Laurel is sitting on the steps that lead down to the beach, facing the water. I walk quietly over and sit down next to her, looking out at the waves. During past trips, we used to sit like this when the sun was going down. Sometimes the other three would be playing some game on the beach that we were either taking a break from or didn’t want to join. Sometimes they’d still be talking on the deck behind us, Davi beating Gabe and Everett at Texas Hold’em, picking at the remnants of whatever meal we’d made that night. Laurel and I would talk or not talk or drink or not drink. But the transition from day to night would always go like this: the two of us, side by side, watching the color of the world change.
We sit in silence for a while until I finally look over at her, ready to say something, but she beats me to it.
“They’re tearing these places down,” she says. “Did you know that?”
I glance at the A-frame behind us, and I can see it, if I’m honest. A slight sag in the middle. A new hole in the deck. A structure not useful to this place anymore. “I didn’t,” I say, looking back at her. “I’m sorry, Laurel.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “It’s just another thing that’s gone.”
“It matters,” I insist, the same feeling I had last night when we fought taking over me. Some desperate need to prove to her that all of this is still important.
“Why?” she asks. “It’s just a house. It’s not like it’s going to save all of us.”
It is, again, so at odds with the Laurel Im I know that I’m startled by it, at first. This pessimism she’s never had before. I’d thought it was a product of what’s happening, the divorce, butmaybe it’s something I just didn’t notice about her. Or maybe she’s not the same person I knew, in a half second, would be my best friend all those years ago. But then again, none of us are who we were back then.
“It’s important because we grew up here,” I say. “It matters because it mattered to us.”
Laurel glances askance at me. Her makeup from last night is smudged under her eyes, some of the jewels missing above her eyebrows. “It’s not our family home, Sutton,” she says. “It’s not even our college house.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” I say. “It’s like...” I trail off, casting around for some comparison. “It’s like when your parents would mark your height growing up, you know?” I can picture the place Hank did it in his house, long before I lived with him full-time. A summer tradition when I first arrived every year, some tangible proof of my changing existence. That it was worth something. “We came here every year, and we saw how much we’d changed.”
“Yeah, until we didn’t,” she says bitterly.
“Laurel,” I say, in as gentle a voice as possible. “If you hate this place so much, why did you come here?”
I see it happen slowly: a slight pinch by her eyes at first, a twitch at her mouth next, until she’s turning her head away from me, until her shoulders shake.
“Laurel,” I say. I reach for her, but think better of it at the last minute. I hate it, but I don’t know if we’re those people anymore. I used to hug her so easily. She used to lean her head on my shoulder, loop her arm through mine, but we haven’t been like that in a long time.
“I don’t know what to do,” she sniffs.
“About all of us?” I ask. “About Stephen?”
She shakes her head, turning to face forward again, so Ican at least see her profile. “About my life,” she says in a rough voice. She scrubs the back of one hand under her nose. “I don’t feel like I know who I am anymore.”
At this I do grab her free hand, dynamics be damned. Like Hank said, she’s still my best friend. She’s still Laurel, and no matter how many steps we take away from each other, I have some belief that we’ll always find our way back. That maybe it’s less about always being as close, as connected as we once were, and more about allowing the ebbs and flows of life to happen, and to trust that we’ll be there for each other anyway. It’s what I’m hoping for, at least.
“I don’t even know if I like what I do,” Laurel says, finally looking at me. “I’ve built my whole life to look a certain way, to make it something other people would want. And now I can’t even tell if I ever actually wanted it.” I reach over and brush away a tear that’s run its course down her cheek and to her jaw.
I’d always thought Laurel was so sure of herself, of what she wanted, who she was. That I was the one who needed everything to be a certain way for me to feel safe, steady. She’d always seemed so free, like the world didn’t rest as heavy on her shoulders, but now everything she’s been holding on to is written plainly across her face.
“I think that’s why I came here,” she says. “This place was never for anybody else. It was only ever for us. And that’s—that’s just gone now. I don’t feel like I have anything to anchor myself to.”
“You still have us,” I tell her. “You’ll always have us.”
“Everyone is busy,” she says. “Iwas busy. Now I just have this void to fill.”
“Stephen,” I say. She nods. “Laurel. What happened?”
She looks back out at the water for a minute before she answers me. When she does, I swear she’s almost laughing, atfirst. “I know all of you think I’ve been keeping some big terrible secret this whole time,” she says. “Like he was stealing my money, or I cheated on him or something. But really—it just wasn’t right. I know it seemed right,” she says. “But...”
“It wasn’t what you wanted,” I finish for her, and she nods, face going sad again.
“Stephen is perfect,” she says. “He’s everything Ishouldwant.”
“I get it,” I say. I spent so long wanting the one person I wasn’t supposed to. Even this week, on a date with someone who, on paper, should be my perfect match, I couldn’t stop thinking about the person I thought I couldn’t have.
“Stephen told me he didn’t think he recognized me anymore a few months before we split,” Laurel says. “That I wasn’t the person he fell in love with.”
