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I roll my eyes. All this drama in their family can get to be too much. Rhett is twenty-six and a lawyer and he’s still always in competition with Morgan.
He sits down beside me.
“Maybe I have shit on my mind too,” he says softly, surprising me.
I bet it’s not the fact that he’s in love with his best friend who is leaving Birchbark to follow his dreams. I bet he doesn’t want to ask him to stay the way I do but know I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair.
If I did ask, if I told Morgan how I feel, I know he’ll stay because he doesn’t want to hurt me, and he’ll end up resenting me for it—and living with a broken heart because that’s what being in Birchbark is for him.
I take another swig of the whiskey, fire licking down my throat, before handing it to Rhett. He looks at it for a moment, like I’m handing him a burning-hot poker. A second later he takes the bottle, swallowing gulp after gulp.
I don’t know what we’re doing out here together. Rhett and I aren’t friends, but when he starts talking about what it was like going to Harvard like his dad, and how weird it is to be back, I listen.
“You’re not going with Morgan? When he leaves?” he asks, which I hadn’t expected. I know Morgan wouldn’t have told him he asked me to go.
“Nah. Why do you ask?”
“I always assumed the two of you are together.”
I look away, watching the stars twinkle in the sky. I wish it were the time of year to see the northern lights. They’re my favorite. It’s like living in a fantasy. “Just friends.”
“My brother is a dick.”
“No, he’s not,” I snap.
“Yes, he is.” Rhett takes another gulp.
“You don’t know him like I do.” I pick at a blade of grass, twisting it around my finger. The thing is, when it comes to Rhett, Morgan is an asshole, but Rhett is one to him as well.
Rhett is quiet for a moment, before we start talking again. He asks about the auto body program I’m in and about cars. I still don’t know why we’re out here, what we’re doing, but he actually isn’t so bad. He makes me laugh, and however fleetingly, I forget I’m heartbroken.
The pain doesn’t go away. I don’t think it ever will, but the whiskey mixed with the conversation helps me to push it to the back of my head for a little while because…what am I going to do without Morgan? What if the Morgan-shaped hole he leaves inside me never heals?
Shit. I’m thinking about him again.
My chest feels like it’s being ripped apart, head spinning, world collapsing.
“Dusty?” Rhett slurs my name a little. I realize he said something to me I missed.
“Hmm?” I turn to him. We’re both leaning against the lighthouse, our faces…close.
“Hi,” Rhett says softly.
“Hi.” We stare at each other, neither of us moving. Why aren’t we moving away, leaning back, doing something?
I’m so fucking lonely, so sad, that it feels like the pain is eating away at my brain, at any and all good sense I have. I just want to feel something good, something that doesn’t hurt or make me feel empty inside. I need to feel wanted, connected.
I can’t say how we go from being a few inches apart to our lips touching. Was it me or Rhett? Both of us? I don’t know and maybe never will.
The second my tongue sneaks into his mouth, I know it’s wrong. This isn’t who I want. He’s not Morgan, but he’s here, and kissing me back, and Morgan is leaving.
Morgan, who is my best friend.
Morgan, whom I love.
Morgan, whom I’ll never have like this, never know what he tastes like.
“What the fuck!” Morgan cries out, and for a moment, I think I imagined it because Morgan’s not here and this isn’t happening. I don’t want to kiss Rhett. Why the fuck would I do that?
