“We were never friends, Henry.”
He throws his hands in the air. “Come on, Lily. You’re being ridiculous! Let’s just go talk over there.” He points to the dunes behind us, half cast in light. “Somewhere private.”
“Why does it need to be private?”
I look over at his high school friends, who I can tell are straining to eavesdrop. There was always a distance between me and them. Once, I overheard the ringleader, Julie Evans, say that Henry was “settling” for me. We were at a house party that first summer and I was rounding the corner of the kitchen. “She’s a local,” she said with a scrunched nose. “I think her mom is a social worker or something.”
It took every ounce of resolve I had not to pour a beer over her head.
“It doesn’t need to be private,” says Henry. “I just don’t want a whole audience.”
After my father left my mom when I was a year old, he ended up marrying the woman he cheated on her with. They moved to Los Angeles together, and his family bought his way into the film industry as a small-time producer. His wife’s name is Maren but I can only ever think of her as “the Mistress.” The Mistress sometimes came along on my father’s trips to visit us. As a kid, I didn’t really know any better, so we got along fine. But once I learned who she was and what she had done to Rose, I was determined to give her the cold shoulder.
Still, I checked her social media sometimes. She posted dramatic, inspirational quotes about fate and destiny with hot-pink lettering. My father has been trying (and failing) to get sober since before I was alive. The Mistress liked to chronicle these various attempts at sobriety on her public page, taking selfies in front of the overpriced rehab centers.
I used to wish the Mistress harm. I didn’t want to be the one who hurt her, and I didn’t want anything truly terrible to happen, but I would stay up in bed at night and imagine small jinxes: fenderbenders, hair burning off in a freak accident at the salon, a beer bottle chipping her front tooth. Until one day, I checked her Facebook page and saw she had gotten into a car accident. She was fine, but I was spooked. I stopped with the hexes after that but kept my grudges.
Psychic or not, soulmates or not, I will not play the role of the other woman. I might be a mess, but I’m not a cheater. I will not, I can’t—
“Please, Lily,” says Henry.
His eyes look red-tinged in the light of the fire, as if he’s been crying. I always liked Henry the most when he wasn’t feeling well; if he hurt himself or was under the weather, it made him more sympathetic somehow.
“Let’s just talk,” he pleads.
He points to a dark spot by the edge of the dunes, pockets of tall seagrass sprouting from the sand, creating a covering of sorts.
Behind us, I can sense Theo watching intently, can feel his eyes on the back of my neck, burning like shame.
Every structure is subject to instability. That’s what Lottie liked to say. She used to lean on certain phrases to contain truths as if they were the only pillars upholding her moral interiority, keeping her thin understanding of the world from collapsing into itself. Every structure is subject to instability, and sometimes all it takes is one bad decision to make the whole world fall.
“Fine,” I say. “Let’s talk.”
Chapter SeventeenLily
June 17
It is well after two a.m. when I return home.
I tiptoe through the cottage, avoiding the floorboards that creak. Curiously, I notice a light still lit on Thomas’s side.
My hair smells heavily of smoke and wood. I hold my sandals bunched together in my left hand. Over my sweater is Henry’s worn, red sweatshirt.
He gave it back to me on the ride home and insisted I keep it. I wonder why—did he want me to have a reminder of him? Or was he eager to rid himself of any vestige of me? Does the difference matter? Or better yet, should it matter? Can it matter anymore?
We talked for longer than we should have.
At first, we danced around the subject of his fiancée, Mary. I still have a hard time thinking of her name. It’s too familiar. But eventually, Henry brought up the wedding festivities, the drama between their two families, Mary’s expensive tastes somehow conflicting with Henry’s mother’s equally expensive taste. It was unavoidable.
“It’s been a lot of back and forth about the stupidest stuff,” hesaid, rolling his eyes. “Last week, we actually got into a fight about whether the beige tablecloths should be ‘sand-toned’ or ‘camel-toned.’ I don’t know. Sometimes, I wonder if it was all a mistake. Maybe we’re just too young.”
I shrugged, digging into the cold sand. “There’s actually a big difference between sand-toned beige and camel-toned beige,” I said, thinking of my painting palette. “But should we really be talking about this? It feels wrong.”
The beer and the vertigo were making the dunes look jumpy. Their hunched backs moving behind Henry’s head like sea creatures writhing beneath the long grass. I worried a panic attack was rising, my breathing becoming shallow. What was I doing?
He nodded in a noncommittal way. “Anyway, I was thinking of Lottie the other day, about that time when we all went whale watching and how she kept trying to take photos with her crappy camera but they turned out all blurry. Remember, how you secretly took your own pictures before you got too seasick? Did you ever frame it for her like you said you would?”
Hearing Lottie’s name thawed me instantly. The dunes stopped shaking. It was easy to be carried away by the past, like letting myself be washed ashore.
