There was a time I would have been thrilled if Ren and I had a whole day here to ourselves, but the idea of being alone with him now has me hurrying away as fast as I can. I speed-walk back down the hall, fly up the stairs two at a time, close my door quietly behind me before leaning against it and letting out the breath I’ve been holding.
It takes me a minute to clear my head, to sort through the conversation I half blacked out downstairs, catalog each item so I can proceed accordingly.
Ren. Ren ishere. Not just here, but off doing something, existing like I’ve been doing a mediocre job pretending he doesn’t these past years.
And after tonight, we’ll be sharing a room for the rest of the week.
The thought makes me claustrophobic, like this house isn’t big enough for us and all of our history.
I need to get out of here.
I stuff a tote bag with enough supplies to last me months and lug a camp chair down to the beach. It’s one of the rare days when the temperature will climb into the eighties, the sun already beating down intensely, the sand scorching my feet. I slather my shoulders in sunscreen and settle in with a book, ready to escape into the tale of a woman who falls in love with a guy five hundred years her senior, but it’s okay because he’s magic and heir to some throne.
But after a while, I realize I’ve read the same paragraph four times. The words are blurring in front of me, and the corners of the book keep digging into my legs.
I toss the book aside and trade it for my phone.
“Leo wants to play capture the flag,” Stevie says by way of an answer.
“He— Now?” I drag my sunglasses back down my face now that I’ve abandoned the romantasy.
“No, on Wednesday.” She’s rummaging around on the other end of the line, a series of clinks and thumps.
“Stevie, you’re going to have to provide a little more clarity than that,” I say, pressing my toes into the sand.
She sighs. The rummaging stops. “It’s some big tradition,” she says. “He and his brother organized a whole crosstown event when they were kids. It’s his singular request.”
“Fair enough.” I pull my phone away from my ear when there’s a sound like an entire shelf of books has caved in. “What are you doing?”
“I’m in our office.” Stevie huffs. “It wassomeone’sbright idea to store all the band’s extra shit in our suitcases to save space, but now I actually need to use them.”
“Ah,” I say. “The tour.” Immediately following their honeymoon, Stevie will be joining Leo on his band’s North American tour for the first three months of their marriage.
“Hey,” Stevie says. “Where are you?”
“Just at home.” The lie comes surprisingly quickly. I’d decided to wait to tell anyone about being fired until after Stevie’s wedding. Coming here early to regroup had seemed like the perfect way to prepare myself for a week of lying to my family.That is, until the person I most dreaded seeing showed up early too.
“Last I checked, you couldn’t hear the ocean in your apartment.”
I grip the arms of the chair, curl my toes in the sand. Down the beach, a family is rapidly approaching, sand pails in the hands of a pair of shrieking kids, the father’s booming voice telling them to slow down.
“Oh, it’s a playlist,” I say.
“What?”
“I listen to it when I’m trying to sleep. You know, rain sounds, ocean sounds.”
“Huh,” Stevie mutters. “Were you trying to sleep?”
“No. Just…” I scramble, trying to lie better. “Couldn’t wait a second longer to hear those seagulls!” It comes out like a carnival worker trying to sell a wailing kid on a ride.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
I squeeze my eyes shut, readying myself for this week to implode before it’s even started.
“Is it because of Ren?” she asks. “Seeing him tomorrow.”
Stevie is the only person in my family who knows Ren and I haven’t spoken in the last two and a half years. She’s confirmed no one else is the wiser on the Webster side of things either, so at the very least, Ren and I implicitly agree that our families should be spared our drama. But Stevie doesn’t know what happened between us, the line we crossed. Something else Ren and I implicitly agree on, I guess.
