“I don’t know what I want,” he repeats to himself.
“Your job,” I say, willing him to understand that Iknow, that I can’t tell him I know because if I do, he’ll be able to talk me out of it. That I’m doing this because I know, in the end, it will be what makes him happiest. I add, for good measure, “Amanda. She was good for you.”
“I wantyou, Joni,” he says, eyes pleading.
These are, at once, exactly the words I want to hear and exactly the words I can’t hear. I scramble, picking lines out of books and movies that I think might work to push us apart, protect us from the damage we might do to each other. “I think you want some version of me,” I say. It’s wildly unfair,but I don’t know how else to convince him. “You’ve only had this vacation version of me for the last few years anyway. This is only romantic when our time is limited. You want this tradition.” I wave a hand toward the building. “The weddings.”
“That’s not true.” He scans my face like he might find some proof that I’m making this all up.
“Itistrue,” I say, the words coming hard and fast now. “We were never going to be real, Ren. It was always going to be a fantasy.”
He goes quiet at this, my last blow landing. But something else seems to occur to him then, his gaze darkening. “Were you just going to leave?” he asks.
“I—” I break off, put a hand to my stomach. I have the distinct feeling that whatever stitches hold me together are rapidly unraveling, like one of my carefully constructed Novo characters destroyed. “No, I—” Standing here, the wreckage of us at my feet, I lower my head. “I would have called.”
Vaguely, somewhere above us, voices are counting down. Both of us glance up. We should be part of that crowd, ringing in another year. We might have been up there in another life, and maybe this one can still be it. We could erase this, make it work.I just got you.
But then his eyes are back on me, expression flat.
“Called.” He nods. I want to reach for him, want to tell him that I love him, that I take it all back.
“Ren—” I say, as a cheer rises above us and the first firework launches into the sky.
“No,” he says. “It’s okay.” He looks back down at me, and I feel like something has been stolen from me. He’s backing away, gold shimmering behind him, one hand in his pocket, the other rubbing at his jaw. He drops his hand. Nods at me. “Good luck with your movie, Joni.”
Just like that, he’s gone.
saturday
chapter twenty-nine
I fell asleep without closing the curtains last night, so I wake up earlier than usual, jerking upright in the direction of Ren’s bed.
But his blankets are undisturbed.
As I change into a pair of jean shorts and a crewneck sweatshirt, shove my feet into my Birkenstocks, I try to comfort myself with the fact that at least life was beautiful again for one brief, shining moment.
The house is still quiet as I cut through the kitchen and out the back door, walk the short path down to the beach. The tide is out, seagulls circling in the gray morning. I gaze down the long stretch of coast that comes to a point far in the distance, then back toward the lighthouse, my heart stuttering when I see him, walking toward me from where the sand runs into the rocks, still in his clothes from last night. His hands are in the pockets of his dark gray chinos, a hunter green fleece that I think belongs to Thad—one he wouldn’t have had to grab from the porch, at least—pulled over his white button-down.
“Hi,” he says when he gets to me. He’s barefoot, the hems of his pants just rolled to avoid the wet sand. There’s stubble on his chin,faint lines under his eyes. I’m sure I don’t look much better. “Did you sleep?” he asks me, his toes kicking the sand.
“Not really.” I ask it plainly, no pretenses left between us. “Where were you?”
Ren squints up at the house. “I just needed a little time to think,” he says.
I look away too, but in the other direction, toward the water, trying to match my breathing to the steady in and out of the waves. Though I know where things are heading, it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“I understand,” I tell him.
“Joni.” He reaches for me, slips his fingers into my hair. I shiver at the contact, and how much I don’t want it to end. “Will you walk with me?”
I nod. Kick off my sandals and set them near his shoes, the ones I missed, at the base of the path. We start walking down the beach that seems like it stretches on forever.
“So,” he says, sooner than I expected. Diving right in. Ren usually takes his time with his words. “You got fired.”
“I got fired,” I say through a shaky breath.
I can feel him looking at me, and I glance up at him. His mouth is turned down. On anyone else, I might call it pity, but I know Ren better than that. He’s pensive, ready to help if I need it. “What happened?”
