Page 36 of Hearts on the Line

“I’m sorry, Mom. I am. But I couldn’t marry him.”

“Now what?” Her voice is harsh, a bitter tinge that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. “I’d ask where you are, but I have a hunch you’re back in Merritt Point.”

I didn’t want to tell her. It’s easier to hide away with my hurt feelings.

I take another sip of coffee to wash it away and scrunch my toes into the sand until I’m anchored deep and the tide starts washing over my feet.

“I’m only here for a quick stop.”

“Have you talked to Jason?”

“I’ve tried.”

“You’re almost thirty, Sloane. You’re not getting any younger.”

“I’m not old,” I protest, hating that she loves to remind me I’m about as useful as a bruised peach on the discount shelf at Market Basket. “I don’t need to marry anyone.”

“That’s what you want? You want to be alone? I can tell you now, you don’t want that. This world is too hard to be alone in.”

For her. I understand that, partly from a handful of years in therapy. I take another rooted breath as a little girl squeals and her dad swings her through the surf. And there, another reminder of once being that little girl, so hopelessly in love with her dad and being blissfully unaware of the world around her.

If he were here, he would know what to do.

He would have been my driver of the getaway car. As silly as it sounds, I could have sworn I felt him there beside me in the passenger seat, that thick Boston accent of his telling me to “Gun it, kiddo.”

“I know, Mom. I just need some time.”

“Time? You made me a joke to my friends. The caterer won’t stop calling me.”

“You handled all that. I don’t have⁠—”

“I just thought you’d help. But I have to clean up another mistake of yours, it seems.”

Suddenly, I’m back in the kitchen at seventeen, a throbbing bruise on my head and my eyes red from crying, listening to my parents as they argue. My brother went to the hospital in an ambulance, but I remember collapsing against the staircase wall to hold me up, unable to breathe, so desperate to find out anything after Ethan was taken away in the patrol car.

“I’m sorry.”

Sorry about it all. Sorry to have disappointed her again. Sorry to make her face her friends alone when I ditched the wedding. I’m not sorry about calling it off though.

“You’re always sorry,” she snaps. “Doesn’t change dumb, Sloane.”

Right.

“I’ll call later.” I check traffic before I cross the street to the garage.

“Sloane.”

It’s a warning. I know that. I think I say bye, but I’m not sure because my focus is suddenly only on my car parked to the side of O’Brien’s garage.

Ethan told me it was getting fixed. I expected it to be in one of the bays, not parked off to the side.

I storm into the office, my hand still clutching the doorknob, when my old history teacher peeks up from the computer, his readers halfway down his round nose. A picture of Larry Bird hangs behind the desk stacked with papers and an old calculator missing the seven key.

“Sloane, it’s been a while. How are you, kiddo?”

I’m frozen, panic sweeping over me.

“It’s a hot one, isn’t it?” he asks, glancing at my ring.