“Oh, silly me,” Genevieve says with a sheepish smile, before I can come up with an explanation. “I bet that species hangs out in much deeper waters, right?”
“Exactly!” I’m grateful to Genevieve’s undersea knowledge for saving me from my own dumb lie. Even though it just highlights how brilliant she obviously is. Smartandhelpful. Just great.
“Hey, Gen, let’s go talk to Mason,” Jamie says abruptly. “I want to ask him about the parasailing excursion they offer.”
I’m so shocked, I can’t stop the words—or the accusatory tone—from spilling out of my mouth. “Youwant to go parasailing?”
“Maybe.” Jamie folds his arms across his chest.
“Since when?”
He shrugs. “A lot can change in a year.” He turns to Genevieve again. “You coming?”
Genevieve darts a glance between the two of us, then smiles a little awkwardly and gets up to follow Jamie, offering me a little wave as she goes.
I stalk over to the edge of the boat (carefully, so as not to trip over the flippers again) and lean my forearms lightly on the wire railing. My temples are pounding, and there’s a twisting in my gut. I try to focus my gaze on the horizon to settle my stomach. I can’t get over the fact that Jamie apparentlyparasailsnow. My eyes drift toward the bow of the boat where Jamie and Genevieve are chatting with Mason. Jamie has his arm casually slung around Genevieve’s shoulders. There’s that lurch in my gut again. But it’s not seasickness, I realize.
It’sjealousy.
I sigh and close my eyes. The breeze lifts my hair, and the sun warms my face. I try to anchor myself in the here and now, like Gwendolyn taught me. To let the feeling wash over me without letting it consume me. After a few minutes, I open my eyes and pull out my phone, snapping a few pictures to use on a future post about Flowies’s upcoming line of period-safe swimwear.See, everything’s fine. You can handle this.
But my moment of Zen is interrupted by a voice, raised over the roar of the motor.
“So not to be weird, but—she’s your ex, right?”
It’s Genevieve. I glance up to see that she and Jamie are sitting on the stairs to the flybridge. From where I’m standing on the deck below them, they can’t see me—but I can hear every word they’re saying.
“Yeah, we were… we were engaged.”
“Oh.”
There’s a pause. The boat begins to slow. We’ve reached the little cove, surrounded by a crescent-shaped beach. When we’re less than half a mile offshore, Mason drops the anchor and calls out for everyone to gather around for a lesson on how to use the snorkeling equipment. Genevieve and Jamie begin to make their way down the stairs. Without the motor running, I can hear Genevieve clearly when she says softly, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out. She seems nice.”
“Everyone loves Sybil.” Jamie’s voice is flat. “But I dodged a bullet on that one, trust me.”
My stomach drops to my knees.
Their flip-flops thwack down each step, in time with the hammering of my heart.
Shit.I can’t be here. Can’t see the look on Jamie’s face when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. I don’t know if I’m going to cry or scream at him or keel over and die from embarrassment. But I’m not sticking around to find out.
I make my way toward the stern where the group is gathered in a circle watching Mason explain how to use our snorkel for breathing and the best way to swim with the flippers. I get the basics, but I’m barely listening, my body humming with anxious energy.
A memory sparks. It was three days before our wedding, and my nerves were frazzled, but my spirits were high—untilI went to drop off welcome bags at the hotel reception area and overheard Amelia, Jamie’s older sister, talking to Jamie in a hushed voice. They were inside his suite, but the door had been left open. When I heard my name uttered, I did the obvious, normal thing and ducked to the side of the entrance, trying to hear. “Are you really sure she’s marriage material?” Amelia asked her brother. “Can you seriously see this woman as the mother of your children someday?”
I froze on the pathway outside Jamie’s hotel suite, the monogrammed tote bags spilling from my arms as I pressed a hand to my stomach. As if my small, manicured hand was enough to keep my soft insides safe from the dagger of Amelia’s words. I lingered long enough to hear Jamie mumble something in reply—it sounded a lot likeno, orI don’t know, but I wasn’t quite close enough to make it out over the roaring in my ears. I’d always known that Jamie’s family weren’t my biggest fans. It was clear the Kauffmans found me a bit cringeworthy as a match for their brilliant, handsome, successful, highly-accomplished Jamie—how could they not? EvenIthought it!—but I truly hadn’t realized the depth of their disdain, their distrust ofhisjudgment in choosing me.
Now, on the boat deck, Mason starts gesturing out to the shoreline, describing some hiking path that leads from the cove beach back to the resort’s main beach on the other side of the headland, when suddenly from behind me, there’s a familiar scent. Cardamom and sandalwood carried on the breeze. I’d recognize the smell of Jamie anywhere, and despite the overwhelming surges of mortification and anger spreading through me, a spark of desire makes its way into my gut. Maybe thereare some things you just can’t shake, no matter how much “evolving” you do.
Okay, that’s it. Gotta go.
Without waiting for the okay from Mason, I swipe my goggles from the seat and jump straight over the side of the boat into the ocean.
6
WATER CLOSES OVER THE TOP OF MY HEAD AND THE ROAR OF THE WINDcuts off.
Beneath the waves everything feels calmer. For a whole minute, I feel solitude. I feel safe. The disaster above the waves can’t reach me down here.
