Page 27 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

“You’ve changed a lot since high school,” I said. “I know everybody changes, but it’s just that you were so social back then, and now you seem sort of …” I tried to conjure up the right word, but I was drawing a blank. What sort of person didn’t have social media, in this day and age?

“Antisocial?” he offered. I didn’t nod, because it wasn’t quite the word I was looking for. “I’m not, really. I just—” He broke off, the silence filled only by our footsteps and the slosh of the Gatorade bottle. “At some point, I realized it’s not worth it to make friends just for the sake of it. In high school, I did a lot of stuff for the attention. I spent too much time caring what other people thought.” He shrugged. “When I realized that practically none of those people mattered after graduation, I guess I decided to stop caring so much.”

I wished I knew how to do that. How to just … let go. Stop caring. That had always been my problem. It wasn’t possible to please everyone, and yet I kept on trying. Trying to ensure our listeners were happy while also supporting Jo through her wedding, and kissing ass for the sake of sponsorships even when they made no sense for our own brand. But I didn’t want to weigh down our conversation with all that. “Yeah,” I said instead. “I can relate.”

“Not buying it. You always did your own thing back then. I kind of envied it, actually.”

He was wrong, of course. I’d always cared what people thought; I was just never very good at meeting their expectations. “Is that the sangria talking?”

The corner of his mouth hitched in a smile. “No way. I’m Irish. I could probably drink a whole bottle of your little fruit juice”—I tried to protest, but he talked right over me—“and not even catch a buzz.”

I rolled my eyes. “Everyone always says they’re Irish, but then they go to Ireland and meet people actually born and raised there, and those Irish drink the Irish-Americans under the table.”

“I take it you have some experience with this?”

“I did a semester abroad in Limerick, my first year of college.”

He seemed taken aback. “Who does a semester abroad their first year?”

“I took a couple years off from school to help my mom, so when I finally enrolled, I felt like it was now or never. I sort of added it on to the rest of my student loans and went.” I shrugged. It wasn’t my happiest memory. You’d think a semester abroad would be a highlight of your early twenties, but in truth, it was kind of a lonely time. I was alone, in a country I knew practically nothing about (beyond my watered-down and thoroughly Americanized understanding of St. Patrick’s Day), all because I wanted to run away from my problems at home. News flash: that didn’t work.

“I’ve never actually been,” Declan admitted.

“It was a good experience, but I was glad to come home.”

We reached the bottom of the hill, where the dirt road met with asphalt. It was early afternoon, and Avalon had come alive with people on bikes and roller skates and self-guided island tours. Golfers in polo shirts and pastel shorts traipsed around the sun-singed golf course, sipping cans of 805. My phone blasted me with missed notifications now that I had solid reception again—Twitter and Instagram and emails, which I swiped through rapid-fire, double-checking to ensure there was nothing from any of our sponsors, but it looked like we were in the clear.

Declan and I had lapsed back into silence, but it was a comfortable one, the sort you didn’t feel compelled to fill. It made me wonder why we hadn’t gotten to know each other sooner. Despite my initial prejudice against him, I had a feeling we would have gotten along just fine in high school, if we’d ever bothered to try. All those years in the cafeteria, passing each other on the concrete walkways between classrooms, suffering through fifth-period history with Mrs. Sutherland, and we’d never exchanged more than a few words.

His smartwatch made a pinging noise, but he ignored it. Who ignored their notifications like that? I was itching to grab his wrist and check it for him. “Did you want to get lunch?” he asked.

I concealed a smile. Unlike him, I didn’t have a dimple to give me away. “Thanks, but not today. I’m meeting one of my old coworkers.” It was a blatant lie—one I’d invented on the spot, but I’d already told him about my summer lifeguarding here on the island, so it was passable as a truth. I didn’t want to push my luck today. Making myself too available meant making things too easy, and that was a surefire way to lose a guy’s interest. I needed to string him along for a bit. At least until I had some solid content for Season Seven, and then I could spin things however I needed to from there.

“Oh,” he said, and there was that off-guard look again, like he couldn’t be bothered to try to conceal his expressions in the first place. Which made no sense, because if he was that up-front and honest about things, why did I have such a hard time figuring him out? “Then I guess I’ll see you later.”

He made it a few steps and then rounded back to face me. I plastered on a smile. Begging me to go to dinner already? Well, in that case—

“Which way was the hotel?” he asked instead.

Now it was my turn to be caught off guard, but I was pretty sure I did a better job of concealing my disappointment. “That way.” I might not have known about Catalina’s bison, but I did still have a good sense of direction around Avalon, even after all these years.

He turned up the road toward our hotel and I continued past the mid-century houses into the heart of town. I spent the rest of the afternoon alone, enjoying all the little things I remembered from my childhood. I walked the sea-green pier, gulls crying as they swarmed fishermen with bucketsful of chum. I paid twenty-five cents for some feed pellets that I tossed to the garibaldi, and sat on a bench enjoying an ice cream cone by myself. Afterwards, I sat down at a burger place with a cheeseburger so sloppy it dribbled down my chin like one of those weirdly objectifying Carl’s Jr. commercials.

Avalon was charming if you looked at it from the right angle, maybe slapped a filter over it. There was a time, maybe seventy or eighty years ago, when it was probably a classy place to vacation. Remnants of that time were scattered around the island—in the form of the Casino perched on an outcropping of rock, a Spanish-style bell tower, a hilltop mansion that belonged to William Wrigley Jr., of Wrigley’s chewing gum fame. But the charm of its heyday was punctuated at every turn by different eras of attempted commercialization. A gift shop here. Longboard rentals there. Wine tasting. Electric bike tours. The corny, touristy elements were as much a part of Catalina’s character as its most iconic buildings, stitched together like a quilt, telling the island’s history. As with everything, you had to take the good with the bad to really get a clear picture.

So many of the places here were tinged with memories of my parents. I wasn’t sure if I was saddened or relieved that they weren’t here, together, to relive it all with me. There was a sort of comfort in being alone. It wasn’t easy for me to just stop caring, the way Declan had made it sound. Being alone was the only time I didn’t have to worry about what other people thought. There was always the small risk of someone recognizing me, and the constant worry in the back of my mind about what I was going to post next to keep our followers engaged. But at least I still had the little moments to myself. The good with the bad.

Sometimes, I found myself wondering when I’d let the bad start to outweigh the good.

From: Sun-N-Snorkels Ocean Sports Rentals ([email protected])

To: Margo Anderson ([email protected])

Date: Jul 17, 10:06 AM

Subject: Your upcoming reservation

Hi Margo,