“Thank you.” He smiles. “I actually got admitted into a couple master of education programs. I’m taking this gap year before I start my degree.”
I look at him, surprised by this revelation. “What’re you going to do during your gap year?”
He pauses like he wants to say more, but then just shrugs. “Travel, I suppose. Teach more tennis, like I’m doing here. Lots of places like Nantucket will pay for your housing if you teach, which is a major bonus. I’m hoping to take the time to make sure I really want to do this degree before I invest in all of these loans to pay for it.”
“That’s amazing.”
I’ve been so busy rushing to the next accomplishment, so hard on myself for not abiding by the strict timelines society has arbitrarily set. My friends in New York are like this, too. They are always in a rush: for a corporate promotion, an engagement ring. It’s nice to be around someone who wants to take his time and figure it out. Refreshing.
The roads are growing busier as the summer season deepens. We’re behind a moped: A woman in an impractical dress sits behind a man, orange-and-white fabric billowing behind her. Her helmet is the same shade of blue as the car.
I take a mental image to try to re-create the scene later: the angle of the sun hitting the woman’s brown hair, the way her dress rumples in the wind. I could use a dark brown to create the shadows, and the blue sky would be a nice mix of purple and yellow and white…
“You know.” Theo clears his throat, interrupting my planning.“There’s a big bonfire tonight at Ladies Beach. Some people from work are going if you want to come?”
I haven’t been to a bonfire since I was nineteen. We used to sneak out with Henry’s friends to the old dump, the landfill in Madaket, at night and scavenge among the furniture people threw away. We would toss wooden chairs over the high metal fence, breaking them into pieces on the asphalt and then use the smaller pieces for firewood. Bonfires are technically permitted on the island during openburning season, but you need to request a permit, which we never did. Someone would drive a car onto a secluded beach, dig a deep pit in the sand. We would drink cheap beers by the blaze.
I didn’t feel bad spending nights like that back then. I had all the time in the world. Nothing counted and everything could be undone. It would be nice to feel that way again, to let Theo’s ease crash over me. It would be nice to sit side by side, talking just like this, with the fire warming our skin.
“Sure,” I say. “That sounds fun. When should I meet you?”
Chapter SixteenLily
My sandals dig into the soft, cool sand. It’s just after nine, and the only light is from the stars and the moon, like an eggshell above the water in the distance. The waves are calm as bathwater. I’m wearing an oversized sweater and rolled-up jeans.
The beach looks navy blue in this light, transformed into a foreign planet with unknown divots and grooves. My mom dropped me off here, which felt juvenile for a twenty-five-year-old, so I asked her to pull over a few yards away to avoid being seen. That, of course, only made me feel even more juvenile and also like a jerk.
“Have fun, honey!” she yelled from the open car window as she drove off—my punishment. “Be good, Lily-pad!”
In the distance, I can hear the clamor of the bonfire. I walk past the tall dunes, toward the light of the fire. It’s bigger than any I’ve been to before. About fifty people are milling around, chatting in small groups. Someone brought a speaker, and a popular song from a few summers ago is blasting, drowning out the waves.
At first, I don’t see Theo, so I head over to the pit. Even in the thick sweater, I’m cold. I place my hands near the flames to warm up. I spot Emily, the tennis instructor from Hawaii, by the water, but she’s talking to a pretty blond girl. I search the crowd for other familiar faces and come up empty.
I’m considering leaving, running back to catch up with my mom, when I hear someone call my name.
“Lily?” says a man’s voice. It’s deeper and smoother than Theo’s.
Henry.
Why does this keep happening to me? I know Nantucket is a small town, but these days, it feels more like a movie set: actors popping out from behind props, a jump scare.
“Oh, hi,” I say, turning around to face him. “It’s good to see you.”
He looks good in the dim light. I can’t help but notice that he’s wearing the faded red sweatshirt I bought him several summers ago when I was still working at the shop.
“What’re you doing here?” he asks, smiling through squinted eyes. It’s like he’s making an appraisal.
The intimacy and intensity of his gaze makes me want to duck behind a sand dune. I can’t look at him and not see the past, everything we used to be to one another. That’s the weird part about losing someone: the useless memories that no longer serve you. It’s like knowing a dead language and having no one to speak it with.
I can still recall the way Henry always spoke with his hands, moving them in circles in the air as if solving a complicated puzzle no one else could see. I know his favorite pair of socks with the soccer balls on them, and the smell of his sweatshirt, stiff from the cold air. I remember the time I saw him hold out his umbrella to cover someone else’s dog on the sidewalk when we were paused at a New York Citycrosswalk in the rain, and how it was the sweetest gesture I had ever seen.
Whenever I hear love discussed in media, it’s often described by the concept of tension and lust, dreamy men with “liquid eyes” who smell like pine needles or something else ridiculous. It was never like that for me. When I think about what I miss most about Henry, it’s the familiarity, the friendship. It’s the intimacy of truly knowing each other, especially the unromantic bits.
I’m so caught up in the past, I forget his question.
“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “What did you say?”
Henry laughs. “I asked what brought you here.”
