinner at the Pelican Club, then Finn had arrived to join the party (much to Emma’s annoyance—even thoughIhad invited him, and the night was supposedly about celebrating me). After dinner, Emma and Willow wanted to go back to the hotel—Willow was very pregnant and wanted to get off her feet, and Emma, well, she just wanted to be wherever Finn wasn’t. But I wanted to keep the night going. Jamie’s sister, Amelia’s, words from earlier that day were still ringing in my head. That I wasn’tmarriage material. I knew if I went back to the hotel, I’d just continue to stew, wondering if Jamie felt the same way. So when Finn suggested we check out a nearby tequila bar, I immediately said yes.
A couple of karaoke-fueled hours later, I was feeling better. Finn and I were dueting loudly (I was Dolly, he was Kenny) while Nikki recorded us on her phone. Finn was like the bigbrother I never had. He and Emma had been on debate team together, so I always kind of knew him, but he and I became close friends senior year of high school. He rescued me from a tight spot my then-boyfriend, Liam, had left me in, and from that day on, it was like Finn and I had an unspoken understanding that we had each other’s backs. When his dad was dying of cancer and Finn just wanted to get away from it all, I was there withDawn of the Planet of the Apesready to stream. And when I needed someone to remind me that I deserved better than the crap Liam was sending my way, I knew I could count on Finn to set me straight.
After the final lines of our silly, off-key duet of “Islands in the Stream” faded out, I waved off doing a shot with Nikki and excused myself to the bathroom. In fact, I’d been waving off shots or tossing them behind me into the bushes all night and had been a little crampy, but still, I was that wistful kind of high-on-life where everything was soft around the edges, and I was feeling sappy about how lucky I was to have such good friends. When I got to the ladies’ room, all the stalls were full, so I leaned against the sink to wait my turn. It was crowded, with people coming in and out, laughing and singing. A cluster of girls who made me nostalgic for my USC sorority sisters tumbled into the bathroom just as my phone started to buzz in my pocket. I answered, pressing the phone to my ear.
“Sybil? You there?” someone said, but the voice on the phone was all but drowned out by the whoosh of the hand dryer.
“Whoops! My bad!” One of the girls had accidentally leaned against the motion sensor and was now giggling withher friends like this was the funniest thing to ever happen. I smiled at them and nodded for them to go ahead of me in line so I could take the call.
“Hi, hi—sorry, who is this?”
There was an amused chuckle on the other end of the line. “It’s Sebastian.”
I really do think he meant well, that he did just want to send me off with his good wishes. I just think Seb couldn’t help being Seb.
